Catch up

Pink Martini was awesome in concert. I wish they had started the show an hour earlier (it was a late start, 8 pm.) They did 2 of my favorites in the first few minutes, so that was cool. I found Pink Martini because it slid into my playlist as a song Spotify thought I might like, so that is pretty cool too. I found them by accident and then they just happened to be playing a concert in town, fate.

Saturday we went to Ft. Lupton for a pancake breakfast, parade and a tour of the museum. Jack said yay for pancakes, boo for the loud parade.

The festival we went to is called Trapper days, but it used to be called Tomato days (because the town had a tomato canning facility.)

The week – Pup-corn at EG, Monday date lunch in Georgetown and a drive over Guanella pass. Creativity club, Grace and Bethany came.

We went swimming in Clear creek for the last time this season (the water dropped to 57 F and that’s too cold.)

The weekend –

Coffee and shopping at the farmer’s market.

More pancakes, this time mini ones, car show, parade and lunch at Pho.

Nap, TV, Englewood block party.

Sunday – church, river sampling, lunch date, TV and leftovers for dinner.

From church, I like that we just started Colossians and that the First Five Bible study starts Colossians tomorrow. Who does Jesus say He is, who do you say He is? Jesus is the manifestation of God, the literal embodiment of God. Jesus brought God into the realm of human limitations. He has a unique power of authority and influence over all creation. Sin doesn’t get the final say, Jesus came to make peace between us and God. He is enough, respond to Him, stay grounded and steady in Him.

Colossians 1:15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so expansive, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.21-23 You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.

Cat sitting.

Dinners this week – green chile pork stew over rice with salad , Fire roasted corn chowder with tamales, grilled veggie pasta with alfredo sauce and salad, jalapeno popper stuffed chicken with corn on cob and tortellini, out (MOA reception), leftovers.

Fire roasted corn chowder

• 8 ears of corn, husked
• 1 red pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter (if pan roasting)
• 5 cups chicken stock, divided
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 ounces salt pork, pancetta, or thickly sliced bacon, diced
• 6 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 1 sweet onion, finely diced
• 2 leeks, white and pale green section, diced
• 1 1/2 cups finely chopped fresh cilantro
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon ground dried chipotle or a pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 cup half and half cream (optional)
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
• GRILL METHOD:Preheat grill to medium-high direct heat. Roast corn on grill, turning a quarter rotation every 2 minutes or so, until kernels begin to brown. Roast the bell pepper until the skin blackens, Remove corn and bell pepper from the grill and let cool. Cut kernels from the cobs into a bowl. Reserve. Skin and seed the bell pepper, then dice it finely. Reserve.
• PAN METHOD:Cut kernels from the cobs, and dice bell pepper. Sauté corn and bell pepper in a large pan with 2 tablespoons of butter for 10 minutes, or until corn begins to brown. Reserve.In a food processor, purée half the grilled (or sautéed) mixture with half the stock. Reserve. In a stockpot over medium-high heat, add oil and cook pork, garlic, onion, and leeks for approximately 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until contents begin to brown. To the stockpot, add the puréed corn mixture, remaining stock, remaining corn and bell pepper, and cilantro. Turn up heat until it reaches a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 15 minutes, Just before serving, season to taste with salt, pepper, and chipotle, Add cream (if using) and lime juice.

And vacation week flew by

I didn’t cook dinner all week, James and Joel drove to Kansas to check out a house and…..Joel now owns a 2 bed/1 bath house built in 1900 in Liebenthal, Kansas. He got a sweet deal on it, paid cash, and might be moving into it next semester (if credits transfer), otherwise his goal is to be in it by next December. He decided to get it now to lock in the deal, it’s in a small town (which he wanted), in good shape, with a small bit of land (which he also wanted.) So, we’re very happy it all worked out.

James and I had another date night, this time at Jovinina’s. It’s Italian, very neat inside and the downstairs would make a great romantic dinner, dim, decorated with candles, nice.

Thursday I took Hannah to work, had coffee with James, chilled on the couch, went to lunch at Cafe 180 with James and Grace, then back home to chill. Today I took Hannah to work, had coffee with James, dropped him off for a walk and took Jack to gravel pond to tube.

Tonight is another date night, dinner at Fogo, then Pink Martini in concert at the arts center. I’m spoiled.

Date weekend

James was off the whole week starting Saturday, we booked a hotel, packed up Jack and headed out. First stop, brunch at ETC Eatery. They had a praline pancake that was like an Aunt Sally’s praline and a Snooze pancake had a baby.

Then we went to CatBird hotel in Rino. I picked it because it was dog friendly, had a rooftop garden and said they had a hot tub (it wasn’t finished yet.) The hotel was built around an old brick building, so it’s kind of at an odd angle, but that’s pretty cool.

The downstairs lobby/den areas.

The room, Jack spied the park across the street.

The loft bed had 3 steps to get up to the platform, lots of stuff pulled out from the base under it, storage, closet space, a table for eating, it was neat.

Checking out the rooftop.

Art.

Jack thought the park across the street was cool.

And he thought the floor on the roof was cool.

We walked across the street to BSB for wings and pizza, good stuff.

We missed sunset on the roof, but caught city lights.

The room had black out screens and a projector, which was nice, we climbed into bed and watched a movie.

Art walk the next morning, just walking Jack around.

Rooftop selfie.

We had lunch just around the block at Slater’s 50/50, good drinks and an amazing PB and J burger.

A walk by the Platte, just because.

Monday was Labor day and I had nothing on the ‘to do’ list except – see the Big Boy train that was coming through town and grill.

We wanted a snack and I wanted to show Bethany the shakes at Slater’s, so we went there (again), but just to get fries and shakes. Look at the birthday shake! No, I didn’t eat everything. Bethany’s s’mores shake was delicious.

We watched National Treasure at home, grilled and chilled. Perfect weekend/holiday.

Rest of the week

Had lunch at Cafe 180 with Grace.

Jack hid behind the curtains.

CHanged out my decorations.

Had a bad hailstorm.

Date Saturday coming up!

The week

NIA!

Since James is off on Mondays we tried to go to Cafe 180 for lunch, but I forgot they’re closed on Mondays – so we ended up at Cochino.

Kayaking and tubing again, this time Ann and Quinn came.

Went to Phil’s for a drink in the cool evening.

Wednesday I made my cucumber salad, made a lemon ice box pie, went to NIA, came home and put dinner in the crockpot and then went to pick up Quinn for the day.

We went to the park for lunch, then to the HR mansion, but it had just closed on the indoors, so we strolled around the outside.

Then home to chill, eat, kick on the blanket and finally take a nap right before Ann and Dan came over for dinner.

Pie!

Tubing, Dazzle date, weekend

New flowers.

It was hot on Friday, so to Gravel pond we went.

Then I went home and got cleaned up for our Dazzle LAPOMPE date. We got there too early, so we had dinner at the Thirsty Lion, good food. Great music, as always.

The Highlands street fair was going on, so we went to look. Had some good samples of a botanical vodka, Jack got some treats, then we had brunch at Whiskey, Tacos, Tequila.

Drove to Roxborough SP just to drive around, we saw the old brick curing kiln and found a new picnic area on the way home.

Dinners this week – grilling steaks and eggplant with scalloped potatoes and salad, fried chicken with goat cheese grits and spinach salad, pancakes with eggs and sausage, chicken tikka masala over rice with naan and cucumber salad, tamale pie with salad, beef stew with sourdough bread, out/leftovers (we have a hotel night)

NIA, Shipt, lunch breaks

NIA was good, but my kidney hurt. It hurts just as much to move as to not move, so….I moved.

Jack says Bahama bucks is good.

First day of school, 11th and 2nd year of Environmental Science degree.

Nice front porch night.

Lunch break.

Shipt’ing and another lunch break.

I did a shop at Target and got to see some of Grace’s cakes.

Doing school with a friend and Jack.

Sunset.

Another lunch break while Shipt’ing.

We went to the food truck and our Woodhill BBQ truck had abandoned us for Stanley, so we had Gyros.

August

Once again flying by, NIA with a new routine, Bollywood. I really like it, it’s very fast though, you never stop moving.

James is off on Mondays, so we had a date lunch at Pappadeaux’s, then went to Discount tire for a tire rotation and (of course) ended up with 4 new tires!

Bethany came over and cleaned our bathrooms (she works for Maid Pro during the week and the hospital on the weekends, she had extra cleaning stuff, nice!)

Time for jazz, again. Tuesday was tubing time at the creek and 3 other families showed up!

Wednesday was NIa again and then I got to babysit Quinn for the day (my friend Ann’s baby.)

We went to Hudson gardens.

Then the library and Starbucks.

Then back home to eat, chill, and sleep.

The next day Jack and I chilled.

We chilled so much that I almost forgot Grace and I were going to Valor to see The Hello Girls. It was very good, a true story about women switchboard operators in WWI that were sent overseas to be ‘in the Army’ and work the lines over there. After the war ended the women came back to the US and found out they were never ‘in’ the Army, the Army called them contractors so they didn’t get any benefits. That was rectified about 66 years later with Honorable Discharges for the living 33 women, a little too late for the other 200+ women. I’ve got a book coming from the library about it.

Friday I did some Shipt and went to the MCA to catch the next to the last day for the Keith Haring exhibit.

Saturday we went to the Peach fest, but we were late and they ran out of peach cobbler and peach pie. So we ate at a local pub and ended lunch with a peach brandy.

From church – I John 1:5-10

5 This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him. 6-7 If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin. 8-10 If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—simply come clean about them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.

First aid for families – There are no perfect people. Confession is a vital part of spiritual development and
spiritual transformation can’t begin without confession. Deception instead of truth only hurts you. Confessing truth leads to freedom. We need help, we can’t do it alone, we need to admit that we need help. When we come into alignment with the truth through confession, God’s power will bring us grace and mercy and bring us from darkness to light.

Rest of the week

Englewood Grand front porch.

Shipt.

Went to the dog park to get rid of the tennis balls.

Food truck nite.

Porch time.

Taste of the Middle East festival.

Sunday we went to brunch at Ironton distillery, their patio is awesome!

Looked at some art.

End of the weekend cheers.

Dinners this week – pineapple chicken wraps with cucumber salad, pulled pork sliders with coleslaw and corn on cob, cheese ravioli with basil butternut squash and salad, Taco salad with strawberry shortcake, chicken cacciatore over rice with salad, goat cheese grits with ratatouille and salad, leftovers

I looked up and it’s Aug 11th

It’s true, the older you get the faster time goes, I’m sure of it. We just celebrated Colorado Day, then Monday NIA and walking with James, then jazz on-line with Emmett, then woosh – you do it all over again.

Jack went to get groomed again, still hot around here.

A walk around Bluff lake and ice cream from Dang to cool off.

Grace and I got a pedicure.

Date at Freshcraft, Jack thought he was in jail.

Drove to Buena Vista for lunch and drinks at River Runners. How do you know you’re in BV? The signs and the river rafting goats.

Then back to Monday NIA, James and Jack walked around while I was in the gym.

First Field trip of the year! The Numbers in nature exhibit at the DMNS, it was very hands-on, lots of neat information, but the best part for everyone was the mirror maze.

Grace made a clown fish pull apart.

My co-pilot buddy for Shipt.

My Wed mood for NIA was not up to par, Hannah’s rat had to go to the vet, they removed his eye, he’s wearing a Dixie cup for a cone of shame and it’s not easy to keep it on him.

Ann met me for lunch, I got to hold Quinn and she brought Jack 6 tennis balls, fun!