Happy Howl-o-ween!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and a fun Halloween. Other than hanging out with friends and going to a party, we kept it pretty low-key this weekend.

We carved two pumpkins and let the dogs lick the tops (as we always do) and welcomed over 75 trick-or-treaters. That's a record for us!

We always enjoy seeing all the cute little costumes. Our neighborhood is largely younger kids, so the costumes are especially adorable!

Pray for Grandpa

Grandpa is in the hospital. Heart issues again and unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done. Severe scarring and blockage is preventing all but one of his arteries to be open (and this is the one thats already had by-pass surgery performed on it). His kidneys are also not working very well. They cannot do surgery or open the blockages with a stent.

Grandpa and family need all the prayers you can muster. My mom is having a rough time having just lost her mom earlier this year. We will update as we know more.

Chatfield

A beautiful autumn morning found Dave stopping to take a few pictures of Chatfield on his way to work. The low cloud cover and changing leaves made this picture pretty amazing!

Surprise!

With Dave turning 30, I knew I had to do something different. Something big for his birthday. Since I had never done a surprise party for him before, I figured this was a great occasion to do so! As most of you know, pulling off a surprise on Dave is no easy feat. He does what he wants, when he wants. From almost working from home Friday (thanks to his boss for scheduling a last minute big 'must-attend-in-person' meeting) to almost coming home early and ignoring his scavenger cards, to the bakery not having his cake on Friday, and to his chatting it up with a coworker in the parking lot delaying his arrival, it almost didn't work. Luckily, my well-thought out plan to get him to go on a mini-scavenger hunt after work kept him out of the house while the 25-30 guests arrived. The guest list consisted of his coworkers, running/tri buddies, and other local friends and neighbors.

Some of the guests as they yell 'surprise!'

We disabled the garage door so that he would have to go in the front door. We knew he had no clue when he greeted the dogs in his typical (high-pitched voice) fashion-- 'Hi munchkins!'.

Dave's look as he takes in his surprise

The look on his face was priceless as he popped his head from the girls to the dining room to see a room full of guests yelling "SURPRISE!" He truly was very, very surprised and appreciative of the effort involved in throwing him this party.

Singing happy birthday to the 30 year old!

People gave him a hard time about turning 30 as he blew out his candles (and struggled to do so!). Many other guests arrived later in the evening and we had a good time chatting, teasing, and eating food. And judging by the huge bucket of empty beer bottles in my kitchen the next morning, I think everyone had a good time!

Cake #2 from Coldstone (served as one of the scavenger diversions!)

Note: Big Thanks to all those who helped pull this off. And a thanks to Charity and Daniel for taking and supplying all these pictures!

A Corporate First?

Despite having to wake up at 4:30 and waiting an hour outside in the freeeezing cold to pay for a parking spot, today's Denver Rock'n'Roll Marathon (Half and Relay) went really well. 15,000 runners took to the streets of downtown on a beautiful crisp fall Colorado morning.

Dave at Mile 3.5 (sun still had not risen!)

Dave took the first leg for the relay team (8 miles) at a 6:42 pace. Zach took the 2nd (3.2 mile) leg at a sub 7-minute pace while Chris did the 10K leg at about a 7 minute pace. The ringer for the team, Andrew, came in with the fastest time over the longest leg (9 miles, 6:24 pace). They are officially listed in second place out of 324 teams, but the first place team was one female with a time of 2:32. Two things are really wrong with this: the first place winner (female) came in at 2:55 and you can't have a relay with one person. Obviously is an error of some sort, so I'm sure once they sort it out, Dave's team (the Space Cowboys) will be in 1st!

Dave's brother finishes his first half-marathon

Dave's brother, Brian, also flew in from MN for the half-marathon. He did exceptionally well for running at altitude for the first time. I think he set an all-time best with a time under 1 hour and 45 minutes. Quite impressive!

It seems only fitting that they'd both be excellent athletes and runners with a last name of SHOEmaker. :)

After everyone finished, the team gathered for pictures and the post-race concert by Semisonic. I really only know three of their songs and we stayed to hear 2 of them (FNT from my favorite movie, Ten Things I Hate About You and Chemistry). We didn't stay to hear their most famous song, Closing Time.

The LM relay team (L to R): Andrew, Chris, Zach, and Dave

Oh the smells!

On Saturday, we spent the day being pretty lazy. We went to the Remax fall festival with Brian (pretty much just to get our free pumpkins) before we drove up to Boulder.

We spent lunch down on Pearl Street. The street performers weren't as impressive as they usually are, but it was Family Weekend and we arrived just as the CU football game started, so it was relatively "calm." We decided to take the Celestial Seasonings Tour (I'm sure you have seen their tea in your local grocery store). They make 100% of their tea in Boulder and even though it was a "quiet factory" day (they don't work weekends), the robotics and automated machinery were only unmatched by the VERY strong smells of the herbs, spices, and tea leaves.

The Mint Room is so strong that they keep it in a separate garage and nearly immediately upon entering it, your throat tickles, your eyes water, and you can feel your sinuses clearing up. I lasted maybe 30 seconds and others managed nearly a couple minutes. I don't know how you could work in that room and survive an entire shift!

It's no Christmas card...

After lunch on Friday, we took Brian to see Arrowhead. It's just down the road and is pretty neat if you haven't seen, so we thought it would be a nice way to kill a few minutes. Brian is into geo-caching so they even tried to locate one here, but failed to find it.

The girls weren't very cooperative, but that's okay. Still a few cute photos. Enjoy!

(This one is so funny: you can almost hear Sequoia saying "really, dad? Do we have to do this?").

PARK?

Today, we decided to ask the girls if they wanted to go to the PARK. They immediately perked their heads and began howling (see video). I guess they get pretty excited about trips to the park!

"Want to go to the PARK?"

It was a truly beautiful fall day for a picnic in the park. Low 60s, crisp air, and sunshine made our afternoon with the dogs really wonderful!

The girls did their usual sniffing around while we ate Subway. We couldn't believe how much of the hogback had turned black from yesterdays fire (see top picture).

It seems to be pretty well contained today, but the winds changed and have been blowing smoke on LM's campus. One of our friends said they got sent home from work because it became too smokey.

Not your typical work fire

Today, just outside the building I work at, a brush fire started on the hogback. I had already left for home, but I could easily see it from our house. There were countless firetrucks that showed up and helicopters flying over. It pretty quickly went over the hogback away from work, but even as of tonight, it has not been contained.

View of the smoke from our house

On our way home from dinner, we stopped to take a few pictures from the road by our house. I hope its contained soon and doesnt spread. There isn't rain in the forecast, but there's a huge lake between us and the fire. The strong winds and big gusts didn't help its cause today.

View at nighttime from Rampart

View from our house... it just flared up!

Punk!

Here is what happened when I got off the couch for 30 seconds to go to the bathroom today.

Isn't that just the most guilty puppy face?

Golf suits us to a Tee!

In celebration of a spring & summer of seriously hard work on a program at work, most of the team took the day off yesterday play in a fun golf tourney.

I get my swing from my dad...

The rules were different than any I had ever played-- while it was your basic 4-person scramble, it had a lot of "cheats" thrown in. You could use 1 hand wedge and 1 foot wedge per team. This would allow you to get out of the woods, a bunker, or make a short putt with no extra stroke. Each team was also given 10' of string. You could move your ball at the penalty of a bit of your string until it ran out. This allowed us to "make" many putts we left short.

The team

Our team was pretty strong-- 2 experienced players, myself (consistent), and a newbie. I thought we utilized our rope pretty wisely-- often making eagles because of it. Our mulligans were a slightly different story. Because we never found trouble, we had no real use for them and ended up utilizing the majority on our last hole (last shot). Even with 8+ tries, we didn't sink the birdie putt.

Receiving 2nd place awards

I played really well and super consistent. The guys would "coach" me where to hit a shot (between those trees or that fairway bunker) and I would hit the target perfectly. I just didn't have the distance to out-drive our 300+ yard star player.

The "dance-off" for "Best Dressed"

We ended up with a tie for 2nd place with an 18 under, 54 (winners = 52). We won the putt off and cashed $160 for the team. [Because only 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 2nd-to-last got prize money, the putt off win actually put us in 3rd]. It was a fun day of golf! Maybe I should play more often?

Another day in the park

It's becoming our Saturday lunch tradition to picnic in the park. I think the girls really enjoy it.

We put them on a really long tie-out while we eat, so they can explore and smell the surroundings.

This time, we tried the girls out on the slides. Sequoia absolutely did not want to go down the slide.

To our surprise, Belle was a bit apprehensive about it, but went on Dave's lap with no problem. It was pretty cute!