Sophie the Bear Tours Denver

My niece Danni is involved in a school project where her bear Sophie is touring the U.S. We took her out to show her our neighborhood yesterday.


Next to the nearby train tracks


Outside Coors Field


Outside Union Station, one of the prettiest historic buildings in all of downtown Denver


Next to the nearby train tracks


Roxie thinks the bear is a toy. The nerve!




The view off the Millenium Bridge


Brandon in front of one of our favorite book stores, The Tattered Cover

This will be us in a few months! This is an actual photo of our wedding venue. Hopefully they don't have any nude art on the walls behind us because I'm just sure I'll start stifling giggles as I'm saying my vows in the way that only causes them to get worse because you're trying to hold them back. In front of all my friends and family, nonetheless!

I just finished another quarter, had just a week off, and already started a new database design class. I'm busy, but trying not to be one of those people who proclaims how busy I am every other sentence, but am afraid I've become just that person. I am super excited about making progress towards my next degree. I'm starting to get into really challenging classes, and am hoping that before I know it, I'll be a web page design pro. I thought I had 2 weeks off school between quarters, and in the weeks leading up was daydreaming about all the amazing wedding projects I'd complete, and all the fun shopping I would get to do, but it really didn't quite happen as I'd imagined. C'est la vie.

Luckily I've got a pretty independent spirit in that I kind of enjoy the nature of tackling projects in seemingly impossible timelines and the happiness that comes with realizing toward the end that- I did it! Pretty sure it's that same part of me that takes on a holiday jewelry show while I'm going back to school, or takes on 40 custom charm orders that I complete between December 1 and December 23. Ask Brandon- at times, I just think I'm an overachiever, and other times, it feels a little bit like insanity. Apparently I can't sit still for too long.

I've had several offers from some local friends and co-workers to help me with wedding projects, and I keep saying, "I'm not quite there yet, but when I get to that point, I'll call you." I'm nearing that point! I'm looking forward to a craft day, and wish I could fly in all my best girlfriends, mom, and aunts to partake in wine and making stuff. Instead, I'll stock up on wine and we can eat cupcakes together when you're here in June. You don't realize how much you miss people until you think about all the ways they've collectively influenced your life. My heart swells thinking of having all these people- new friends, old friends, people who changed my diapers, people who have changed the way I thought about myself, people who encouraged my creative endeavors, people who taught me lessons, people who taught me how to be a good person and a hard worker, people who took me to teenager events with them when I was a nerdy 12-year old- all those people in one place at the same time? *sigh*

Speaking of our wedding, we are hoping to have a "community" ceremony where people can get up and read a quote, tell a story, read a poem, or say any words of their choosing- either planned or off-the-cuff- in the spirit of the day. We hope to take the pressure off our future officiant, and think this would be a nice way to do something different for the ceremony part of our wedding. If anyone would like to participate in this part of the ceremony, we would be grateful.

RIP Couch

We've been crate training Roxie, so during the day while we're at work, she's in her crate. We're looking forward to the day when we're confident that she's potty trained so we can let her hang out in our apartment while we're away. We've been slowly training her, having a handful of successful 2-3 hour adventures away from our apartment while the two dogs hang out by themselves in our living room. Each time we've returned, she's done really well.

Today, we left her out while we were at work all day. I walked in the apartment after work, and everything looked good upon first glance. Then I saw green stuff all over the floor.

Roxie had bitten a hole through the zipper on the bottom of our couch cushion and somehow "unzipped" the entire bottom of the cushion. Oh, and when I say "unzipped," I mean to say she bit two different tears into the zipper, so there's permanent damage and it can no longer be zipped up.



My first reaction was surprise. Next came sadness, at which time Koda started apologizing by licking my face and jumping up on me. Then I was even more sad, because I could tell that even though Roxie was guilty, he felt bad. He's pretty perceptive in knowing when us humans are upset in any way.

Next came the humor in the situation. Frankly, at least she was polite about it and the cushion is only messed up along the bottom side, and in a straight line. It could have been worse. It seems like everyone's puppy has to do something equivalent to this at least once in their puppyhood. Here's hoping Ro got it out of her system with the trashing of the couch today.



A bunch of hours had passed since discovering Roxie's damage, so I had the dogs pose for a picture. If we think this is humorous today, I imagine this memory will be even more funny as time passes.

Phone Issues

We've been having phone issues this week that we finally got resolved tonight. Our incoming calls were all going directly to voice mail, and we haven't been able to check messages.

If you left a voice mail this weekend, I will try to call you back this week!

Between a busy day job, our wedding, and school, life's been busy. Since our engagement has been such a long one, wedding planning up until now has been pretty nice. I've been slowly gathering glass jars, craft supplies, and decorations, taste-testing wine and desserts, and gathering inspiration from different sources. Now it's time to actually pick a final direction, finish projects, and cross things off our to-do list.

Yesterday, I worked on our ring bearer book. I'd seen this project on a wedding planning web site, and with my love for vintage books, immediately fell in love and knew I had to make my own version. I found the perfect book on eBay a few weeks ago. Turns out it's over 100 years old. I made a yellow fabric flower, found the perfect ribbon, and painstakingly used my round hole punch to cut a 3/4" deep hole in the pages of the book. There's a cursive handwriting inscription on the inside of the book that you can faintly see on the left-hand side- it says, "With love, from Stella. Xmas '99." This page was actually on the right-hand side of the book originally, but I decided it needed to be preserved and glued it to the left-hand side of the book.