Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

We received this card in the mail from some friends who said they thought of us when they saw it (I wonder why). Inside, they asked which of our dogs was the angel and which was the devil. I definitely have opinions on this, but what would you guys guess? Thanks Tarren and Erin (who are apparently secretly reading this blog but never commenting, because somehow they knew we had a golfer and a Tinkerbell for Halloween).

And my sad little pumpkin I carved in 5 minutes this evening. We hollowed our pumpkins out on Sunday so Jason could make pumpkin seeds, but we never got around to carving them. In case you can't tell, this is a cat pumpkin. I really wanted to make a pug, but it seemed a little too complicated.

Happy Halloween! Hope you all get lots of candy!

Halloween Weekend Fun: Part 2

Today we had some pug fun! The Denver Pug Club hosted "Pug-o-Ween" today, and we went! It was SO fun and there were SO MANY funny pugs in great costumes. Here are just a few of the many........

Lobster pug

The boxing pug

VERY cute--a devil and an angel

This one was very cute--his mom was dressed as a pirate, and he was a parrot!

A turkey

A mermaid and a fisherman

Another golfer

This was was my FAVORITE! She is Marie Antoinette!

And of course, the cutest Tinkerbell ever! Daisy won 5th place in the "cutest" costume category! (Moxie and Oscar were there, too, but it was hard to get a good picture of them!)

We had a really fun weekend and have a full, fun week ahead of us!

Halloween Weekend Fun: Part 1

This weekend was full of Halloween fun! Each year, our young adult group at church has a Halloween party. This year's party was Saturday, and it was so much fun! As you can see below, we dressed up as "beauty and the geek." One of my co-workers gave me the idea, and it turned out great! We were able to find most of the parts to our costumes at thrift stores. Yay for cheap, homemade costumes!

There were several different categories to vote on, and we won "most humorous" AND "best overall costume!" Our prize was the lovely skeleton goblets you see below!

And no post would be complete without food! This was my contribution to the food--veggie pizza! It is super easy--crescent roll dough topped with the most delicious mixture of cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise and ranch dressing mix. Yum!

The activities at the party included a pinata, bobbing for apples, mummy wrapping, and murder. It was so fun!

Guess who's here?

Daisy's best friend, Moxie, is here with us for a few days while her parents are out of town. All three pugs are having a blast! They decided this morning at 2:30 it was time to play--ugh!

Sad Day

Today was a sad day in the Stephens' family. We didn't get World Series tickets. They actually went on sale yesterday, but the site was "maliciously attacked" so very few tickets were sold before they suspended the sale yesterday. Tickets went back on sale today, but there was no getting through (for us). We tried and tried to no avail.

The really sad part of the story--on Monday, Jason was actually able to get through and pick his seats, but when he went to check out, he was kicked out of the site. And they were great seats! We were so, so close.

I do have one gripe about the situation. The tickets were only for sale online and were first come, first serve. But it seems to me that MANY of the people who purchased tickets bought them so they could turn around and sell them to make a quick buck. What about the local fans? I am not about to go on ebay or Craig's list and pay thousands of dollars for tickets. So I guess we will just watch from home. Or maybe I will boycott.

Another sad thing--I can no longer get on blogger at work. I can't update, and I can't check any other blogs.

Bah humbug.

Weird Weekend Weather

This weekend in Colorado, the weather was a little bizarre. Saturday was warm and sunny with a high of 80 degrees, and today we woke up to snow and a high in the 30's. Crazy! It was our first snow of the season, and we received an inch or two of snow. But because it has been so warm, it quickly melted and is mostly just on the grass now. This picture was taken this morning shortly after the snow started coming down.

Tomorrow is the day we try to get World Series tickets. We'll see how it goes!

Halloween Fun!

Last night, I decided to have a photo shoot with the pugs modeling their Halloween costumes.

Daisy is Tinkerbell! (She doesn't mind the dress but she does not like the wings)

And Oscar is a golfer (which he hates! Actually, he doesn't mind the jacket, but the pants and the hat really bother him)

I found these doggie costumes at Target--they really have a good variety of costumes for doggies, and they actually fit well (and it's hard to find well-fitting clothing for pugs!). I couldn't make anything like this in a million years!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Help!

I am joining my first book club, and I need your help! I am planning to join a book club where we will revisit many of the classics (books we may have read in school but don't remember or didn't appreciate). Do any of you have any suggestions of classic books that might be good to include? I am to take a few suggestions to our first meeting, so let me know if you have any ideas. I have a few in mind, but I wanted to see what you might suggest. Thanks so much!

Go Rockies!

In case you haven't heard or aren't a baseball fan, our very own Colorado Rockies will be playing in the World Series! Everyone is suprised but very, very excited. Tickets go on sale Monday morning, so we are hoping to get a few!

Pictures from Oregon

This was the ONLY picture I got of all of us! This was in front of an old house that had been turned into a restaurant. Very cool (and it was supposedly haunted!)

The two little boys, Riley and Logan. They are SO adorable! (and they have great taste in football teams!)

On Saturday, we headed to the coast with Julie and the boys (Dwayne had to work). Our first stop was the beach in Lincoln City. The weather was absolutely amazing! We were expecing cold and windy, but it was warm and sunny with no wind. It was great!

Riley and I had fun running into the water!

Our other coast stop was Depoe Bay. This area was really amazing as well, because there were whales in the bay! There were about 3 or 4 of them, and in this picture, you can see the water spout to the left of us. We tried so hard to get a good picture of the whales but were unsuccessful. But we saw them!


We had dinner at Gracie's in Depoe Bay with Julie's mom. I had salad topped with crab and shrimp. YUM! I love seafood!


Between the two towns, we stopped and watched a glass blower at work. It was really neat!


We left Salem Sunday after lunch and spent a little while in Portland. The changing colors in Oregon were beautiful!

In downtown Portland

We had LOTS of good coffee in Oregon (including Starbucks). This was my favorite (it was an almond joy latte).

This is my favorite espresso ever!

And this was just cute (I had this latte in downtown Portland)

We had a wonderful visit and were so incredibly blessed by our time there. Dwayne and Julie are working with a church plant in Salem and plan to start a new church plant next year. I am so inspired by their hearts for God and their passion for the work they are doing. We had a great time!

We're baaaack!

Jason and I returned late last night from a quick journey to the northwest. He spent a few days in Seattle with his family, I spent a few days in Portland for a conference, then we met up and spent a few days in Salem, OR with some friends. It was a GREAT trip, and I have lots of fun pictures to share! Stay tuned..........

Pumpkin Puggie Picture

This picture is several years old, but I came across it this morning and thought it was cute. Hope everyone is having a wonderful fall! Ours has been fairly mild, so we have been enjoying more walks and trips to the park. But I know winter is just around the corner. One of our local ski resorts actually opened for the season yesterday--it prides itself on being the first resort in the country to open each year! It only has manmade snow at this point, and only one run is open, so it probably isn't great skiing, but they are open!

My Weekend

Finally we had a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend. I LOVE weekends like this. I guess if they were all quiet and relaxing, it might get boring, but it feels like we have been going non-stop, so a quiet weekend was just what I needed.

Friday night we had some fun. A group of us from our class at church went to a corn maze and haunted house! It was great fun! I am a big chicken when it comes to scary things, but the haunted house wasn't terribly scary, so we had a great time. After the maze, we had a late dinner at Pete's Kitchen, a Denver diner, which has the BEST breakfast burritos. Breakfast burritos with green chili are one of my favorite foods, so I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Saturday I went jogging with my neighbors (gasp!). I finally did it! I jogged for the first half (about 15 minutes) and then walked back. My legs are still sore, but I was proud of myself for doing it! I plan on continuing but starting out a little slower and working up to non-stop jogging for about 30 minutes. After jogging, we all went out to breakfast at Udi's, where I had another breakfast burrito (which was pretty good but not as good as Pete's). Our afternoon was pretty lazy. I laid around and watched some football (OU vs. UT) and then ran some errands and got a haircut. Saturday evening we watched the Rockies beat the Phillies (go Rockies!) on TV, and then I think I went to bed early.

Sunday was church and then a potluck. In the afternoon, we took the pugs to City Park for "Pugs in the Park," a fundraiser for Colorado Pug Rescue. We then went home and took a nap (yay for naps!) and then just took it easy the rest of the evening.

It was a great weekend--I love relaxing!

Fun Book

I recently checked this book out from the library. Honestly, I picked it out because there was a picture of a pug on the front and on the spine, but it ended up being a cute story. It is a "chick flick" kind of book. In the book, the couple is newly divorced and sharing custody of their pug, Buster.

A quote from the book: "Maybe you only know pugs from the movie Men in Black, but let me tell you: they're cute little clowns. That flat, black, wrinkled face is enough to make anyone smile....."

I would recommend this book if you are looking for a light, easy fun read. Especially if you are a pug lover!

Birthday Fun!

Wednesday night we went out to dinner with some church friends, then all had cake together for Jason's birthday. And let me tell you, this cake was GOOD! Jason's favorite cake is red velvet, and I found a red velvet cake at Cold Stone. I LOVE their cakes, so I was really happy to find one of their cakes that was red velvet. It had chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks and raspberry topping on chocolate ganache. YUM!

And this is the card that Jason received from Daisy and Oscar. I LOVE the musical cards, so I was super excited to find one with pugs!

(This picture is a little dark, but hopefully you can see the pugs)

Happy Birthday, Jason!

Today is Jason's birthday! I am so thankful for this day and thankful he is such an important part of my life. I love you!





We celebrated last night, because tonight is busy with other stuff. We went out to a little local Italian restaurant, and then he opened presents at home. It was a fun night!

Fall Weekend Fun

Last Saturday, we headed up to the mountains to check out the fall colors. We took some friends, a couple who is fairly newly married, and we had a great time! It was cool and overcast, but we still saw some beautiful sights. We found a great trail that I would love to go back and hike again.

Jason took some artsy pictures while we were out--this one is a close up of a tree

A nice flower picture he took


One of my favorite things in life--the sound of rushing water in the mountains

The guys thought it was really macho and manly to pick up big walking sticks. Jason won the contest for the biggest walking stick with this one. It was pretty funny!

Because it was overcast, it was hard to get pictures of the beautiful colors. We had such a wonderful time enjoying God's beautiful creation!