Monday, June 22, 2009

Ta da - my garden!! And that crazy pup!

We have had THE craziest weather I have ever seen! (And I from Wisconsin, and it gets pretty crazy there!) Example : I drove to work at 6, the sun had started to come out. Once I got to work at 7 there was a bright blue sky, it was going to be a good day. I sit by the windows at lunch at 12, it'hailing outside, dark crappy clouds. I go on break at 2, again by the windows, it was sunny and beautiful again. I got in my car at 4, I was drenched, it was downpouring horribly! As I'm driving home, I have to go thru almost 2 feet of water on the road (new additions, drainage sucks). As I get home at 5, the rain starts to let up, and it's only sprinkling. At 7, I go get ice cream with Heather, we sit outside because the sun is out and it's kinda hot out. Mark and I head over to Angie's at 8, it's still nice out, but the sun is setting. As we leave Angie's at 10:30, it's pouring again. So, anyways, it's been raining off and on for about weeks, and not sprinkling kind of rain, but downpour kind of rain. So my garden has LOVED it! I haven't had to water hardly at all because there are still puddles in the garden from all the rain. Well, I tried to match the pictures up with the ones I took before. My tomato plants are huge!! My peppers really haven't grown, one of them is on its second flowering, I'm hoping for some peppers this time. My sunflowers did not make it thru spring, birds and animals ate all of them except 1. The cucumbers didn't even sprout. The melons and watermelons seem to be doing good but time will tell. The corn is going good, and the peas and beans are good too. The spinach and the tomatoes are booming!! I'm really excited for the tomatoes to come in! They have a bunch of flowers and each plant has one or 2 greenies on them. The garden has been really fun, and I'm excited to see the final poducts.

Ah, the pooch. He's been lots of fun playing and jumping around. This past Thursday, we got him neutered. He was with the vet all day long, and came back all drowsy and then he went outside and peed for 5 minutes straight. (Not lying!! I went into the house and got a drink of water and came back out and he was STILL peeing!! I guess they don't let them go outside at the vet's office...) But, I gave him his pills twice a day, and he has been back to his rowdy, annoying, chewing self already. His milk teeth are falling out and he's getting his real chompers. So that means he's chewing chewing chewing!! Good thing Mark got him that huge bone when we first got him. But I got him a new toy on Thursday, I figured it was the least I could do since we were taking away his manhood. It's a cute little squeker dragon (ok, ok, i know it's a crocodile, but I call it a dragon, it's just easier to say. We call it Bandit's dragon or his dinosaur... Yeah dinosaur is NOT easier than crocodile... oh well....) Bandit like's the fouton cuz he can jump up on it and snooze. Well, when I'm on the computer, blogging, Facebooking, or working, Mark likes to come in and sleep on the fouton. It counts as quality time :) Well, Bandit will usually snuggle up with him and they'll both snooze. So lately, my hobby has been snapping pictures of the boys while they're dozing. It's pretty cute. All in all, it's been a pretty good week. :)
Love always, bry and mark

Our 1st year!!

One year already! Holy cow! It really is amazing because it really only seems like last month I started working here in Denver, and that Mark and I got married. It doesn't feel like it's been 12 months. But when you look at everything that has happened this past year, it really starts to feel like more than just a year! It has been a wonderful time growing together and getting to know each other more. It's been a fun and wild time (check out the last post!) and we've come to be even better friends than we were when we got married. When I moved out here last April, I made some friends in the ward, but once Mark got out here (and we were married) we started spending every minute we could together. And people tell not to live with your best friend, it apparently ruins the friendship, but I can very happily say that Mark is my best friend and that the friendship is not ruined. If anything our friendship has gotten stronger and better over this past year. Yeah I know it has only been a year, but I am so grateful to him for all he is and all he does. (And people also said the first year was the hardest year ever, because you are getting used to each other. Our year was hard for other reasons - again, see last post!) He has been such a strength to me and has been such a blessing in my life. I adore him, and I care so very much about him. I love you bear!

Anyways, so for the 1st anniversary, we got a hotel down in Denver, we went to Chili's that night. And it was PACKED, so I told Mark, if we have to wait more than 45 minutes we're leaving and going to Chick-fil-a, but the host got us a seat right away (Ahh, the power of 2 and not 4!) So we got in, ate at my favorite restuarant, and then headed down to Denver. It was pretty cool to get away, there's just something about going to a hotel (or some place that is NOT home) that is pretty awesome. We came back Saturday morning, we dug into some year old cake. Now considering we (well, ME) didn't eat any of the cake on the wedding day (Mark had HORRIBLE aim!) the cake was really good! It was still soft (we thawed it for 2 days) and the frosting still tasted good. We also kept one of the bottles of Martinelli's sparking grape juice stuff (it has been at the back of our fridge at the apartment and now here at the house!) and that was still fizzy, no it had not fermented into actual wine, it was still good. Then Mark went fishing and I went to the zoo and a craft store with Heather and Angie. It was a pretty good time. All in all, it was an amazing 1 year anniversary, now we've just gotta top it next year.... We gottta go on vacation before we have little ones, I hear it's impossible. :)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

time's flying when things get crazy!!

So... the 1 year anniversary is coming up next week! Holy cow! Is it really next week\? Wow!! It really doesn't feel like a year already. Well, ok, in some ways it does feel like a year, in others ways, though, it doesn't feel even close to a year. It truly is amazing how time changes depending on who you are with AND what part of your life you're in. Example: Now we're married and time seems to go so fast, but when we were engaged (and living apart) time went soooo sloooooow. Also, high school went by so fast (it didn't seem like it at the time) and now, each work week seems to drag! But I'd like to sum up the events of our first year. Mark and I have been "flashing-back" lately and it really has been a crazy year for us!

We moved to Denver!! Packed all our stuff and moved to the other side of the Rockies! I know that, in moving, Mark and I were able to strenghten our realationship and build the best possible foundation for our family : full and complete trust and reliance on one another.

The break in! A fellow resident at the apartment complex started banging on our door at 3 AM one day. In a drunk adventure, he thought our apartment was his apartment. I woke up to the banging on the door, and then I pushed Mark until he was awake, Mark when to go tell the guy to go find his own apartment while I called the cops (YOU try reasoning with a drunk that has numeric recognition failure!!) Well, next thing we knew, the guy had kicked in our door and was standing in our dining room! The cops came and took care of everything, but it was still pretty scary!

Snow + front-wheel-drive minivan + mad dirtbag with undamaged fender = Collards buy dirtbag a new bumper cuz he's a sissy. So ends up that snow on the mountains makes the roads slick. Well, Mark was slowing down for a red light, caught some ice, and tapped into this dirtbag's fender. Mark couldn't see any damage, but the guy decided to take it in anyways, long story short, we ended up buy him a new bumper or pool table or whatever he bought with the check we sent him. Dirtbag....

Home to the Wisco: So Mark and I travelled home to Wisconsin for New Years and my 22nd birthday! we stated flying out from Denver to Minneapolis, we made it to MN, then our flight to Green Bay was cancelled, we ended up staying the night in Minneapolis. We next flight we could get was at 3 pm to GB, mom got on the horn with airport, showed them who's boss and we got on a flight to Millwaukee, Tim picked us up and we drove to GB with him. Wait, our luggage went to GB so we had to stop at the airport there to pick it up. We did end up getting to the parent's house, and had a lot of fun while we were there! Everybody got along and were even picking on eachother like mad! All the kids had fun with their new brother! We took family pictures! It was a great holiday!

Headaches and heart surgery ~ So since back in August (since about the time of the break in) I have had these massive migraines. I went in to a doctor, and he tried everything at once, I went to an eye doctor, I went to the chiro, he chnged my diet, he put me on tons of meds, but then he suggested I go to a Cardio Dr, just to check on my heart. Well, ends up there was a hole in between the chambers of my heart (the oxygenated blood was mixing with the un-oxygenated blood, it's not supposed to be!) So, in Feb. I went in for open heart surgery, and 5 days after going in and getting my heart man-handled, I was sent home. The recovery process wasn't nearly as painful as I expected it to be! I'm happy and healthy! Everything is going great now, although, the headaches really haven't gone away, we're still trying to stop those.

Family visits : Well, during the open heart surgery, Mark's brother, Kurt, and my mom, Brenda, were able to come out and help! For the whole month of February, we read books, played video games and cooked food. It was pretty fun, minus the whole open heart surgery thing.... It was so nice to have family here when I really needed them! It was also nice to have room for them in the house!

The apartment (dun dun dunnnn)..... When I moved to Denver, I found an apartment online and signed a 1 year lease, thinking we wouldn't have thing come up, and nothing to worry about for the 1st year. (Yeah riiigghhhtt!! Boy was I wrong!) When we found out about the surgery, we tried to get out of the lease, (I figured I wouldn't be able to walk up and down 3 flights of stairs after the surgery!) well, they wouldn't let us break the lease, so we found someone to sublet it from us, meanwhile, we found a cute little 2 bedroom house for the same as we were paying in rent! We though things would be perfect, NOPE!! She ended up staying for 5 months while only paying for 2. The lease was up in April!! Geez!!

HOUSE! It's a super cute little 2 bedroom house with a fenced in yard and a garage! It's actually one we looked at while it was on the market, but I thought it was too small (guess it fits now, huh?!) But I added a garden in back (thanks Mark and Kurt). I painted on wall in the living room sage green, and one wall in the office orange (it really does look pretty cute.

In gunsmith days, it's only been 6 -So way back in August, Mark took apart one of his shotguns. Took apart so much that he took it to a gunsmith to put it back together. He took it to the gunsmith because we figured the guy would put it back together real quick, and if he saw any problems with it, he'd fix it! That was 10 months ago!! He'd told Mark he's fixed them and they are ready to be picked up 3 times now, each time he comes up and says, his buddy is shooting them at the target range! He's definetly lost them once, he's gotten them confused with someone else's guns at least twice. So Mark finally cornered him, and the guy admitted to losing them. Thank goodness he's not going to charge a babysitting fee, and that he is finally going to be fixing the guns. We'll let you know when we get the guns back!

Floppy-eared, speckled, bunny-looking thing! Well, I brought up the idea to Mark, he laughed it off at first. But then I started looking online, and found one! I found a pure-bred German Wirehaired pointer pup for only $100! (Papered pure-bred pups cost around $800-$1500!!) BUT the puppy was in Arizona! Mark and I discussed it more, and then we talked it over with out landlord. Then we went down to Camp Verde, Arizona to pick up our pup!! (We picked the weekend we did, because Steve and Heather were coming out, and they got snowed in at Rawlins, and headed back to Utah, Mark and I had gotten off work early, so we headed down to Arizona (where it was NOT snowing) and got our puppy!) We got the pup when he was 8 weeks old and he is the freaking cutest thing ever!! Mark was set on the name Sancho, but I think (and he thinks) that Sancho is a mix-mutt name. I had been tossing around Bulllet or Bandit. After a little bit, we decided on Bandit, he's got a spot of white on his nose, like he got into paint... Plus, he's sneaky and tricky, and he's always hiding my stuff!! It's been alot of fun having the rat around, he's way cute an even though he doesn't look like he has a beard yet, you'd be surprised just how much water will drip out of it when he's done taking a drink!!

The Land Cruiser meets Ogden Canyon..... I had been buggin Mark to bring the Land Cruiser home to Colorado for a while now, and we said the next time we head to Utah and it doesn't snow or rain, we'll bring it back. Well, I was so excited for it! We had it on the tow-bar and we were heading home to Colorado! We made it into Ogden Canyon and she started to wobble... I asked Mark when should I be worried about the wobble? And he looked in the mirror and said very calmly, Now you should be worried. And at that point, we started to spin. We were just spinning, the Cruiser was rolling! It popped off of the tow-bar, and the doors, top and wind-shield of the Cruiser were all smashed to pieces, the back left tire was 100 feet away next to the median. We were very lucky to not have gone with the Cruiser. We had people stop and see if we were ok, they all said that when they had towed something, it rolled and took the tow vehicle with it for the roll. Well, Mark's dad came and brought the Cruiser back to Utah, Mark and I headed on our way home. We got passed Rock Springs and on our way after a BK stop, and the front right tire blew out on the truck... We fixed it with the spare, but it was just an awful day! Thank goodness that was end of our bad day!

Feeding young minds. Mark and I were called to be primary teachers at church a while back. We instruct the 5 year-old bunch. We used to have 10, one moved out, and 2 moved in, so we are up to 11. They are cute and rowdy group! It's been alog of fun to teach them, and make it fun for them to learn. One thing they always remember (no matter what topic we're on!) is faith, and they smack the back of their heads when FAITH is said, cuz Mark taught them that faith is like the back of their head, they can't see it, but they can feel it and know it's there! They're pretty cool kids!

Friends and family in the ward! I moved to this ward last April, when it was just me, and Mark was still in Utah. Right away I had people come up to me and make friends with me. I can never say how very grateful I am to the sisters in the ward. I've felt welcome and comfortable in the ward right away, and that's amazing because it usually takes me a while to adjust to a new ward and find friends. The ladies in the ward have been so amazing and wonderful! The men have been way nice to us, too, and Mark has made a bunch of friends. There are guys in the ward he can hunt and fish with, and play football and softball with. I absolutely love this ward and I am so glad I've been here, I've made some really good friends here! Thank you!

Well, we've have a pretty amazing and eventful year, as you can see. We went thru alot, but I'm glad I had Mark next to me thru it all. I adore him, and he really is my best friend and true companion. I couldn not have been strong thru and been able to handle all we went thru (and still are going thru) without him. He is the strongest person I know. I am so very blessed to have him by my side forever. I love you. This first year has been absolutely amazing!

Love always, bry and mark!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Puppy and crafts

Well, I've kinda figured out something about our puppy. He's a true Collard - he snores. Mark and I'll just be sitting there watching a movie with the Bandit at our feet, and all the sudden I look over at Mark, nope, he's still awake. I look down, yup the pup is snoozing and snoring!! It's ridiculous! So, next time we're in Utah, steer clear of ma and pa Collards, it'll be pretty noisy, we ALL snore!! Anyways, the puppy is pretty cute, he was fetching his squeaker duck today. And when he runs, his ears flop! And he bounds around the house, but sometimes, he prances. See the video. :)




But he also sits really funny for a puppy, well, for a dog. Yeah he just sits funnier than any other dog I've ever seen. He sits with his legs sticking out so they look like chicken legs. It's pretty funny. When he chews on toys, this is how he sits. And when he "sits" like a good puppy, he usually slouches down and looks like he's really tired or like he's just relaxing! He's so darn cute.


Anyways. So lately, I have been crafting. And not a tons of crafting, but enough to keep me interested in it for weeks to come. I don't *try* to do so much that I get burnt out over it, but sometimes that happens. Anyways, I wanted to try this Book Shelf idea, Mark was the knife behind it, he cut it out and everything, and hung it on the wall, so technically this does NOT count towards me 3 crafts for the year. But here is where I found the tutorial here at U-Create Kari's site, she posts a link to CutOutAndKeep.net. Both of these sites have a TON of awesome stuff that I would like to try! But, I went to GoodWill and got a book for $2 or something, and it was really awesome that I got THIS book, 1) it's orange 2) it matches our orange room and 3) it says Caribbean on it. Yeah it's awesome. (I bought the Ocean candle from a little boy in the Wal-Mart parking lot, he said "Hey ma'am, you ever been to the ocean, ma'am? Well, it doesn't matter cuz I just brought the ocean to you, ma'am. Here ma'am you should buy this candle, ma'am, so you can always have the ocean with you ma'am." Yeah it was one of those cheap pick-up lines, I fell for it.... Now you know how Mark got my knees to go weak...;)
I'll have to share more on the crafts later, I'm still continuing with the sandals idea, so far I've sold 2 pairs! Yay!! And I created another wallet, this one is way cute, and I've figured out a way to make them way cute, add embelishments and stuff. I also have one long-term craft, that is in the works, but it has major potential for awesomeness! I'll post pictures and give more info when I can. Some of these may end up being gifts, so I want them to be a surprise still. :)
Mark and I are doing good, things have been good so far, we've been safe, cute and happy. :) Next friday is our 1 year anniversary, we're pretty excited!! But at the same time, wondering where on earth did the time go? It doesn't feel like a year already! I guess time flows differently when you're with your best friend. Plus when we look back and all we've had to deal with this past year, yeah it does feel like a year, heck, it feels like 5 years!! (I heard a Darryl Worley song today, it's called "Sounds Like Life To Me" -Sounds like life to me, aint no destiny Yeah, the only thing for certain is uncertainty You gotta hold on tight, just enjoy the ride Get used to all this unpredictability, sounds like life Man, I know its tough but you gotta suck it up To hear you talk youre caught up in some tragedy Sounds like life to me.- It is so true!!) We feel so blessed to have each other to share this life and this journey with. I couldn't have asked for a better companion and friend than Mark is. He really is amazing.
love always, bry & mark

Family, camping and fishes!

This past weekend, Mark's brother and sister-in-law Steve and Heather, came to visit us! It was tons of fun! We went camping at Pike's National Forest. It was way cold at night, but other than that it was a real good time. We woke up the next morning and went fishing at Jefferson Lake. (The lake still had snow around it. And not like a little bit of snow, like 1 foot in some places, even more in others!) But Heather caught the frst fish (lake trout) and then we all caught fish after that (rainbow trout). I caught the last fish (rainbow) but I was also the fisher-queen because I was the first to catch the limit of 4 fish. It was pretty fun. We then brought the fish home to cook em up, but the 10 fish we caught camping, plus the 10 fish Mark caught the day before was alot of fish. So of course, the boys decided to go fishing AGAIN. Steve caught a huge bass! But the boys brought back tons of fish from that trip too! Mark said that Steve caught 40 fish and Mark caught 30, put threw alot back (thank goodness!) So our fridge is FULL of fishes, Steve and Heather forgot to take the fish home! But the weekend was a good one, it was alot of fun.

Steve and Heather went home Sunday around noon. Mark and I went to church and all the sudden we hear a siren going off. And not like a police siren or a ambulance siren, more along the lines of a tornado siren. The kids kinda start to freak out, but I try to calm them best I can (it works), and everything was fine. We later find out, there was tornado over by the Costco, pretty much at the intersection of Hwy 7 and I-25. And there were at least 5 other tornadoes that were spotted around the Denver-Metro area. So... yeah... I guess it's true, after you get east of the mountains, Colorado DOES become Kansas! Everything was fine, I actually wasn't worried about anything (we don't have cable, so we don't hear about things right away....It's not too bad of a thing really, it just takes us a while to hear the latest thing.)

Love always,
bry & mark