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| December 30, 2005 Happy Birthday, Pete! Pete is seen here posing with the fresh herbs he received as a Christmas gift. |
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| December 25, 2005 Merry Christmas! |
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| December 12, 2005 Orlin and Bea had us over to celebrate Nicky's Birthday. We went out to eat at La Pizzeria, a new Italian restaurant in the Village of Five Parks, then Orlin chauffeured us around the surrounding neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights. Afterwords, we returned to B&O's house for birthday cake -- Bea had made a delicious German chocolate cake with coconut butter pecan frosting. Yum! |
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December 11, 2005 Pete's 15 seconds of fame... Pete and Tracey attended the Denver Broncos game in person. Pete was lucky enough to get his picture taken with the Bronco mascot and two other local celebrities (Buddy Smith and Lelo Lang) before the game in the Bronco Barn, a tent where they serve food and beverages. Broncos beat the Baltimore Ravens 12 to 10. |
| December 9, 2005 Book Review. Lessons in Mastery by Anthony Robbins. Synopsis: For years, I have loved Anthony Robbins's audio books for his energetic, highly-entertaining speaking style, and how he gets me to feel all positive and revved-up. This book was every bit as good as I have come to expect. Key points:
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| HERSHEY'S The great American chocolate bar  |
December 8, 2005 Our Hershey's t-shirts are here! We learned about Hershey's t-shirt promotion earlier this year, and saved enough Hershey wrappers to qualify for two free shirts. Pete's shirt came over a month ago, and we didn't know if Nicky's would ever arrive. It finally appeared in our mailbox today (much to Nicky's delight). |
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December 3, 2005 Here's Casey, just being cute in the snow. |
| December 3, 2005 A look down our street today. |
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| December 2, 2005 We celebrated Linda's, Gabi's, Nicky's and Pete's December birthdays tonight at the Mataam Fez restaurant in Boulder. The way the curtains were draped on the ceiling and walls, it felt like you were in a sheik's tent. We sat on embroidered cushions on the floor, ate exotic Moroccan food, were entertained by an impressive sword-balancing belly dancer, and served hot mint tea by a brave man whose piece de resistance was bending backwards, balancing a teacup on his forehead and pouring hot tea into it without scalding his face (or losing an eye). Very "Boulder"! Had lots of fun. You can read an even more detailed description of our evening on Gabi's blog, if you'd like. |
| November 29, 2005 Peter and Sheila Abplanalp came over to have dinner with us tonight. (Peter is one of Pete's business partners.) To their credit, the guys didn't "talk shop" at all. They have a new dog who is about Casey's age, so we talked a lot about dogs, actually! |
| November 22, 2005 We had a great time having Karen, Paul and Genna Behlen over for dinner. (Karen used to work with Nicky at National Jewish.) One of my favorite parts of the evening was when three-year-old Genna spotted the chocolate cake that was going to be our dessert, touched the pan, gasped, and said with big eyes, "What's that? Do we get to have that?" A girl after my own heart! |  |
  | November 20,
2005 Wow, our pets love Tracey! |
| November 20, 2005 Pete had a few people over to watch the Bronco game. Final score: Broncos 27 - New York Jets 0! Pete can write more here later if he gets a chance. |
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14, 2005 Book Review. Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik. (Unabridged audio book.) Synopsis: Five housewives in a suburban neighborhood form a book club. The book club spans four decades, surviving divorces, births, and other personal triumphs and tragedies for each woman in the group. The book goes really in-depth in developing each woman's character; you feel you are really getting to know them. Rating: Good! |
| October 29, 2005 We had a jolly good time attending the legendary Halloween party of Gabi's friend Keith in Ft. Collins. Pictured, left to right, are Pete the Mad Scientist, Gabi the Vulcan Undercover Starfleet Agent, Mrs. Nicky Butterworth, and Mo the Scary Clown. If you want to see more, view Keith's pics and Rob Sims's pics. |  |
 | October 18,
2005 Casey Graduates! Casey sucessfully completed basic dog training at Wag Wag Enterprises. He's by far the most improved student in the class. The first night he barked through almost the whole class. Now, although he's still a little nervous if another dog comes too close, he'll go into the center of the room to demonstrate his commands such as "sit", "down", "stay", "leave it" and "heel". We're going to keep working with him to add in distractions gradually to the point where he does everything on walks as well as he does it in our kitchen. We're also considering enrolling him in an agility class for more socialization, mental stimulation, and fun. |
| October 13, 2005 Book Review. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth: The 8 Secrets of How 5,000 Ordinary Americans Became Successful Investors - and How You Can Too by Ric Edelman (abridged audio book). Synopsis: A man who owns a financial services company surveyed his clients, sifted through the data, and found commonalities among those that had high net worths (defined as over $500,000). Much of what he found results in unconventional advice, such as don't pay off your mortgage, don't spend more than three hours a month on your personal finances (including balancing your checkbook and paying bills), and don't measure your success as compared to the S&P 500. Narrated in a very high-energy style. Rating: Recommended. |  |
| October 10, 2005 First snowfall of the season. It was a doozy -- I estimate we got 18 inches (12 inches of accumulation plus 6 inches of snow melt). The National Weather Service officially declared it a storm. 30,000 people are without power (fortunately, we still have it). Our trees hadn't lost their leaves yet, so we woke up to a few broken tree branches. Good thing we harvested the apples last week! |
| October 6, 2005 Book Review. The Sisters Rosensweig by Wendy Wasserstein (unabridged audio book). Synopsis:Three middle-aged sisters get together for a reunion. Each has traveled different paths in life, and the trade-offs come out in their dialogue. Rating:Fair. |  |
| October 5, 2005 The freeze warning was cancelled. |
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4, 2005 The weather forecast indicates we are supposed to have a hard freeze tomorrow night, so we harvested our golden delicious apples a little earlier than was perhaps ideal. Supposedly, though, they will continue to ripen while we store them in our garage. What a bumper crop! We are going to be eating apples for months and months! |
| October 2, 2005 We are done! We are done! We are done! After months of scraping, caulking, priming and painting, we can finally put the ladders and brushes away for good. The house is now a lovely beige color with white trim. The front door, porch railing and shutters are a tasteful forest green. (The "BEFORE" picture was taken a few years ago, just before Pete moved in.) |
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