Christmas comes but once a year, now it's here, now it's here...

Oops...I neglected this blog big time for the past 2 months! My bad.

But December is definitely worthy of a post because I LOVE December because I LOVE Chrsitmastime!!

The Christmas shopping is almost complete, the Christmas lights are ghetto-rigged (avec le duct tape) on the balcony:

and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care:

In hopes that St.Nicholas will NOT soon be here...because we won't! We will be in....drumroll please...

TOKYO!!!!

Although my favourite day of the year is Christmas because I absolutely love sitting in the living room with my family in our PJs, drinking coffee, exchanging presents and enjoying eachother's company, this year Christmas with the Kennedys will be a couple of days early (which, if you know how good horrible I am at waiting to give people presents, you know that I am excited for this!) for Jameso and I! Then on the 23rd, thanks to the ever so generous and lovely Armingtons, we will be off to Japan for a wonderful 9-day excursion! I am very, very, very excited!

So...what would you like from Japan?! Hello Kitty stuff? Engrish shirts? Perhaps a nice Yukata or Kimono?

Tokyo or bust!
Love, James and Tracey



The Most Perfect Sunday

Today was my dream Sunday. It was just lovely. Let me break it down for you. First of all, we woke up at 11!! That's a big sleep in for us. We ate breakfast and had a lazy Sunday morning complete with coffee (him) and chai (her). Then we head off into the crisp 50 degree fall weather for a trip to the pumpkin patch...complete with baby animals, the "largest cornucopia in America", THREE corn mazes spanning 40 acres (in the shape of a moose, a bear and an eagle with a fish in its mouth), apple cider and a hayride to the pumpkin patch where we picked our perfect little pumpkin straight from the vine :)

This evening we headed over to my parents' house for Canadian Thanksgiving. I brought my mommy a butternut squash and some Indian Corn from the patch.We had a lovely roast (grocery stores don't have turkey right now...but the deli dude said three people asked today!), mashed potatoes, candied yams and wine. Apres dinner we enjoyed a few wonderful rounds of euchre, some scotch and some laughs.

And now, we are at home, in our pajamas with the balcony door open listening to a train whistle through the rainy night. Perfect, perfect.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! 

The New Digz.

FINALLY!
Charger: found.
Video tour: HERE!
Pictures: ready!

Please see the little guided tour of the new apartment above and see the pictures below! Enjoy :)

New couch (with newly recovered cushions!) from the lovely Brandons :)

The Living Room

The Kitchen

The dining room with the our brand new tables and chairs (thanks Mal for your table but after not finding cute chairs we decided to go for a "big kid" set!)

The bedroom...what do you think of our headboard? Should I put something in the frame? Something on the sides? Is it all good? Tell me!

The patio with our groovy chair.

That's our ga-rage.

SOOOOO what do you think?! What else does it need (obviously more artwork...any suggestions...and obviously the pile in the dining room gone...or do you like that one)?!

Thanks for your opinions, suggestions and comments. So excited for our new home :)

xoxo, Tracey and James

I've Got Two Turntables and a Microphone...

Once upon a time, I loved colours...actually I still love colours. But once upon a time I loved colours on my furniture! Bright ones! Lots of them! Lookin' like one of them change-colour disco floors. Well, as all of you know, James and I are now college graduates so my disco tables would just not do for our new sophisticated lifestyle. No. We needed more subdued colours...like gold and silver...which still may be in disco floor patterns... So the moral of the story is: we've gone from '65 to '75. And we all remember just how much more sophisticated and posh '75 was. Alright! Here we go...

Before:

These little twinsies were found on the side of the road...bad, bad water stains

The disco floor table itself.

Pssshhh so '65.

Drum roll please....


AFTER!:

Gold/silver makeover!

Silver paint over gold. I love this.

What does square equals square mean you ask?...

...it means it was inspired by our new TV table (from Craigslist)

LOVE this one.

Golden beauty.

So there they are! The new tables for the new apartment near our new jobs!

Also, the Brandons gave us their awesome couch whose cushions had a little run in with the dryer...so I refinished said cushions (sorry, no before picture):



So...what do you think?! Are the squares on the long table weird? I haven't decided... I love feedback. Thanks!!

A Three Year Recap

Today is the day! James and my three year anniversary! So, in honour of the big day, I'm going to give you all a little recap on how this magic started ; )

Once upon a time James came to Colorado to attend University of Northern Colorado. He lived in the dorms and liked to skateboard in his room. This disruptive noise made him form a great friendship with the girl who lived below him, Heather. After their freshman year, Heather decided to transfer to CU in Boulder and work at BD's Mongolian BBQ which, coincidentally, is exactly what I was doing! We became the best of friends. Then one day, I realized how much Ram Pride I had and decided to transfer to CSU. James had just made the same realization. We both reported this overwhelming pride to Heather and she told us that we should be friends. After about a week in Fort Collins, we decided to meet up at the LSC to get football tickets for the up coming game. I got my ticket and then got really shy. I didn't want to leave though because I did want a friend in Fort Collins. So instead, I just hid behind the stairs. After a few minutes, this cute boy in Levi 501s and a Liverpool jersey approached me exclaiming "There you are! I didn't think you were here!". After telling each other some awkward Popsicle jokes, we decided to go get coffee at the Alley Cat where I revealed that I am Canadian and played hockey in high school...James' dream girl! ...or at least big points. We also found out that we liked all of the same music so I invited him to come with me and some friends to Monolith Festival (R.I.P.) at Red Rocks. After a football game, some walks around Old Town, some more coffee at Alley Cat, and a weekend spent at a music festival and treacherous mountainous race, we were officially dating. And such was born "Sniffs and Grizz" (our rap group), the CATS, and the Pup and his Bone : ) And the rest is history! I will now sum up our three years together in a bunch of pictures for your viewing pleasure. Please enjoy:



September 16th, 2007 - Monolith Festival - Morrison, CO



March 2008 - Virginia Beach, VA

June 2008 - Battery Park, New York, NY

September 2008 - A Tree in Red Feather Lakes, CO

January 2009 - A ship in Baltimore, MD

March 17th, 2009 - Winter Park, CO

May 14th, 2009 - Fort Collins, CO

July 3, 2009 - Ann Arbor, MI

July 2009 - Toronto, ON

January 2010 - Woodbridge, VA

January 2010 - Woodbridge, VA

May 14th, 2010 - Fort Collins, CO

July, 2010 - Canadian War Plane Museum - Hamilton, ON

July 2010 - Lake Couchiching - Floral Park, ON

September 2010 - Tour de Fat - Fort Collins, CO

I love you, CAT! Happy Anniversary!! xoxox


There's no place like a new home!

And in other news...James and I found a new apartment!! We will now be residents of Gunbarrel (No longer Ghettos, Colleen...I promise!) in our very own place. It's just lovely. Fireplace, garage (aka room for hockey equipment!), soaking tub, patio, beautiful mountain views and more! I will definitely be updating you all as we get in there and start decorating and making it our home, but for now, here's a couple of pictures that the owners took (with their furniture in it, obviously):

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Bedroom

So, what do you think?

And here is my first little piece of art for the apartment...I stole this idea from Mallory (sorry and thanks!!). I bought these keys on Etsy from GlamourGirlBeads...she finished them herself. Then I just framed them in a little frame and Voila! cute little art.

Firefighters are the best!

So as most of you know, there was a huge fire (actually a couple) in Colorado. The 'Fourmile Fire' was approximately 3 miles due west of my house. Scary stuff. Although, I feel extremely fortunate. 166 homes were lost in the 7000 acre fire that tore its way through the mountains JUST west of Boulder. It's been so sad to learn about family and high school friends losing their homes :( They're saying now that the fire was caused by a smoldering fire pit on someone's property rather than the initial theory of someone hitting a propane tank with a car (which they would've known was not possible if they had just watched a little more 'Myth Busters').

On the first day of the fire, I was sure there was about to be a zombie apocalypse. All of North Boulder was extremely smoky but the sun was trying to peek through giving off an eerie red glow. There were also large white and black ashes falling out of the sky. We knew right away that it was a huge, dangerous fire.

Ashes on our driveway

Monday night the smoke pushed up a bit which, among all the terrible destruction, allowed for some really beautiful pictures:

A slurry bomber and the setting sun behind the smoke

Beauty in the breakdown

Smoky sunset

Slurry bomber flying over our house

On Thursday (Day 4 of the fire), I decided to make 150 cookies for the firefighters whom were all camping out at the Boulder Reservoir (where I work every summer).

Thank you for saving our town!!

Lindsey and I brought the cookies over and after witnessing the firefighters coming back from the fire thirsty, hungry, tired and covered in soot, we quickly jumped into volunteering to give them all of the things that the community had donated - including food from many restaurants, cases and cases and cases of Gatorade and water, socks, t-shirts, baby wipes (for their poor sooty faces!), chapstick, etc. We stayed until 11:30 p.m. and heading back at 6 a.m. to help some more. The shifts that the firefighters were pulling were the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift or the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. Friday morning, I got the pleasure to thank and assist firefighters from all over the state and states surrounding Colorado. I also got to see my good friend Fred whom is a firefighter. It was amazing. They are all up there risking their lives and own homes to save other peoples' and our town and they were thanking ME for handing them a water and a cup of coffee. Crazy. I have a new respect for firefighters. They are definitely a great group of very selfless people. Anyways, with the Boulder fire 90% contained tonight, a bunch of them have headed up to the 600 acre fire that started 30 miles north of here yesterday!

Anyways, the point is that this crazy fire is almost over and we desperately need some moisture in Colorado...please get your rain dance on. Thanks!!

And thank you firefighters!!! We all love you!! xo