Cider Tasting

Brian leaves for a 9 month deployment this weekend, so I took Friday off to spend the day with him.  We decided to drive about two hours south of here to visit Beak and Skiff Apple Orchards in Marietta.  Beak and Skiff makes 1911 Cider and Spirits, and I've tried their Cider a few times since living in New York and really like it.  They also have a huge apple orchard where you can pick your own apples and a cafe/bakery and general store on their property.

Their facility was really beautiful, and we were surprised at the amount of people that were there on a Friday afternoon.

1911 produces several apple ciders, two apple wines, and vodka and gin that are distilled from apples.  Apparently distilling the vodka from apples allows it to be gluten free.  We were able to taste all of their product and they were all quite delicious!

After visitng the orchard, we headed to Syracuse to go to the mall.  Syracuse is home of Destiny USA, which is the second largest mall in the US (behind the mall of America).  They have a lot of shops and a lot of fun attractions - a go cart track, dave and busters, comedy club, and ropes course among others.

Today is Brian's 30th birthday (happy birthday sweetie!) and we celebrated a little early. Some of his favorite gifts were a nice bottle of scotch, new tumbler, and whiskey stones to keep it cold.

I'm going to miss him so much, but it was fun to spend some extra time together before he heads out!

World's Worst Blogger

Well, after a multi-year hiatus, I think I have officially captured the title of World's Worst Blogger (or maybe I am tied with my sister Dana?).

The big news in the Moose household is that this past July, we packed up our belongings and moved across the country from Colorado to New York.

Moving such a long distance is stressful and incredibly frustrating at times, but we arrived in one piece and had no major damage to our belongings, so we'll consider it a win.  After everything was packed, all our worldly possessions only filled up about a quarter of this truck.  We decided to have the Army move us rather than doing it ourselves, and I think that is the only way I will do it in the future - much less work than doing it yourself!

The drive across country took three days, and was quite the adventure with three vehicles (one on a trailer), a cat, and a dog.  I had the pleasure of driving with Miss Kitten, and was very thankful that she only meowed for the first few hours, and then preferred to hide under her blankets for the majority of the trip.  If you've never stayed in a hotel room with a cat and a dog, it can be quite the experience.

Diesel guarding our hotel room

My driving partner

 In New York, we made a big step and decided to purchase our first home.  It's a home that was built in the 1930's and has been remodeled inside within the last few years.  It sits on over an acre of land and we absolutely love it.  It's been so fun to try to make this house our own.

Our new home!

We still like to represent Colorado even though we're far away!

Brian leaves for a 9 month trip to Korea next week.  This is slightly scary for me since it will be the first time he's left that I haven't lived close to family.  I look forward to learning more about our new area while he's gone - hopefully I will survive the harsh winter here!

Happy Anniversary!

I am a day late posting this blog, but since I have failed miserably at my blogging goals, I figure a late blog is better than no blog, right?

Yesterday was Brian and I's second wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been two whole years.  I am looking forward to so many more!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend the day together, but we did get to talk on Skype a little bit, which is always nice.  I am very thankful for the technology we have that allows me to talk to Brian so much while he is deployed.  I know it hasn't always been that way and I try not to take it for granted.

Yesterday I received these beautiful flowers from my hubby! They came with a teddy bear which one certain teddy bear killer at home has been eyeing.

Happy anniversary sweetheart! I love you so much!

A Very Scary Experience

On Thursday night, our precious Diesel ran away.  There were roofers working in our townhome complex and when I took him outside after work he got scared and ran away from me.  I tried to run after him, but he is very fast.

Now, anyone who knows Brian and me knows that Diesel is more than just a pet, he is a member of the family.  So, as you can imagine, I was scared out of my mind.  On Thursday night, I stayed out until 2am looking for him with no sightings.  Several friends came and helped look for him too, and no one saw him.

My mom and I spent all day Friday out looking for him and checking the humane society.  We also put up flyers. Still no sightings of him.

Saturday I spent the morning looking for him some more.  Since no one had seen him, it became very frustrating not knowing where to look for him.

Thankfully, Saturday afternoon I got a call that he had been seen.  A lady who takes her dog to the same daycare as Diesel and lives near us was out looking for him and had seen him in a semi truck trailer storage lot across one of the major roads that borders our subdivision.  I drove as fast as I could to get there, and when I got to that road, he was crossing the street.  When I called him, he came right to me.  Thank God he was found!

While this was an incredibly exhausting, scary, and traumatic experience for both myself and Diesel, it really shined a light on the incredible group of friends that I have in my life.  Here are a few examples:

• On the first night he was gone, two friends in the neighborhood and one of my 4-H families went out searching for him for several hours.  
• Diesel's daycare (Aspen Meadows Pet Resort) made flyers and the owner went out and searched for him for most of the day on Saturday. They also put out a message on Facebook, which is how the lady who found him knew he was missing.
• Our county 4-H extension agent searched with me until 2am on Thursday night/Friday morning and let me print flyers using the extension office copy machine
• Between my Facebook post, and the daycare's Facebook post, we got over 100 "shares".  Many from friends and many from people I do not know.  While I am not always a huge fan of Facebook, I believe this definitely led to his being found.
• My wonderful parents spent so much time searching with me, and keeping me from having emotional breakdowns every five minutes.  My mom even took the day off work on Friday and spent the whole day searching.
• My amazing husband, who is so far away, kept strong and helped me stay positive, despite how helpless he must have felt.
• The lady who found Diesel I don't believe I have ever met in person.  She takes her dog to the same daycare as Diesel and when she saw their Facebook post, she took it upon herself to go out looking for him.  I am so thankful she did because if she hadn't, I don't know if he would have been found!

Now my baby is home safe and sound.  I don't want to ever let him out of my sight again.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have never been a fan of Valentine's Day, so I don't mind that I am spending it alone this year. I think we should show our love for each other every day of the year! However, I do miss my sweetheart a little extra today and I wish he was home with me.

One member of our little family did NOT have to spend Valentine's Day alone this year...

That's right, our boy Diesel has a girlfriend!  Her name is JoJo and the employees at "school" have been telling us about her for a few weeks.  Today they had a Valentine's Day party at school and he came home with this pretty picture.  Isn't he a wonderful artist? He even brought home a goodie bag of doggie snacks and some chocolate for mom (yum).
I hope that you all had a great Valentines Day!

Bucket List

So I'm sure everyone knows by now, but my sweetheart is gone for the next 9-ish months.  I've decided (and been told many times), that I need to start updating my blog again so he (and everyone else) knows what's going on in my life.

Deployments are really hard, but I am determined to keep myself as busy as possible, so hopefully the time will fly by!

I have decided to put together a deployment "bucket list".  After all, I have 9 months of unlimited "me time" and NO excuses to not do these things.

Here we go:

1. Get in shape and lose some weight
2. Take a knitting class and FINISH a project
3. Finish the quilting project from LAST deployment (which was 2010....don't judge me)
4. Teach Diesel a new trick
5. Climb the Manitou Springs Incline all the way to the top
6. Read at least one book per month
7. Make some of the Pinterest recipes I've never tried
8. Start a new quilting project (well....maybe that's a little ambitious)
9. Blog at least once per week

I'm sure I will think of some more things as I go.  Hopefully this will make the time go by quickly and it'll be November before we know it!  Feel free to leave any suggestions!

The (long overdue) Yellowstone Post

The last week of August (I know, I know...I suck at blogging), my husband and I, along with my Mother-in-Law and her boyfriend, took the long trip up to Wyoming to camp at Yellowstone National Park.  I had been to Yellowstone many times as a kid, but it was a first for everyone else.

It's about a 10 hour drive from Colorado Springs to Yellowstone.  Most of the scenery is...uneventful, to say the least.

After the long, uneventful drive, we made it safely and were able to get settled in and pitch our tents. I will say this, tent camping in Northern Wyoming at the end of August is not fun...it got COLD at night!!

We spent the next several days exploring the park and going on some adventures.

We saw about a gazillion buffalo during our stay.  I got a couple neat shots with my new camera. 

The big guy above was right next to the road as we drove by. I felt brave rolling down my window to take a photo, but one car ahead of us stopped and everyone got out of the car and walked right up to him.  Apparently they missed the signs posted everywhere that say DO NOT APPROACH BUFFALO. If they are fluffy and eat grass, then surely they can't be dangerous...right? I wouldn't mess with that guy, even if he seems harmless.

There was also an elk in rut wandering around the campground bugling all night. We did get to see him one morning, but I was too slow with my camera to get a picture.  He was very majestic.

One day while we were there, we drove down to Jackson, WY and rented RZR's for the day.  This was really fun, but very dirty!

If anyone needs an idea for a Christmas gift for Brian, this is a good one!!

Of course we saw Old Faithful....

We wanted to go on a hike, so we went to the gift shop and bought a hiking map.  We selected a trail that claimed to be a 6 mile loop...turns out it was actually a 12 mile loop in the back country.  

 

We were exhausted by then end, but it paid off with an excellent view of Yellowstone Canyon and the Upper and Lower Falls.

I got to try out the panorama feature of my new camera taking shots of the Grand Teton Mountains. These are some of my favorite photos of the whole trip.

 

 

All in all, it was a pretty fun trip. Hopefully we will be able to go again some day!