Italy baby! (part 1) - June 2008

This June Hahn and myself (celebrating our 5th anniversary - June 1st) along with my parents, my brother and Ann (Hahn's mom) took a family vacation to Italy. I was fortunate to have been there once before with Kathy Cocetti's high school group. Hahn and his mom have both been to Europe a few times, but Hahn had never been to Italy and my family had never left the country before - so it was quite the adventure! We traveled with a tour group and I think it was the best choice for such a large group of us. And as much as my parent's whined about all the early mornings and the walking - we would have never seen as much on our own.
The trip started in Rome where we joined our group and headed South. The first couple days we spent traveling with stops at Pompeii, Sorennto and finally, the Isle of Capri.

March 2008

Over spring break (for Hahn and Ed) we decided it was about time to start finishing the basement. Ed, who has spent many summers building houses with Habitat for Humanity, graciously offered to help. And over the course of the week they managed to get about 90% of the framing finished.

Sam and I decided to help by mostly staying out of the way, but the boys found something for us to do and we ended up prepping a few 2 X 4s. (With only a few little problems)

We plan on making the basement into the office and family room. Hopefully we'll be able to get it done sometime this year!

Babies! - April 2008

April was the time for babies! Our good friends Nic and Carleen as well as our friends Aaron and Mandy managed to have their first children less than 30 hours apart! It was a fun day at the hospital meeting both babies!

Alexa Gail Widhalm was born to Nic & Carleen on 4/18/08 at 10:17am , 6lbs 8oz.
Hannah Jane Clarke was born to Aaron and Mandy on 4/19/08 at 6:49pm, 8lbs 4oz.

Proud papa Nic holding Alexa!


Hannah (top) and Alexa side by side. I'm pretty sure the nurses frown upon putting babies in the same bassinets, but we couldn't miss the photo opportunity! :)

Nic and Aaron with their respective newborn girls!



We dog-sat D'Argo for Nic and Carleen while they were at the hospital. He and Stoli got along so well, it was adorable. I caught the two of them waiting for everyone else to get home!

Greener Pastures - Fall 2007

That fall, with the generous help of my grandma we decided to put in an irrigation system and sod. It was a process that took a few weeks, especially since we wanted to do a few things on our own.
It started with ripping up what was there of the yard, and removing weeds and debris.
Trenches were dug for irrigation and the pipe was laid, then the new ground cover
soil was brought in and leveled.
We wanted to put in the edging ourselves, which turned into a HUGE fiasco. Seeing as how we had torrential rain that week, our yard was turned into a mud pit and Darrow's truck which we had borrowed to move rock, sunk into the mud and was a yard ornament for a few days. Then hahn and I got a 48-flu bug, so we found ourselves the night before they were coming to lay sod, out in the cold mud, in the dark putting in the last of the edging with the help of Grant and Zach! (Thank goodness for their help, or we wouldn't have gotten it done!)
Finally it was finished! The sod was laid down within a day and the irrigation works great!

Wall building - August 2007

Amongst our tasks of yard work we decided to take out a few haggard and dying bushes out front and put in a new wall under our front window.
The transformation was quite the process and many muddy days, but with the help of Sam and Ed we somehow managed. And we are so glad we did!

Stoli Tonic - on the rocks!

So, after we were all settled in to our new house, the next big thing we had been waiting patiently for: was to get a dog!!

We were a little disappointed to find that after all of the snow finally melted in the backyard, it was a little worse for wear then we originally expected! It obviously had NEVER been kept up. There was no grass to speak of, but just a lot of weeds and dirt. There were a few weeks, where we talked about waiting to to get a dog until AFTER we put in a lawn, but we were just TOO excited and had already waited a few years, until we had a house with a fenced in yard. And while this house lacks in yard, there was a fence (albiet a shoddy one) and that was enough for us!

We had always wanted to adopt a retired greyhound, so we called the Colorado Greyhound Adoption (CGA) and they sent a lady over to meet us and tell us more about the breed. It was sort of a test to make sure that we were responsible people who knew what it took to care for a dog. After the visit, she set up appointments for us to meet with dogs that met our criteria. And by July 21st we had an appointment to meet with the foster parents of a greyhound out near DIA.

This just happened to be the day that the FINAL Harry Potter book was released, and me, Hahn and my mom had stood in line outside of Barnes and Noble (in costume, cause we're dorks:) to get the book at midnight! So of course we had stayed up a few hours to read and then had to get up early to drive to the East side of Denver! But it was all worth it! (You should be able to notice the Hahn's red Quidditch robes in the picture of me and Stoli)

On the drive down, Hahn made me PROMISE that we would NOT get the very first dog we looked at, that we had to at least see a few and then we could come back to the one we liked. I asked him, "But what if he is PERFECT??" and he said it was too bad, we could come back for him later! So, we arrived at the foster house and met Stoli Tonic (his racing name), a 5 year old, 72 pound, retired racer. Of course, after about 15 min of playing with him, we were in love. Hahn asked me if we could keep him, which I immediately reminded him of the promise he forced me to take. "You said, not the first dog, remember?" I told him. Which he then replied, "but he's PERFECT!" And I'm glad Hahn folded so easily because Stoli really has been a perfect companion!

He's the sweetest most chill dog. He loves to sleep all day. (laundry day is his favorite, see the pic) Loves to run around in the backyard and kind of knows how to chase a frisbee. At the dog park he's more interested in other humans, than dogs. But he's best friends with D'argo (Nic and Carleen's dog).

Because he was raised as a racing dog, all of his pedigree information is available online, if you're interested.

Grown-up jobs (May-June 2007)

In May I FINALLY heard back from Wirestone, a design firm in town which I had been trying to get a job with since December! Both my B-i-L Darrow and his wife Tera work there and had put in my name when they heard they were hiring designers. So after I had given up all hope and transferred to the Loveland Pier 1, where I had been working for the last few years, and started taking on more freelance, for which I did not have time for, I FINALLY got the "want to come in for an interview?" call!

After the interview, there was another few weeks, of "giving up hope" while the company figured out what they were doing, but eventually I made the cut and joined the team in the Creative services department as a production designer! I'm on a team who focuses on mainly one of our bigger clients, HP (Hewlett Packard), and we make stuff published mainly for internal uses, like sales guides, brochures, etc. Some days it can be a bit monotonous, but all in all it's a great group of people in a fun atmosphere! Check out our site to see more of what we do: Wirestone website

A little later in the summer, Hahn, who was done for good with sales and Furniture Row finally got his big break and got a step closer to his goal of becoming a teacher! He landed the position of a full-time in-house Math Tutor at Poudre High School in Northern Fort Collins. (In case you are wondering, we are both Rocky Mountain high School grads) Everyday he tutored students from all grades and all levels of math, from integrated Algebra to AP Calculus.

In the year he was there he also obtained his substitute license and was able to teach a handful of classes here and there. He made lots friends in the math department and just became more and more excited about teaching! He's very excited to be going back next year for the same position! And will be earning his teaching degree and masters degree starting this summer, so hopefully by the next school year he will be able to get into an actual teaching position!