First Gingerbread House

I wanted to post some of the photos of my first gingerbread house attempt. Mom provided a lot of consultation help so I thought the least I could do is let her see how things turned out.

I didn't think about the fact that the roof needed to sit on angled walls until all the gingerbread was done. I broke the front while cutting the triangular top. Erin's sister, Aliesha, came over to help and witness the madness. It was nice to have some extra hands.

I ALSO put the walls together wrong so the shape of the roof was all wrong. Some retrofitting was necessary. Kaya was close by and very interested throughout the whole project.

Decorations were strategically located to cover up patching and retrofitting. I love the roof icing, you can't even tell that I screwed up!


We decorated gingerbread cookies, too. Three types of frosting!!! That is our fancy new pre-lit fake tree. It makes our house look awesome and Christmasy. The whole thing made me feel pretty domestic but at the same time figuring out how to salvage the situation to make the house look somewhat normal was challenging and fun. I'm planning to do one again next year. Hopefully having learned from some of my mistakes. I can't believe how awesome Mom's gingerbread houses were. This was a ton of work and wasn't even in the same class as Mom's creations!

Under Contract

We just took a big step toward being first-time homeowners by going under contract earlier this afternoon!


The stability of my work situation has improved quite a bit lately (whole other story) so we decided to "explore the possibilities" to determine what we could do based on our savings and our comfort with monthly payments by visiting a mortgage broker. We met with the broker two weeks ago from this past Friday (crazy fast, we know). With our pre-approval figured out we hit the pavement to look at homes. We focused on 3 or 4 areas that had houses we liked in our price range. We've been running around like crazy people trying to get in under the $8000 tax credit.

We saw the house that we liked best on Wednesday evening and had an offer together late the next night. The place is in west Arvada, with Westminister less than a mile to the east and Denver city limits to the south. We have spent that past 3 days in negotiations and came to an agreement earlier this afternoon. We're really excited to move forward with the process and I hope that posting this isn't a jinx. I guess a lot can happen between now and closing. Our closing date is June 22nd and move-in would be June 25th. We're both really excited, and a little nervous.

Exciting Friday Night

Now you've done it. I broke the blog seal, and now it's just a place for me to write even more than I already do on Facebook. I apologize in advance.

I had to report that I just attended the most exciting sporting event ever, at least for me. Joel said he's been to more exciting high school/college games, but I guess I went to lame schools or I have a short memory. We saw the Nuggets play the Cavs and we won by 2 points. And we had good seats (I love this Nick guy who works for the Nuggets who likes to get me tickets). Anyway, it was the most fun I've had at any game of any kind. I was disappointed in LeBron though, I partly went to see this supposed super star and didn't get much of a show. But my Nugs won so I can't complain. And I got to see my boy Billups after he's been injured for many games so that was good too. Oh yeah, and Joel caught one of those plastic balls the mascot throws into the stands so I even have a souvenir!

And THEN...I know, it's hard to believe there's more :)...walking home from the train station, we saw the little fox who lives in our park and who we often see during cold weather. I've named him Foxy, original I know. He was laying under a big tree right by the sidewalk and we got about 2 yards from him before he saw us. He sat up, turned around in a circle, layed down again in a more comfortable position I guess, and didn't run away until I pushed my luck and tried to get closer for a picture. It was strangely exciting for a country girl like me, having never seen a fox close-up before. He was very cute. And small, about half the size of Kaya if not smaller.

OK, the end. Sorry no pictures this time, and I promise not to turn this into my personal rambling blog. I just had to share the good end to a crappy week.

Love,
Erin

The Morrison Holidays

Well, I'm finally giving in and posting on Joel's blog. I fear he will never do it himself again...you'll all just have to harass him into it. :)

We had a good Christmas in Denver and New Year's in Bozeman. This was the first year I haven't gone home to NY at all so that was hard, but I guess getting there every year until I'm 32 isn't so bad (don't tell my mom that though, she said it didn't make her feel any better). I don't know if it was our job worries or not going home or what, but I never got into the spirit much and we didn't even end up getting a tree. A nice centerpiece that my mom sent helped though...it even smelled good.



Joel also got motivated one Sunday and put lights up...



We spent New Year's Eve at our friend's, Lisa and Aaron's, house. They cooked the traditional Italian Christmas Eve 7 fishes dinner. It was amazing. We opened gifts together at our house Christmas morning, including those that family had sent. Everyone was very generous, thank you.





Kaya even got her very own squirrel to destroy -- I think it helped her feel better that she can never catch the ones in the park.



Then we spent the rest of the day in Longmont with Mike, Susan, and all the family. We had a great time, had good food, and unfortunately watched the Nuggets lose. The place was a zoo...literally...and I loved it!





After another short week at work, we made the long drive to Bozeman on New Year's Eve and spent a couple of days with good friends. We celebrated 2010 at the local bowling alley, saw a bunch of people over the next couple of days, and watched a lot of Glee. The perfect weekend.







We came back to Denver on Sunday, celebrated the Boise win on Monday, both had job interviews on Tuesday, and are currently watching a boring championship game that Joel is convinced Boise would do well in. I have to agree. I found out today that I didn't get the job I interviewed for on Tuesday -- it was violence prevention with the state health dept and I would have loved to get the job, so I'm pretty disappointed. I guess I'll stick with what I've got for now -- I started the Interim Executive Director job on December 16 so I will keep plugging along. Joel's interview was with the state mining reclamation division and he felt like it went well, no word on their decision yet. And he has another interview with a consulting firm on Monday. So we continue to cross our fingers and stay hopeful about his job search. In the meantime, he still likes his temp job and they are committed to keeping him on as long as they can.

That's about it from here. Wishing you all a happy, healthy, peaceful 2010. Phew, that was tiring, wasn't it Kaya?