A Post to Boast

Let's face it. A blog is just a place to brag. Take a look at my previous post and you will know that I am flaunting my cute nieces and nephews.

Last night, my Sweet Chicken Chili was pronounced the winner of the Louisville Ward Chili Cook Off! I just can't help but be excited! I got the chili recipe a few months ago from allrecipes.com (I love this site) and decided to enter it because it was so good and easy. My award is this bouquet of chili peppers.
Looks Delicious!

The "trophy" in its new home:

I plan to keep it for a while and then either donate it to Cafe Rio (in exchange for a burrito) or the lady in our ward who said she wanted it...?

The Winning Recipe:
(Because AllRecipes.com isn't exactly a secret)

Ingredients

• 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1 (15 ounce) can dark red kidney beans, undrained
• 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, undrained
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, undrained
• 2 onions, cut into chunks
• 1 green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp Apple cider or rice vinegar
• dash chipotle powder (my change-but chili powder works too)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Place the chicken breasts into a slow cooker, and pour in the kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, onions, green bell pepper, tomato paste, brown sugar, vinegar, chili or chipotle powder, and salt. Stir to combine all ingredients, and set the cooker to High. Cook for 1 hour; stir again, and set the cooker to Low. Cook for 4 more hours.
2. Remove the chicken breasts, shred with 2 forks, and stir the shredded chicken back into the chili. Sprinkle the top of the chili with Cheddar cheese, and serve.
   

The STG

Tim and I took advantage of living closer to Utah and drove to St. George for conference weekend and ...the marathon. Three words describe my experience: hot, long, and ouch. Don't let the smiles in the pictures deceive you; I knew the camera's were there so I faked.

After 26 miles, all form is lost...This picture was taken from Mindy's camera. I didn't know she was there. You can see the pain on my face.

Finished with a time of 3:39:13. I am satisfied.

The picture above is a real smile. No more marathons for a LONG time.

We fit a lot into the weekend. Besides the marathon, we saw some petroglyphs in the desert

and celebrated Halloween with the kids!

I did some carving myself.

Can you guess which is mine? (answer at bottom)

Henry and Hailey were born two days apart (April 29 and May 1). This weekend was their first time meeting. They are adorable!

Grandma had fun too!

Answer:

Yay for a fun weekend!

New York Dolls

Okay, so it's been a few months since this trip, but I forgot my camera and it took a while for us to get these pictures. Nevertheless, we took one last day trip up to the Big Apple with friends Lauren and Andrew before we headed out to Colorado. My wish for this trip was to take a ferry around the island. We purchased our tickets from the National Park Service.

Lauren and Andrew Sutton: We miss you guys!

Andrew really wanted to go to a Yankees game (mostly to see the new stadium) and it just happened that the only day we could go, the Yankees were playing the Mets: Bad idea. Our tickets ended up costing way more than they should have and the fans were crazy!
Fun times taking the Subway!
Fun times made even funner with these guys on our car! They stepped on all quiet and shy and all of the sudden started playing a loud song. One kid on the car was plugging his ears and complaining to his mom. When they finished, they walked around for tips and continued on to the next car. It was so random.
After the game we went to the south (?) side of Manhattan and made a stop at a very important store. It wasn't until later that I found out you can get their peanut butter for about half the price in several grocery stores in the US. Lauren LOVES peanut butter.
We also took a stroll through Washington Square. This is the park everyone is playing music on in August Rush. It is seriously crazy. There were all types of performers.
Most impressively, this man who drew pictures with colored sand. The pictures were amazing, but will blow away at the first gust of wind.
We miss being close to so many fun things in VA, but we're doing well in Colorado. There's not as much time for exploring and trips right now, but we're having fun!

More Colorado Scenery

I found this "open space" called Davidson Mesa when doing my long runs. (Colorado names all of their open spaces, aka: fields of nothing.) It is actually between Louisville and Boulder, but I enjoy running there because you feel like you are alone in the world. You're actually pretty close to civilization, so don't worry mom.

Our Townhouse

We've really enjoyed living in Colorado so far. Tim is enjoying school, and I'm enjoying looking for a job (sometimes). We really like our ward. In fact, we're even speaking on Sunday! We live in a beautiful town just a few miles southeast of Boulder called Louisville (pronounced: loo-is-ville), and we love being out of DC traffic and close to "American" stores (I called Falls Church International America). Below are some pictures of our townhouse. We feel spoiled because it has two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms.

Our bedroom (we have a beautiful fan and stand due to our no a/c, but we haven't even turned it on this past week)
The kitchen. The front door is to the left of the picture and the fridge is behind the left wall. Our front window is also behind the wall which is kind of weird, but it works. I LOVE that there is an open counter above the sink. Other units have a wall there.
The other side of the first floor. The kitchen opens into the dining area. The door here is actually our back door and our stairs are just to the right of the picture.
The upstairs hallway taken from inside our spare bedroom. At least you can see the stairs.Our lovely back porch.
And our backyard. We really got the bottom of the barrel for backyards. Behind the fence is a big road (though not terribly big, relatively) and most of the other yards have grass. We're just happy to have a yard though.
This ends our tour. Thank you for joining us.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Tim and I drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day before he started school. It's only about 40 miles north of us. It was pretty amazing.

Our 9 mile hike took us up above the tree line to this lake by glaciers.
Beautiful scenery everywhere
We even saw some wildlife!

One more thing to bribe you to come visit.

"I thought the Rocky Mountains would be a little.....Rockier"

Meet Boulder...

Ever wonder why the Rocky Mountains were named Rocky?
This is the other side of Boulder/Louisville/Denver...
Now that's more like it!

To answer your questions, YES. Colorado is everything we thought it would be.

Below are some things I have learned (or confirmed):

1. It's true. The people here are very outdoorsy. Example: We were eating dinner with some people in our ward and Tim said, "I like to hike, I'm just not one of those people who goes to REI every week." One of the guys said, "Yeah, It took me two years of working at REI to get my equipment."
2. They are also very organic. Example: Tim and I stopped by the Louisville Farmers Market one Saturday and ended up talking to the people who deliver milk straight from the farm. Real milkmen. We weren't opposed to the idea except that it was about twice as much as milk from the grocery store. While we were with our neighbors from our ward, Tim saw that they had that same milk in their fridge. Oh, and we ate hormone-free, other-stuff-free hamburgers for dinner.
3. Boulder is a diverse place. Example: in Tim's anti-harassment class on campus for being a TA, they said you must be very considerate on calling someone a "he" or "she" if "he/she" is in the process of changing their gender. It's a delicate subject.
4. There are a lot of people who stand on the exit ramps holding weird signs. We wondered if they have to unofficially rent them out. Example: On our way to Estes Park we stopped at an intersection in the middle of nowhere. A man with an arm sling held a sign saying "Wounded soldier. I need to get home to my daughter in Texas." Yes this sounds sincere, but he was on the ramp to go North. ?
5. Everyone rides their bike. Example: I got mine out and rode to the library yesterday. I haven't ridden in two years, but I figured if everyone else did, I needed to, too. My bum is sore today.
6. The weather here is wonderful! It gets warm during the middle of the day, but the evenings are perfect! We don't even have air conditioning.
7. Dogs are citizens in the city of Boulder. For example: Tim was sitting in class and a dog walked in. A girl went in after it, and instead of apologizing, she said, "wrong classroom" and proceeded to take the dog next door. Example #2: I was going on a hike with the neighbor from church and she said, "Can you believe dogs aren't allowed in REI? They can go in Marshalls next door but can't go in REI?"
8. Yes. Subarus are very prevalent in Colorado. Have you ever seen Catch and Release? Its not a very good movie, but it takes place in Boulder and they drive a Subaru Outback. They did a good job of portraying the population.
9. Colorado is BEAUTIFUL! For example: see my post coming next week.
10. The kicker: Marijuana is legal for "medicinal purposes" in the city of Boulder. For example:

and:

Though I didn't take these pictures, I have seen these signs in person. Don't worry, I'm not interested.
I hope you enjoyed my orientation to Colorado.