Yay!

Things are going well here in Colorado. The Fall weather has been beautiful, Tim is enjoying school, and I am happy to say I have found a job! It is for WellPoint, a subsidiary of Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I will be a Health Educator, and my job will be working with patients of the insurance company who have chronic conditions through phone, fax, mailings, etc. taking health assessments and educating them about wellness and (some) exercise. It will be a change from working face to face with people, but I am excited to try something different. I also get my own cubicle on the 11th floor of this building in Denver:
It will be another commute of about 40 minutes, but I've done it for the past 3 years, so I can handle it some more. The best thing about the job: I am eligible to work from home after 9 months! Then my commute will be excellent! The hours are kind of a bummer (12:30-9pm), but I will be able to continue teaching my Yoga class and there are a lot of good things about the company. Basically, I am way excited! I start training on November 8th, so I've still got two weeks of partying! I'd better get busy...

The picture below is of a really pretty hike Tim and I went on last Friday...

Namaste

Before moving to Colorado, I decided this would be a good time for me to earn my 200 hour RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher). I have been attending Yoga Sansar with my instructor, Chuna Rai-Nelson, every Saturday and some weeknights since August and will complete my training November 6th!

I am excited to say I got a job teaching a modified yoga class at the Louisville Senior Center and I now sub at the recreation center (they are connected). Yay for 2.5 hours of work a week!

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.