happy new year!

terrierist

ever wonder why you don't often see terriers patiently waiting outside restaurants while their owners enjoy a lovely meal?  well, I no longer do. 

Let's just say if barking were dollars we could pay for the bailout.  but we had a lovely day none the less.   

(aren't Steven's sunglasses great?  he found them in his ski stuff.  I think he bought them when he was in high school.  I'm going to steal them.)

We snowshoed up to the Pine Creek Cookhouse for lunch (we ended up getting take out and sitting with Gus and Ollie on the deck, which stopped the barking) and it was delicious!  

this is the view from the deck.

It's a lovely restaurant that you can only get to via snowshoe, cross country ski, or horse drawn sleigh, and the food is great.  

(I think much of the barking was 18 pound Ollie trying to take on a Clydesdale.)

pop!

I usually like my champagne straight, but this champagne cocktail looks pretty enough to change my mind.

recipe and photo from the kitchen.

paint by numbers

when I get home I am going to paint our living room and I'm thinking of painting it something like this.  

someone tell me i am crazy.

from house tour of Abigail Ahern's home on designsponge.

break my heart

This morning I made some eggs in a baskets, at least that's what I think they were called in the Betty Crocker cookbook for kids I had when I was little.  

Steven loved them so much, he had two.  

brilliant

Today we had the perfect plan, snowshoe into town for a hot chocolate with the doggies!

oh, I should mention that it's 11 miles to town.

So, off we went on the beautiful trail, greeting (or growling at in the case of Gus and Ollie) passing cross country skiers and having a wonderful time, until tragedy struck. we came to a sign on the trail that said no dogs!!!
No dogs?
No dogs.
It's because of elk migration or something, and to think I used to think elk were beautiful.

Luckily, we were still near the road and my dad came to fetch Gus and Ollie so we could soldier on.

It was beautiful.

there were ice crystals that clung to plants making it look as though they had grown feathers.

and then when the sun got high in the sky, they warmed up, fell off making a little pile of glitter.

We could see forever, and it was so quiet when we would stop our trudging for a minute or two.

Only draw back of the whole thing is that now my legs are so tired I think I might not be able to stand up for a week.

oh well, it was worth it.

puff

I know it's gotten freakishly warm in most of the country this past week, but it's still cold here and these photo of Maggie Gyllenhaal and her husband reminded me that I want a long puffer coat. 

tie me up, tie me down

thonet chairs seem to be everywhere these days. 

 The conran shop has three versions designed by Martino Gamper, and I've seen dining rooms with red thonet chairs on a bunch of blogs, including apartmenttherapy.  (even I wrote about them here back in november.)

but of all the altered versions of the classic no. 14 chair, I like this one best.  

soft shoe

Yesterday was the first day since we've been here that it didn't snow and we went snowshoeing with Gus and Ollie.  They were so tired when we got home they went straight to their nice new bed that my mom got them for Christmas and went to sleep!

Steven was pretty tired too.  

move 'em out!

I ended up getting my nephews Colin and Declan Trunki ride on suitcases for Christmas, and they are a huge hit!  

non toxic

poinsettias are not toxic, sugar doesn't make kids hyper and you don't lose all your body heat through your head?  

really? 

those and other holiday myths put to rest here.

handsome

I think Gus is ready to move to Colorado.

macgyver pasta

For my mom's birthday dinner on Christmas day, we decided to make parpadelle with lobster in vodka sauce, and to make the pasta from scratch.  (making lobster 8500 feet above sea level, smack in the middle of Colorado makes sense, I swear.)

after I made the dough we ran into a few problems.  

First problem: I had to roll out and cut the dough by hand, which is harder than it looks. (even if you think it looks really, really hard.)

Second problem: we couldn't find the rolling pin so I had to use a wine bottle. 

Third problem: the laundry drying rack that I was going to use to dry the pasta was full of clothes so I used hangers,

 and hung them on the chandelier.  

 

Problems solved we made the sauce, which was as easy as rolling out the dough was difficult.

In the end it was well worth it because it was delicious!  maybe one of the best meals I have ever had.  

Happy Birthday Mom!

masterpiece

my mom's birthday is Christmas day so my nephews, Steven and I made her a cake.  Colin and Declan were in charge of decorating and did a great job. (I don't think there is a sprinkle left in the state.)

where's Ollie?

I guess Ollie does like the snow!

flat pack

I can't remember where I saw it, but I love this chair, called chair fix, by Ben Wilson.  

the chairs are CNC cut from MDF, and can be customized.

more info here.

r.i.p.

merry merry

I hope everyone has as wonderful a Christmas as this kid had!

image from flickr.

we made it!

our flight was uneventful, Gus and Ollie survived being stuffed under our seats and we have arrived in Colorado!  I am pretty sure my niece and nephews were more excited to see the dogs than they were to see me, but that's ok.  

there's already tons of snow here (and here tons of snow is a good thing) and it's snowing right now.  It'll be sunny tomorrow so, I'm going snow shoeing with Gus and Ollie, while Steven goes snowboarding.  

image here.

happy holidays!

tomorrow will be filled with packing and prepping and then we are off to Colorado.  I may post something here and there but just in case I don't, let me say that I hope everyone has happy, and safe holidays, and a most delightful new year!

image from here.

and your little dog too

We were flipping through the channels on TV and finally settled on watching the Wizard of Oz for the thousandth time. (for me anyway, I think it's the first time Steven's seen it all the way through.  I guess they don't play it on a thousand times on Italian TV before Christmas each year.) 

I had no idea Gus and Ollie would like it, but they got all excited and barked at the Wicked Witch and the flying monkeys when they messed with Toto.  

I am most certainly anthropomorphizing too much, but can't help but think that they are looking at Toto and saying to themselves "Hey, that guy looks just like me!" 

But really, Gus and Ollie are a whole lot cuter.    

more cookies

we're stuck at home because of a big storm and so I made more Christmas cookies, this time Linzer sandwiches.  They are so good I think we might not share them and just eat them all by the time we leave for Colorado on Monday instead!  

snow day

We were supposed to fly out to Colorado for the holidays today, but the inch an hour of snow we're getting cancelled our flight.  Luckily we were able to reschedule for Monday.  

Maybe we should fill our time between now and then with sledding.  

photos from flickr.

christmas cookies

I planned to take these with us to Colorado to see my family tomorrow, but considering the snow storm that is headed our way (8 to 10 inches of snow in the next 24 hrs!) I might take them to the neighbors for dinner, but tonight I made Christmas cookies!  yum!

so cute!

I love this baby hoodie made from recycled old sweaters that I saw on Etsy.  I have to try to make something like it for my nephews.

smokin'

I love that this guy is going to be our president.  

more college aged Obama photos here.

redo

We have been planning on redoing our bathroom since we bought our house 3 years ago, but have been putting it off because of the expense, because it will be a big pain and because after all our construction projects in the last couple years, I just can't stand the idea of having workers in the house anymore. 

Lately, I had been thinking I could do the work myself (we'd get a plumber and an electrician to come in. but I'd do the rest) and was gearing up to do it in the new year.  But after seeing this photo on aparmenttherapy, I may have changed my mind.