Monday, October 27, 2008

Back in the norm...

Hello Everybody,

With the excitement and fun celebrating Jimi's birthday behind us, our week resembled the more traditional outlook.


We worked on putting together our Halloween costumes. Jimi will be a convict and I will be a sexy cop. We’ll be sure to post pictures on our blog for you. For Jimi’s costume, is black hospital attire painted with white stripes. This didn’t work as well as we had hoped, but nevertheless it will be fine. Ideally, we had planned on white attire painted with black stripes, but the store did not have white attire. The final touch will be attaching a ball to a small chain and tying it around his ankle. My costume is fish net stockings, knee high boots, and a black miniskirt with a black collared shirt. I have a black studded belt to go around my waste with handcuffs  and to top it off a badge for my shirt and a police hat. Things should look pretty good. The party is at the Longmont Moose lodge on Halloween night. Our friends Brad & Ellen are joining us, as well as Tammy & Greg.


Jimi attentively worked on midterms for a few of his classes this week. He always does such good work. Often times many of the other students rave over what he produces. One of his projects was to make a tri fold piece of work. I really wish I could show it to you, because it came out really nice and quite professional looking. I’d say there is nothing amateur about his work. He’s good!


I met up with my Wednesday night group of ladies this past week. I’ll plan on visiting with them every week now that I am not making a cake. They are still crocheting; however, I really have no interest in it, so I will take something else to work on.


The refinance saga continues. On Monday I was told we were cleared to close, except that I had to put a railing on the wall leading down to the basement. By doing this the house would meet all FHA requirements. I had taken the railing down earlier to paint the wall, and never put it back up. It was in the garage and a simple fix. I did that immediately on Monday night, took pictures and emailed them to the appraiser. I didn’t hear anything all week until Friday when I received the phone call saying that the underwriter had decided not to accept the appraisal. I was frustrated beyond frustration. How can they keep changing their minds? Luckily for me my broker is a friend of mine and fighting tooth and nail for me. She had the appraiser pull three more comps and submitted them to the underwriter. Finally after what I am told was many back and forth phone calls the underwriter accepted the appraisal (again), and approved my loan (for the 3rd or 4th time). Yet, on Sunday night I received an email saying that there were some exposed areas on the trim around the garage door. They would have to be painted before we could proceed. Jimi went over Monday morning and painted all the trim. We emailed pictures to the appraiser and he resubmitted his report to the underwriter. Supposedly, the documents have been ordered and upon their arrival, we will close the loan. Keep your fingers crossed and your prayers going upward because I will not believe it until the papers are signed.


Friday night we went to Denver, so Jimi could take some photos. Jimi took pictures over the city, on top of a parking garage, and of a popular Jazz bar, El Chapultepec. He is experimenting with a new form of picture taking. After taking pictures, we went inside for a few drinks. We had fun listening to the music and joking around with the staff. But, about 10:30, Jimi said it was time to go home. When we got home, we drank tequila in the hot tub.  


Saturday morning we went to Janni’s Café for breakfast. It is a small family owned café of older stature. Jimi describes it as a place found in the middle of a small Nebraska farm owned community. Anyhow, we like to go there. That afternoon, we took the boat out on the lake for a while. The winds were blowing this day. We were not really expecting it and had a difficult time keeping control of the boat while getting the sail up. Once we decided to take the jib down, we had much better control of the boat. We practiced several turns by going from one end of the lake to the other and back again; getting about three hours of practice in. I was a bit nervous simply because the water was so cold and I DID NOT want to fall in. With the winds as they were the boat was a little rocky. It was a good experience and doing it over and over, encountering as many scenarios as possible is going to prepare us for our big adventure.


Molly and Razor stayed the weekend in Mead again. Jennifer said that all went well and the dogs got along great. The puppies will all be going to their new homes next weekend. After that Jennifer will be keeping Molly and Razor permanently.


Sunday morning I clean the house for about four hours focusing on the nooks and crannies, while Jimi worked on my car and in the garage. We went for a walk, Jimi went on a photo shoot, I went to the grocery store, got a haircut, and later that evening we went to the movie theatre to see Saw V. Good movie!


I have finally uploaded some of our scrapbooks on our weblog. Click on the link below to get to the main page. The scrapbooks are under the scrapbooks link on the right side of the screen. From there you can choose which scrapbook you would like to view. The pictures are a little small, but you can enlarge one at a time by clicking on them. We invite you to look through them and enjoy!


http://dogbonegraphics.com/blog/ 


Be sure to save this link in your favorites!



 

 

Hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love Everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Suprise...Suprise...

Hello Everybody,

This week was special because it was Jimi's birthday. He does not like a big deal made out of his birthday, but in my family we have always celebrated the life of our loved ones, which as you read on, you will see this is what I have done for him. Every year he chooses a place to go for his birthday and this year he wanted to climb Longs Peak up to Chasm Lake in with the purpose of capturing the sunrise on the Longs Peak Rock through his photography. We left Saturday morning at 4:25am, began our climb at 5:18am and arrived back at the truck at 12:18pm. Seven hours with a few stops for photographs, the round trip was 8.4 miles and the terrain was good: not too steep, only some big stair steps, minimal ice, and practically no snow. The first hour of our hike was dark, but watching the sun rise while on the mountain was beautiful. On one side the moon was going down, as the sun was coming up on the other side, which was pretty cool to see.




Jimi got some fantastic pictures of the moon with plenty of detail. While he took pictures at our destination, I explored the lake hoping from rock to rock. He didn't get the exact pictures he was hoping for. He thinks it is too late in the season, but maybe we will try again next year. In fact, maybe we will climb to the top of Longs Peak next summer.

Unbeknownst to Jimi, over the past few months I have been designing, planning and building a life size makeshift birthday cake. I took Wednesday (his birthday) off work and while he was in school, I set the cake up in our kitchen with lots of birthday balloons, a real birthday cake and an overflowing amount of birthday cheer. When he arrived home, the Happy Birthday song was playing in the back ground and I jumped out of the cake. It was really pretty cool and he was stunned. I took him to the Rib House for a late lunch/early dinner and rest of the evening he relaxed in the living room.

The weather was cold and drab the first half of the week, but by Friday the days were beautiful in the mid 70s and sunny. Jimi took advantage of the nice weather to winterize the outside windows. He put storm windows and plastic on most of the windows to prevent the cold winter drafts from entering the house. We still have three windows left, but have decided to wait until winter really sets in. The plastic on those windows will be placed on the inside of the house; therefore, the weather has no bearing on our timing.

Miller has a large lump growing on his gum just under his left side bottom K9 tooth. It is now about the size of a pea. Jimi took Miler to the Veterinarian on Tuesday. They sent a biopsy to the lab checking for cancer. Even though the test is not conclusive, we were happy to learn that it may only be a bacterial infection. Miller is taking antibiotics for the next two weeks to hopefully clear it up. The lump may never go away, but we can watch it and as long as it doesn't get any worse and we don't see any other symptoms, we think all will be fine. Jimi figured out that Miller will be 14 years old in January.

Molly and Razor spent the entire weekend in Mead with Jennifer. She said things went pretty well. All the dogs got along and she expects that once her puppies are gone in a couple of weeks there will be minimal problems with their transition.
Exciting news…Jimi has created a weblog for us. He's been talking about it and working on it for a while now, and it is finally up and running at it's minimum. I will be posting my weekly updates there, as well as there are additional pages which will hold all the scrapbooks I have created and other fun things. I am not going to send you the link right now, as we want to perfect it a little more first. However, watch for the email from me with the link….it's going to be pretty cool. We are both excited about it.

That's it for now. Have a wonderful week.
Love Everybody,
Lorie & Jimi

Monday, October 13, 2008

Short –n- Sweet

Hello Everybody,


 This week lended it's usual routine for the most part: working at Crocs, as well as Cencorp. I finished the internet ADP training I have been attending over the past three weeks. I took Razor and Molly to Mead to visit with Jennifer (the tenant), and in fact she kept Razor for the weekend. She said Razor whined  the whole time. She thought it was because the dog missed us. I thought it was more because she was separated from Molly, but after reuniting the two, she still whined. It was then that we came to the conclusion it was because she wanted to play. After annoying both Jimi and I at bedtime to play, I stayed up and played with her for a while.


 On Tuesday we watched an old 1970s movie "The Verdict" with Paul Newman.


 I went to dinner with my friend Brenda on Wednesday night. And Thursday evening we stayed home and bar-b-qued.


Friday evening I went to dinner with some girls from work. Jimi sold the little car, finally. Jimi got the furnace running, making the house toasty warm just in time for a predicted cold weekend.


 Since the weather turned cold and rainy all weekend, Jimi and I stayed in most of the weekend other than grabbing a bite to eat. On Sunday I had breakfast with my friend Melody, whom I had not seen in months. Sunday evening we got Dairy Queen through the drive through and came back to the house where we sat in the hot tub eating our ice cream. It began sprinkling just then, but that did not stop us. We enjoyed every minuted and every bite.


 Jimi worked most of the weekend on reworking his website. I have attached a link for you and he would like to have feedback from anyone willing to offer their opinion. www.dogbonegraphics.com.


He also put two of the videos he created for class projects on youtube. One of them is an animation of silly bar jokes and the other is the animals in our house with their personalities depicted through music. They are really cute and worth watching.


 Bar jokes:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFIWesJyeQQ


 Animals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFuWF1niwc


 Friday night Jimi gave me a 'Forever' ring; more commonly known as a promise ring only more adult like. He said the ring on my finger will publicly display that I am forever taken and everybody should know it. Then he proceeded to give me scenarios of what we will be like when we are in our 70s. The ring is white gold with three amethyst stones. I was not expecting it.


 


I talked to Daniel for a bit on Sunday evening. He is doing well. He assured me that both he and Jennifer are being taken care of and things are not as bad as Jennifer leads. I somewhat assumed that Jennifer may exaggerate things, but I also must consider that we all have our own perceptions.


 It can be difficult having all four animals here. Although it is a very difficult decision for me to send Razor and Molly to a new home, it's a no brainer that I would choose a life with Jimi rather than keeping my miniature companions.  And don't let me forget to mention that since they have moved with me to Longmont and even though we have tried to create a new routine for them, they frequently purposely misbehave. In addition, they demand a lot of time and attention, and things can get stressful here, so the sooner they can go to their new home, the better. Otherwise I may be in need of a new home as well. Lol


 That was our week and all the news I have for you right now. Don't forget to check out the links above and send Jimi your feedback at Jim@dogbonegraphics.com.


Love Everybody,


Lorie & Jimi

Monday, October 6, 2008

Doing well….

Hello Everybody,


 


Not much to report this week.


 


Again I spent a couple of nights in Mead helping Razor and Molly adjust to Jennifer (tenant) and her dog. The second night did not go so well. All three dogs got into a scuff. Jennifer and I are both convinced that they will do fine once the puppies are out of the picture. Unfortunately for Jimi and I, this will take some time. More time than we were hoping.


 


Jimi spent a lot of time working on the chopper. He took the engine apart, cleaned and reworked the cylinders, and put everything back together. After refereeing the frame of the bike and the engine, he finally got it back together. Unfortunately to his dismay, the bike still runs as it did before he tore into it. He will continue to work on it in hopes he can fix the problem.


 


Friday night Jimi and I went to dinner with our friends, Connie and Rex. After dinner, we went to there house for dessert and drinks. We were so engaged in conversation that time flew by and before we realized it, it was 11:30pm: way past my bedtime. We had a wonder visit, as always!


 


Saturday morning we stuck around the house. We cleaned, did laundry, rearranged a few things, and organized a few more. We ran some errands and then grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob. That evening we watched an old black and white James Stewart movie called " Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". It was a really neat patriotic movie. Very educational and well done.


 


Big news (for me anyhow): I finished the Hawaii scrapbook. I can carry it with me now for the next few months to make sure all my friends get to see it. It turned out well. We are happy with it. It's not as big as our Europe book. The Hawaii book is about 26 pages, whereas Europe was between 45 and 50. 


 


Sunday we went to the coffee shop (like the old days). We worked on our laptops and drank lots of coffee. That afternoon we took the dogs for a walk and that evening I made a nice chicken dinner, worked my Cencorp job and of course more scrap booking. Jimi worked on his computer and we watched a little bit of TV.


 


I was notified by Beta Sigma Phi (my International Sorority group), that I am eligible for something called "Order of the Rose". It has something to do with the number of years of membership. Earlier I had told you that I wanted to leave the group. While I have made the decision to do so, I have not officially resigned yet. Ironically, on Saturday I ran into one of the elderly ladies in the group who I had not seen in a while and was quite close with. She was talking to me about staying in the group. Now I am wondering if I will stay, though I go back and forth on my decision. I will keep you posted.


 


That's all for now. Things have really settled down for us, but I think a break form the constant going will be good for a while.


 


Love Everybody,


Lorie & Jimi