2013 :)

Hi Everyone!!

Sorry we have been MIA from our blog, but you know how it is.  I am, of course, using the same old excuse....busy busy busy lives during the holiday season!

We are all very happy and healthy and had a wonderful Christmas, NYE, and start to 2013!!  Bruce is still doing very well at his new facility and position.  I am finally done with school!!! YAY!! I am still working as a nanny for the Miller family, and love every minute! I always say I am going to have the hardest time when I finally leave.  I will be starting the "big girl job" hunt once we decide where we are going to plant some roots.  Speaking of......

Yes the rumor is out, we are CONSIDERING moving back to MI.  We know three things for sure:

1. We DO NOT want to live in the Soo.  (sorry fellow Soo peeps, but it's just not for us)
2. We will make our final decision by this summer so we are able to purchase our first home either here in CO or in MI, no more procrastinating. 
3. Bittersweet!! We are pulled in two directions.  We absolutely LOVE CO more than anywhere, but also want to be a bit closer to family and friends, which makes this decision bittersweet.  If we stay here, we know we will love our life and environment, but if we move back to MI we know we will love being closer to so many that we love.  

So yes, MI is an option we are thoroughly considering.  We are weighing all of our options and will definitely keep you all posted as to what we decide by the time summer rolls around.  

So back to the holiday season, we had a fabulous time.  Being promoted to Sgt. has its definite advantages.  One being, having the upper hand at getting days off.  Bruce was able to have Christmas Eve, Christmas, NYE, and New Years Day off.  It was such a pleasure to spend the time together.  We were able to spend Xmas eve with my Gram down in Pueblo.  Christmas we cuddled in our matching (yes I said matching! It's one of our family traditions we started a few years back:) PJ bottoms and relaxed.  We were able to Skype with some of our loved ones while opening our AMAZING gifts (THANK YOU!!).  We cooked a delicious dinner and cuddled up some more.  New years eve we had a few friends over and ate, drank, played games and repeated all night! It was so fun.  New years day was spent in PJ's watching football recuperating.  It's true what they say, the older you get the longer it takes to recover from a night of drinking. 

We have been busy snowshoeing every chance we get.  Our latest trip took us two hours up to Breckenridge and it was beautiful!! We had yet to go and it was just so awesome.  It is your typical tourist CO ski town, but we loved the charm.  And the trail we took was breath-taking.   Weight Watchers is again in progress.  I took a few weeks off for the holidays and am back at it.  Hopefully the new year brings a more disciplined 2013. Wish me luck! 

Well that pretty much sums up our lives for the past month......Holiday fun, celebrating, being adventurous in the mountains, and weighing our options for future decisions.  Typical ;) 

We hope you all are doing well.  

Love and Miss you all tons! 

xoxo,

Bruce, Nic, and Pudge 

One of the views we saw at the top of our climb

Xmas morning breakfast! TY Pinterst for the yummy idea! 

(Crescent rolls, cream cheese, apple pie filing, & cinnamon sugar)

Stuffed Peppers! YUUUM! 

We made homemade chocolate covered pretzels. They turned out so good! 

My team lost last night! It was so depressing to drive by the stadium today.

But there's always next year! #Broncos

Our new stockings. We love them! :) 

The beautiful 16x20 canvas we received as a gift! I LOVE it! 

The framed dates are those of the date we started dating, got engaged, and 

married.  The idea came from pinterest of course, and it's super cute! 

One of our favorite gifts.  A dutch oven pot (I have been DYING for one!)

And an adorable MI oven mit.  One side has the U.P and the other downstate.

Bruce jumping off a hill while snowshoeing

Love 

Good Eats!

Hi Everyone!!

The Brown house has been busy Christmas shopping and getting ready to celebrate this beautiful time of year.  We hope you all are enjoying this festive time as much as we are.

We did a lot of delicious cooking these past weeks and everything has turned out so delicious.  I have picked out some new recipes from Pinterest to try each week.  I have "pinned" a lot and was starting to see double.  I figured it was best to try them out before continuing to pin more and more.

Last week I made a homemade marinara sauce to go with the homemade chicken parmesan.  Bruce absolutely loved it, which sorta surprised me because he isn't usually a chicken man.  And for dessert I made a Butter cake with whipped butter frosting. YUM! I had to send it with Bruce to work to get it out of the house ;).

This week I made eggs benedict.  The hollandaise sauce turned out soooo good.  I decided to follow the recipe exactly and hand whip the sauce, well that was the hardest part.  My arm was killing me by the time I was done, I think next time the kitchenaid will make an appearance.  I was a bit nervous because I had never poached an egg before, but it was relatively easy.  I found out the secret from a fellow "Pinner" was to add 3-4 tbsp of white vinegar to the water, which helps keep the egg together.  And for dessert I made mini cheesecake bites and they are delicious and SO easy.

You can go to Pinterest to join the site and find all of these delicious recipes :)

On Tuesday, when Bruce is off we are going to make all of our Christmas cookies.  We make them every year for a few friends, our mailman, and neighbors.  But this year we decided to send most of cookies to a few Marines that are overseas and are friends of friends.  We also found an amazing site that we feel everyone should take a look at.  It's called Any Soldier and it is a site that you can randomly chose a soldier that is currently deployed and send a gift.  There are a few rules, but it is relatively easy.  You can get the flat rate boxes at the post office and fill with all sorts of things.  We have done this for the past few years and it truly is an amazing site.  Please take a moment to check it out and send some holiday cheer to the people that work very hard to give us all our freedom.  :)

Well we hope all is well!! We will leave you with a few pics of our week.
Love and Miss you all TONS!! xoxo
Nic and Bruce

It finally came in! :) 

 

The gorgeous view we came out to after doing some shopping 

Mini Cheesecake bites 

Eggs Benedict

Happy Holidays!

Ti's the season!!

Happy Holidays everyone!! We hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving!! :)

We had a fabulous time in MI with family and friends.  It was a wonderful two weeks down state with them.  Bruce's surprise 28th birthday party turned out AMAZING!!! So many wonderful people showed up and he had a great time! He said he was very surprised!!! :)  A BIG shout out to our truly AMAZING friends and parents.  I planned everything BUT it was the girls and our parents that got all the balls rolling and made sure it all turned out perfectly.  I couldn't be more grateful to have each and every one of them in our lives.

Bruce got to do some hunting, relaxing, and visiting with friends.   He shot an 8 point buck, which was super exciting! So because we had a lot of venison that we couldn't take back with us, we took a day trip up to the Soo a couple of days before leaving so we could give some to my Dad and to go to Tman's birthday party.  It was so good  to see everyone once more before we took off back to CO.

One highlight of my trip was that some of my best friends were able to come stay for a few days in GR.  I am so lucky to have people willing to come all the way down just to see us.  We were able to shop, laugh, and eat and we did a lot of all three.  :)

The biggest highlight for Bruce and I, besides seeing friends and family of course, was seeing our baby, Pudge.  He didn't leave our sides and we loved every minute of it.

And not only were we able to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family, first holiday in 5 years, but we were able to celebrate Bruce AND Rosie's (my mother-in-law) birthday!!  Thanksgiving was DELICIOUS and so fun! We ate, ate, ate, played games, and ate some more.  Bruce, of course, had his surprise birthday.  He also got the gift of his dreams and I am so excited for him! :)  He got a large gift card to finally go and buy his iMac.  The new one just came out the 30th, so he had to wait a bit but it gets delivered on Monday and he's so excited! And it was so wonderful to be around for Rosie's birthday.  We got her a Coach bag and she loved it.  I was so excited to give it to her!

Gosh, reading over this post I realize that this post is all over the place.  ;) Sorry!  Hope all is well with you all!!

Love and Miss you all ALREADY!!!
Nichole, Bruce, and Pudge

B and his buck

Standing next to his bday sign outside the restaurant 

Family photo 

Some of my girlies 

Peggy ridin' it! :)

Pullin the Corvette out for a bit

Brothers 

Danny and I have awesome boots

shooting a gun for the first time.  I was nervous about how 

loud it would be, so B helped me! 

Brothers shooting

Boys

Family photo in MI 

And the beautiful view we came home to :) 

BRRRRRR

First and for most, HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY!! Thank you doesn't seem to be enough, but THANK YOU for all you and your families sacrifice.  A special thanks to some of my favorites.....Dad, Scott, Uncle Kent, Brent, Damon, Kim, and Wes.

My Heroes..... Dad, Scott, and Uncle Kent (RIP) 

OK so remember when I was blogging about CO still having 70 degree weather?! Well that is long gone! In just two days we went from T-shirts and flip flops to coats and Uggs.  It's only in the 30's and snowing.  But on the bright side of it, I was able to finally wear my new riding boots, and I LOVE them.  :)  It is suppose to start warming up this week, but we are leaving! Hitting the jet way yet again :)

This past week has been filled with organizing our life and getting everything ready for us to be gone for two weeks.  I also had some time to try some new recipes I have been dying to try! They turned out DELICIOUS!

The first was weight watchers baked lemon pepper chicken.

•  Four skinless boneless chicken breast
• 1/4 tsp pepper (salt can be added also, but def doesn't need it!)
• 1 tsp Olive Oil
• 2 tsp Lemon Juice
• 2 tsp Rosemary
• 2 tsp Parsley 
• 1/4 cups of Fat Free canned Chicken broth
• 1/2 medium lemon (cut up)
• and Lemon Pepper Seasoning to taste
• Bake at 400 F for 30-35 mins 

It turned out so juicy and delicious! And so simple!!!

The second was Baked Cinnamon Apple Chips

• 2 large red or green apples
• Cinnamon (to taste)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg 
• Sugar to taste (I left this out and they were deliciously sweet!)
• Slice thinly and sprinkle with the cinnamon and nutmeg 
• Bake at 245 for 2 hours (or until they are crispy enough for your liking) 

These are some of my new favs! They are sweet but healthy and make a WONDERFUL snack!! 

Bruce is well and VERY excited for his two week vacation, and boy does he deserve it! He hasn't been on vacation since our honeymoon.......He is as amazing as ever.  I received yet again another gift in the mail.  A hand held Kitchenaid mixer.  He knows sometimes I get annoyed having to pull out the big Kitchenaid stand mixer because it can be a pain to clean, so he got me the hand mixer I have been drooling over.  What a man!  He also found a couple of guys to car pool with to work, which is great! It will cut our gas bill, that is OUTRAGEOUS, in half.  YAY! :)

Weight Watchers is great.  Lost another 4 pounds.  Down 5 in total for two weeks, not too bad! Now on vacation I have to try and remember this.......ahhhhh ;)

Well I think that is about all I have for now!! We hope you all are well.  We love and miss you tons!

Love,
Nichole and Bruce

The beautiful flowers I came home to :) Lucky

Cinnamon Apple Chips & Hot tea..... YUM! 

Shopping Spree

Hi everyone!

Everything is pretty much the same in the Brown household.  We are LOVING our new location, the apartment is still cozy and sweet but we wouldn't go as far as to say we LOVE it.  But we certainly LOVE the new location.

Weight Watchers is slowly but surely getting back on track, down 1.2 pounds this week.  Bruce is still getting use to the new job, but adjusting well.  Pudge is still doing well at Grandpa Browns, but we are missing him like CRAZY.

We decided to treat ourselves to a bit of a shopping spree.  Some people would think it was no biggie or not much, but for us it was out of the norm and fun! We finally went to a store called Home Goods and loved it.  It is like a Ross, with everything from furniture to decorations for your home and very reasonably priced.  I LOVED it, and Bruce who isn't usually big on shopping even loved it. We bought some adorable things for our home.  Some are out in the apartment, but some stayed packed and took up residence in storage.

On that note we also decided to hit up the new IKEA store.  Neither of us had experienced IKEA before, it was amazing to say the least.  It took us two hours to get through the entire store, but it was so fun.  Everyone should shop at IKEA at least once in a life time. :)

I also got a surprise in the mail, a beautiful Coach travel tote as a wonderful gift from my hubby for our upcoming travels in November.  Coach had its annual sale last week, so I went and bought two new bags, one for myself and one as a gift (seriously ladies, look for their sales they are AMAZING! It's the only time I can bring myself to buy coach and feel it's justified haha).  My wonderful husband picked up on this and went shopping.......he knew I would normally never spend the money on a travel tote, but always loved them.  So he got it for me, I love it! Of course I decided he needed a thank you gift so I ordered some of his favorite sweat pants, that we can never find in the stores because he needs tall sizes.


I also fell into the riding boot trend and iPad mini tech trend.  I am excited to wear the boots out when the weather cools a bit, we are still in the 70's here, but I'm not complaining. ;) And as for the iPad mini, well I was talked into it.  I was happy with just the macbook, and was leaning towards buying a kindle fire for travel and convenience, but Bruce talked me over to the other side.  He said we have the macbook, iPad, phones, and are planning on buying an apple printer (any advice on which one is the best would be appreciated) so I might as well "stay in the family."  So as afraid of the iPad things I am (don't judge I NEVER use B's ;) and like to stick with my macbook, my husband had a point and it's on the way, well after the two week order wait.  Wish me luck......

We wanted to say a big THANK YOU to my mother-in-law and Dad for the awesome championship Tigers T-shirts and sweat shirts.   We were so excited to sport these out in CO and support our team.  :)

We hope all is well.  We miss you all like CRAZY!!!

Love,
Nichole & Bruce xoxo

The awesome pond Bruce and I like to walk around by our home.  2 miles of gorgeous scenery

One of my favorite buys from Home Goods.  Adorable tea box

One of my favorite buys from IKEA.  Too cute! And only $6.99! 

New home

Hi everyone!! Long time no blog.......

We are doing well and things are finally settling down!  We officially moved into our new place in Denver almost two weeks ago.  We are finally settling in and getting use to being back in the city full time.

Like I have said a million times before, moving is HELL on Earth!!! And ours was sure to prove me right.  The apartment complex we finally decided on was nice and seemed to fit us perfectly, so we signed papers and paid fees and were ready to move in.  Then THREE days before our move date, we get a call.  Apparently the apartment complex went through an entire "management sweep" as they called it, and misplaced our signed forms.  So they "needed" us to come back up to Denver to sing more.  Funny how they lost our paperwork, but seemed to have our check safe and secure.....hmmmmmm.  BUT the kicker was that their rental approval person wasn't going to be in the office until Monday afternoon, which meant we wouldn't have a FOR SURE signed lease until Monday evening.  Bruce and I were absolutely not ok with this and were sorta freaking out.  So Bruce called in sick (shhhhh don't tell ;) and we drove up to Denver Saturday, got our money back from the terrible first apartment complex and found another.

Now as the saying goes, "everything happens for a reason," this was very fitting for us.  We ended up finding a much much nicer, in a better area, and gated apartment complex that ended up having WAY better deals.  So we signed and officially had a place as of Saturday at 3pm.  All in all finding an apartment was stressful to say the least, but did end up working out for the best.

The actual move itself was as hard as expected.  We started at 8am and did not finish hauling the last of our stuff out of the truck until 11pm.  VERY VERY long day.  But we are now all settled.  Our apartment is not half as bad as I was expecting it to be, and is actually quite cozy and cute.  Our garage on the other hand is CRAMMED full.  We basically threw everything that was not immediately coming into the house into the garage and closed the door.  We both have some time off this week, so we will be trying to organize and clean it.

Bruce is settling in nicely at work.  He has been training and learning the ropes.  Pudge is all settled at Grandpa Browns and we missssss him so much it hurts.  But truth be told, it was by far the right decision.  With our schedules and the small apartment, he will be much more comfortable with the room at Grandpas.  But it just isn't home without him and we are counting down the days until we get him back........

I am officially back on Weight Watchers and going back to meetings.  I conked out for a while and gained some weight back and am looking forward to getting back on the wagon.  I will try and report weekly, like I was doing prior to my hiatus.

All in all life is slowly getting back to normal, so hopefully I will be able to return to blogging more frequently.

Hope all is well.

Love,
Bruce and Nichole xoxo

Packing Machines

So life is pretty uneventful in the Brown household lately.  We have been spending most of our free time packing up the house, garage, and shed for the big move.  We will (hopefully) be officially moving everything the weekend of October 13th and then using the last few weeks of October to clean the house in Florence spotless to ensure we get our deposit back ;).  Bruce will officially be starting his new job October 15th! So it is all a tight squeeze, but as usual we are managing.

We have looked at a few places, but still have yet to sign a lease in Denver.  We are leaning towards a one bedroom apartment for 9 months.  It's going to be a tight squeeze for sure, but it comes with a garage so we will have a storage place for everything that we plan to keep packed up, which is going to be as much as possible!  Why unpack just to pack again in 9 or less months?! That's my new motto, it's going to help me get through living in an undecorated sardine can.  Gotta stay positive people!! :)

We will then take the 9 months to find a house to purchase.....we have looked and found so many options and are so excited.  BUT first things first......sing a lease and get through the move.

Did I ever tell you that I am a completely convinced that Hell is indeed an endless routine of packing, moving, and unpacking?!  I can officially say that moving is the thing I HATE doing the MOST in the entire world!!  Dramatic much?! YES!! ;) Thank goodness this will (hopefully) be our last move into a leased home and we will have only one more move, into a home we will own.  Again, staying positive!

We hope all is well with everyone! We miss you all terribly!

Love,
Nichole, Bruce, and Pudge xoxo