Warm or Cold?!?!

Hi Everyone,

We are all happy and healthy......now.  I just got rid of the flu bug about a week ago.  All the news channels reported that this is one of the worst flu seasons in a long long time, and I definitely CONCUR! It was the worst case of the flu I have had in a long long time.  My worried hubby finally made me go see the doc. and it turned out I had strep and an ear infection.  And that was all towards the end of the sickness, due to me stubbornly refusing to go in the few days prior.  The beginning was the worst head cold ever, which included 10 boxes of Kleenex and 5 bottles of NyQuil (OK MAYBE a little exaggerated).  But needless to say, I feel back to "normal" :) And our fingers and toes are crossed that Bruce doesn't get it.

Bruce got moved to a different unit within the same prison facility.  He wasn't happy about leaving his original unit, but the schedule works a lot better for him.  He no longer has to do fast turnarounds, going from days 2-10 to mornings 6-2, which he usually did at least once or twice a week.  Now he is on all days.  Pudge is doing well with Grandpa Brown.  I get daily pictures, thank goodness, because we are missing him sooooo much.

Weight watchers is going well.  I am down 24.6 pounds. :)  I am feeling re-energized and have my running schedule back on track.  We also just signed up for the color run in Denver in June, and I am so excited.  We have done plenty of 5k's, but never a color run and they look so fun!

We have had AMAZING weather lately, in the high 50's and even low 60's sometimes.  And the sun is usually always shining!  But CO weather is sooooo unpredictable.  One minute we are golfing in sweatshirts and the next we have our snow suites out.   That's how the last few weeks have been.  So we plan our activities depending on the weather for that specific day.  But I suppose I can't complain too much, beings though my Soo MI family just had a terrible store come through.

We hope all is well with you all.  We miss you dearly.

Love,
Nichole and Bruce xoxo

My valentines themed breakfast for Bruce.  Along with some 

chocolate covered strawberries. 

I got off the treadmill and set my shoes aside, and then laughed a lot after

looking at them sitting beside B's.  HUGE  vs TINY :) 

Golf in February with the beautiful snow capped mts. in the background 

So fun! 

Groupon has great deals sometimes! We got these cute phone covers

(B's not pictured) all for only $12!! Love them. 

Kale chips. YUUUM! Just tear up some kale, put on a baking pan lined with 

tin foil (too keep the mess to a minimum) and drizzle with extra virgin olive

oil and salt.  Bake at 350 for about 15 mins.  SO delicious and a healthy option. 

Adding some color

Hi Everyone!

We are doing well and loving the mild and beautiful winter here in CO.  We snowshoe almost every weekend up in the beautiful mountains! Our last snowshoeing adventure was 4 miles long, and tough! But so worth it in the end! :) Other than that it is business as usual....

So I decided we needed to add some more color and organization in our lives.  A trip to Ikea for some new throw pillows and containers was, of course, the only way to achieve this goal.......

My new containers for the pantry.  I just added some chalkboard stickers 

and I love how the pantry looks now! 

New throw pillows. COLOR! 

Some other purchases from Ikea.....New larger lantern & shoe rack :) 

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Ikea?! ;)  

We hope you are all doing well!! Love and Miss you all

Nichole & Bruce xoxo

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!