Happy Halloween!

Today Clare had a halloween party at her daycare center so we had her dress up. She's still a bit young to go trick-or-treating yet and even going to just a few houses in this costume was out of the question tonight since it was a crispy thirty two degrees. That's right sports fans. Thirty two degrees outside at 7:00pm. BRRRRRR!!!!! That's pretty typical here this time of year though and a few years ago it snowed on halloween. This year we dressed Clare up as a Denver Broncos cheerleader and she really loved the costume. I took advantage at my work and wore my jersey. Hey, any reason to wear jeans and sneakers. My work doesn't allow jeans so it was a nice change.

With halloween only happening one day out of the year, we let Clare eat a lot of candy. She was in hog heaven! Why wouldn't she be, though? She's a kid and it's candy we're talking about here. In a year or two she'll really begin to understand the concept of getting all the free candy she wants on halloween by trick-or-treating and she'll be dragging us around the neighborhood while she stocks up on snickers, butterfingers and M&Ms. This year though she was very happy running to the door to say hi to all of the kids coming to our place for candy. GO BRONCOS!!!!!

BOO HOO! Broncos 31 - Colts 34

Today Debra and I had tickets to see the Broncos host the Colts. The Colts hadn't lost a game and they were going to be REALLY tough to beat. To be honest, I thought we were going to get our asses handed to us on a silver platter by Payton Manning. Well, we came INCREDIBLY close to winning. The Colts won with a field goal with 6 seconds left in the game after we screwed up a scoring opportunity and had to settle for a field goal ourselves. It hurt losing by a field gola with seconds left, but it was a respectable loss as far as I'm concerned. I like Payton Manning a lot and he showed a lot of class after the game with good things to say about Denver and the Broncos. Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium is a great place to see a game and the weather was PERFECT. We arrived early and saw plenty of interesting individuals, including this scarecrow with a noose hanging white Colt.

There was a fun opening too, with the banner you see here on the field, a big blow up tunnel with a big Brongo on the mouth that the players ran out of and a fly-over by four F-18 jets. They were so low they seemed to go right over our heads. We were feeling good the whole game. Every time we got the ball we brought it up the field and scored. The only problem was, so did the Colts.

We had great seats at the first row of the upper level. Our row was wheel chair accessible so it was the only row there. No one behind us! The tunnel to the concession stands were right behind us but the only beer I could find was Bud. Ugh...no thanks.

Whenever the Broncos score a white arabian named Thunder rides out while fireworks go off. It was great that we got to see that four times today. There's a special, climate-controled room for Thunder inside that's always 68 degrees. At any rate, we had a GREAT time and Clare was a perfect angel for our neighbors Dick and Laura who babysay for us. We're definitely looking forward to going to many more games in the future. We're now 5 and 2 and we're doing great this season with plenty of games to go until the playoffs. GO BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesn't look like much yet, but...

We're pregnant! We've been waiting for our first doctors appointment before really going public with it and that appointment was today. Everything looks great and we're happy we can finally let everyone know. Debra and I talked and decided we wanted another baby eleven weeks ago. So Debra stopped taking her birth control pills and immediately had a period. 2 weeks later she was pregnant. So our little package is nine weeks old today. My sperm RULES!!!! Ok, ok...Debra had a little to do with it also. But hey, my sperm RULES!!!! I'm going to take plenty of pictures and use this as our pregnancy journal among other things like general family stuff.


Speaking of general family stuff, check out our cool haunted gingerbread house. It came assembled but we had to decorate it. Clare even helped out. While we were doing it were were sure it was going to be horrible. We had frosting dripping off the roof and I messed up the window on the side. But afterwards when we were done we both thought it turned out pretty nice. Too bad you can't eat it. The frosting is like super-bond calk that you can lay brick with.


Remember that episode of The Brady Bunch when everyone's stuff started to go missing? Everyone finally realized their dog Tiger was taking their things and stashing them in his doghouse. Well Clare has a cabinet in the kitchen she likes to hide in. When she hides in it though she tells us "I'm going to hide" and gets in giggling like a spaz while we stand there watching. Surprisingly, we always know she's there. Anyway, I was looking for a coaster the other day and I asked Clare if she knew where they were. She immediately went to this cabinet and there they were with a boatload of other things like my NFL schedule, some plates, various toys, some shoes...you get the idea. So now if anything is missing, I know the first place I need to look.

Gearing up for Halloween

Last weekend Debra, Clare and I headed down to Littleton to a pumpkin patch. Pumpkin patches are different in Colorado. In California a pumpkin patch is an emty lot that a company sells pumpkins on. They'll have a few goats, maybe a pony and a few other things to make it look fun but they're pretty small and basic. In Colorado the pumpkin patches are actually pumpkin farms. They're very big and you go out and pick your own pumpkins. This particular place also had hayrides from the parking area and back as well as food vendors, rides, activities and a HUGE maze cut out of their corn field. We didn't do the maze but a man I was talking to said it was seperated into two sections so you could do the whole thing or you could leave half way through. He and his daughter walked through half of it and it took them an hour. We saw an arial photo and it was amazing. This thing was so massive and the center was cut out to be a HUGE black widow spider. Debra said she didn't have any desire to do something like that but as soon as Clare is 4 or 5 years old I'm taking her in! Call me a glutton for punishment but it sounds fun to me. You might have also noted I'm wearing a Broncos hat AND shirt. It was Sunday. GAME DAY BABY! This town eats, breaths and poops football. It's HUGE here. Everyone wears their shirts on game day and the streets are practically deserted when the Broncos are playing. We're 4 and 1 by the way. WOOHOO!!! Debra and I are going to go to Invesco Field in Denver to watch the Broncos play the Colts at the end of the month on the 29th and we can't wait.


As you can tell I have a beard. This is my annual "October tradition" I'm carrying on after my dad. When he was young growing up in Anaheim when it was still a small town, all of the men had to grow a beard in October. The police had an antique paddywagon they drove around town looking for men without beards. If they caught you on the street without one, they would throw you into the back of the paddywagon and drive you to the outskirts of town and drop you off. My guess is anyone who had to walk home like that never forgot to grow a beard again. By the time I was a kid they hadn't been doing this for many years but my dad still grew a beard every year. It seems silly but I always thought it was pretty neat. When Clare was born and I became a dad, I decided I needed to keep the tradition alive by growing my own beard every October. All in all I've been pretty happy at how it looks. It's nice and full with no bare patches. Have you ever seen a guy with a beard that won't fill in? Man...they look like Three Mile Island residents who chose to ignore the suggestion to only drink bottled water.



Tuesday we got our first snow here in Broomfield. It started snowing around 9:30 in the morning and didn't stop until 8:00 that night. When I got home with Clare after work I did the responsible thing of course. I dressed her up in her snow bib and jacket and we went for a walk. We had a great time and Clare even made a snow angel. It only snowed about 3 inches but Clare didn't understand why we couldn't make a snowman. I'm hoping we'll get a monster storm this winter so we can build a snowman and a fort and have snowball fights. When we got back from our walk, Clare's cheeks were beet-red. I took care of that by turning on the fire place and making her some hot chocolate. "Turn on the fireplace?" Yeah! Our fireplace turns on like a light. We have a switch on the wall and when we want a fire we just flip the switch. I love the convenience and we use it all winter long. There's nothing like kicking back on the couch with the fire on and snow faliing outside while you drink hot chocolate. That's all for now!

The Fall Rut at Rocky Mountain National Park

Every fall up at the Rocky Mountain National Park at the end of September and early October is "the rut." What is the rut? I asked the same thing the first year I went. It's when the male bull elk mate for the season. They cover themselves in mud and urine and "bugle", or call for mates. They also have to run off any other males that want to compete with their females. There's usually a lot of females and one male. The males sometime die of exhaustion from being up so long and chasing away rival males. In the picture you can see the antlers of the lone male relaxing with his "harem." Rough, eh?

Another bonus this time of year are the beautiful colors. All of the aspen trees turn bright yellow. These photos just can't capture the real colors when you're up there looking at them in person. The three of us packed a lunch and hit the road Sunday and it turned out to be a perfect day. Clare really enjoyed our picnic lunch and she seemed pretty impressed by the elk too.

In a stand of aspen there were two bulls lying in the grass relaxing and you could literally walk right up to them. I kept a little distance though but managed to get a pretty good shot of one of the bulls. He saw me but didn't seem bothered by my presence at all. I didn't have a problem doing this but I would never think of doing this when there were females around. I've heard stories of people getting charged by males so I didn't want to do anything I'd regret. So, next year if of the Bailey-McLean-Blachowski-Jacobbson clan want to come up and see the elk, we always have room for you!