Denver, Colorado - Feb 2-5, 2016

I was invited to go on a business trip with my "old team" to Denver, Colorado to meet with the Vendor that we work with.  I was really touched that they wanted me along and happy to join them in this meeting. We flew out on Tuesday afternoon and returned home late on Friday.  We had been cautioned to prepare for the elevation change by drinking plenty of water and closely monitoring for headaches.  Some breathing difficulties might also be experienced.  I kept myself well hydrated and had no issues with headaches and I didn't find that I had any problem with the breathing either.


Denver is a beautiful city, filled with history.  I took advantage of my visit by getting up early each morning and took hour long walks exploring the city.  The weather was beautiful and the temperature moderate.  I didn't know this but they get over 300 days per year of sunshine. I wished we had that in Toronto.

We met daily at the Vendors office which is located in a Historic home..  It was built in 1890 and is referred to as the Butters House.  It was beautiful and I could envision Ralph and I living in a home like this.  There was a fireplace in almost every room and even one right at the entrance.  They certainly must have had to cut alot of wood.  Throughout the home you saw Oak trim which added to the warmth of the house.  There were beautiful stained glass windows going up to the 2nd story and the other windows were still the original glass.  It was beautiful.  The fixtures were all original which really blended well with the home.  The offices were on the 2nd and 3rd floors and the conference room was on the main floor.  It was a 3 story home with a carriage house in the back which was also converted to offices. 

We ate some pretty amazing meals while we were in Denver.  I especially enjoyed one restaurant -Vesta Dipping Grill where I enjoyed the Venison. Each entree came with dipping sauces to use as a compliment to your meat. The menu proposed two sauces but you also could change them for a wide range of other choices.  It was a really interesting compliment to the meal.  As an appetizer they had a cheese and meat platter that was set out which fed us all.  The food was really tasty.

Cheese & Meat Platter

Mixed platter served with house made mustards, pickles, candied walnuts, and black pepper truffle honey:

cheeses gorgonzola piccante, dutch girl gouda, schnebelhorn, casatica du bufola, house-made burrata

house made meats duck rillettes, salami, masala chicken galantine, beef bresaola, spicy coppa

Madras grilled venison   

Pommes frites, ginger ale oyster mushrooms, dried cherry butter reduction
SUGGESTED SAUCES: sambal aioli**, pineapple pedy marmalade

We weren't that close to the mountains and really only saw them when we were driving back to the airport.  They looked amazing and it would have been awesome to ski there.  Maybe another time and visit.  It was a busy couple of days, but I enjoyed it very much.

Home made chicken stock

Over the weekend, I thought I would try to make some home made chicken stock.  I went to the butcher and purchased 5 lbs of chicken necks, wings and backs and placed them in a deep stockpot.  To this I added 3 carrots (cut into 2 inch pieces), 3 celery stocks (cut into 2 inch pieces), 1 parsnip (cut into 2 inch pieces), 1 large bunch of parsley (roughly chopped) and one onion chopped. I then added 2 tsp of kosher salt as I figured we could increase later if needed and filled the pot.   I let it simmer for about 6 hours.  The house smelled so amazing.  Once it was ready, I strained all the liquid out of the pan and threw away the vegetables.  I picked through the bones and saved some of the chicken meat to be used in the soup and placed the stock (in the pan) in the fridge.  This morning I scraped off the fat from the top and then filtered the stock through cheesecloth.  I now have 1.5 bags of home made stock.  I can't wait to make a full pot of soup with it next weekend.

Retired - First week

So it's been a week since I retired.  I have to truthfully say that I haven't thought too much about work which is a good thing.... I think.  I've been busy.  I went out on Monday morning to take a few pictures of the sunrise.  Sadly there was no colour in the sky.  I didn't really see that much (and had forgotten to bring coin for the meter), so I didn't stay too long at the lake.  I took a few pictures and I hope to come back soon to take some more when there is more colour in the sky.

Driftwood - Lake Ontario

I knitted 4 scarves this week.  I think I better slow down with the knitting, but it was an opportunity to get use to working with yarn again.  I found a couple of really nice yarn stores that I am sure to visit again.

Baby blue Roving (100%  wool) with embroidery floss

Hand spun wool - NOTL

Cream and Brown Scarf - Romni Wools

Purple Scarf - Romni Wools

I spent a day with my working friends at the Nottawasaga Inn. It was our way of saying goodbye and my boss asked me to join them during one day of their 3 day conference.  We had a lot of fun. We went walking around the golf course and then later in the evening played a fun round of Mini Golf and charades.

Grace, Colin, Steve, Matthew

Golf Course - Nottawasaga

I've spent many hours reviewing Youtube video's as I become acquainted with my camera.  It is so nice to have this time to do this without feeling that I should be working on something else.  My camera has some amazing features on it.  I've discovered that I can manage my camera remotely using my phone.  How cool is that.  As well, I have a feature on it that merges three pictures (over exposed, under exposed and regular exposure) to give you the best result.  This is best used on a sunny day where your camera has difficulty figuring out which is the best exposure. As well, I also discovered that I can take multiple pictures on the same frame for some creative fun.  So much to learn and remember.

Next week, I have been invited to go to Denver, Colorado for a meeting with one of our vendors.  We will use this meeting for me to handover the controls of one of our systems to another manager at Bell Mobility.  I was really touched that my boss asked me to join them.  It will be a 4 day meeting.  I'm excited to go, as I have never been to Denver before so it will be fun to see a new city.  As well, it will be nice to say my goodbyes to a group of people that I have worked very closely with over the last two years.  After this meeting, work will be completely finished.

Today I practiced with my camera and took a few pictures of my Amaryllis.  They are so beautiful this year and full of bloom.  It was a good opportunity to try a few new things and also learn a bit more about Light room (a photo developing software).  Last week Claudia and I spent a day together learning some of the fundamentals of this software.  It has a lot of potential and  is very easy to use.

  

Christmas 2015

This year Christmas was spread out during the month of December.  In the beginning of the month we celebrated with Ralph's family at a restaurant in Cambridge.  Bruce and Ingrid organized the dinner and we had a lovely time all together.  It's so nice to see the family all together enjoying each others company.  We were really thankful that Ed and Christine were able to join us as well.

The following week we celebrated with my family.  We met at Springdale church and enjoyed a really nice afternoon/evening together.  There was plenty of food and everyone was in good spirits.  Sadly we missed Marian, Emily and Kristen due to flu's and work.  Kristen was at a craft show selling her artwork while Emily and Marian we down with the flu.  The boy's still came with the family which was really nice.

On the weekend of the 19th we celebrated at Jay and Laura's.  Unfortunately we had some problems with the truck and didn't arrive quite as early as planned so Haily was worried that we weren't coming.  She was pretty happy when we arrived.  We had a really wonderful time all together.

Surprise!!

One happy little girl

Hot Wheels - was Brody ever happy!

Musical toys from Omama

Omama sent musical dolls for the kids - Brody was quite taken with them and loved to dance as they played Christmas music.

Papa and Hailey - New hats!!

We love you girls!!

Made with love from Laura

On Christmas eve we were blessed with beautiful weather.  Ralph and I worked outside and around the house raking up leaves, removing the netting from the pond etc.  Afterwards we enjoyed a nice glass of wine on the back deck.  It was so nice out.

Our amaryllis opened up as well on Christmas eve.   I've really been enjoying the blooms from a few of my Amaryllis's.

Enjoying the Falls

This weekend Ralph and I decided to go away for a few days to relax and celebrate our 35th Anniversary.  Wow!!!!  Where have the years gone? We looked back over the years and marveled how much we have been blessed over the years. We have much to give thanks for.

On Saturday we started our day with breakdown in Port Dalhousie.  We had planned to taking some sunrise pictures, but it was rainy.  We ate at Rosy's which is a local diner.  The food was really good.

From there we drove across the border to Buffalo. Our first stop was just across the border to pick up some mail from our Post Box.  We had purchased an Intervelometer (used) for the camera and were looking forward to giving it a try over the weekend.  The intervelometer is used to take timed pictures without any intervention on our behalf - you simply set it up on your camera/tripod and let it do the work.  We tested it on Saturday evening during the firework display which was part of the Festival of Lights in Niagara.  It was a good opportunity to learn.  For this experiment we set it to take a picture every 4 seconds (in retrospect - we should have done it every 2 seconds) and kept the lens on the camera open for 2 seconds (again - a learning - next time we will try 1 second).   It was fun and a good way to learn.  The weather wasn't co-operating though as it was pouring rain.  We did a bit of shopping before coming back across the border and checked into our hotel in Niagara.  We were within walking distance to the falls which was really nice.

Around 8:00 we walked to the Keg to enjoy dinner and watched the Fireworks display from the restaurant window.

On Sunday we took some pictures by the falls and also went in search of grapes before coming back home.  Ralph wasn't feeling that well so we decided to cut our weekend short.  It was still a nice time away.