The Zereps

if you didn’t see us during our california vacation, then this will be a surprise:

i’m pregnant!

and…..

at long last, we are snuggled back home with our pups, and back into our normal routines. the delays in posting have been caused by some fun activities though, starting with my family visiting us in early october, then immediately after that, a road trip out to california to see eric’s family, some of my family, and friends.

let’s start at the begining…..my mom, al, and mickey got here somewhere around october 5, i think. our pups loved having mickey visit. every morning they would wait outside his door until he’d stagger out all sleepy. while here, mickey acquired several nicknames….dumptruck….grizzly bear….etc… you get the idea. 😉

we did lots of fun things while they were here, including a trip to the coors brewery. we also attempted a day of fun at a pumpkin patch/working farm, but it was waaaaay to windy and dusty for people as well as pugs. my mom took some cute pictures of everybody, but i haven’t got around to asking for them. we also took them up to estes park to take the stanley hotel tour and look for ghosts. we also paraded around estes park a while and ate fudge and taffy. mmmmm 😀 both guests declined a trip to the celestial seasonings factory, but we did manage to fit in a pug meetup….mickey’s first! all 3 pugs were quite happy running and snorting around with about 15-20 other pugs.

our guests stayed for about a week, then we all packed up and headed to california together, sometime around the 12th. after 2 long days on the road we finally got there! being leia’s first road trip, we wanted to make it as low-stress as possible, so she and jabba stayed with mickey at my mom’s house, where, i hear, they had a very nice time playing with mickey’s toys and peeing in his backyard. 🙂

eric and i then headed to sacramento where we were able to spend some time with his family. we also squeezed in 2 visits to james’ and cheryl’s place, only making us want a wii even more! amanda and ryan were able to mosey on over to their place while we were there, too, and we all went and had lots of tasty food. the next day eric and i went with cindy and chantel to apple hill. it was lots of fun and we got lots of apples, cider and a frozen pie! eric took some pics of this outting, but i have yet to locate the footage. several days later we were able to spend some time with shannon and our favorite little niece, eve! what a cuttie! the next day (i think) my cousin tiffany drove down from reno and we got in some shopping and then proceeded to eat ourselves to death at ‘the melting pot’….mmmm!

after getting our fill of sacramento, we headed back to paradise to pick up our much-missed puppies, have some cider and pie with my grandparents and brother, and then headed back home! another looong 2 days later…we made it! oh my goodness are we ever glad to be home! 😀

for some pictures, check out our gallery here (warning, may contain lots of pictures of cute pugs!).

thanks for taking the time to see us everybody! we really had fun. 😀

Hello all. Yes, I know we haven’t been blogging very much lately. We’ve just had other things to do and the website has kinda gone by the wayside. Right now we’re visiting friends and family in Northern California. This is the first  break from work longer than one day that I’ve taken all year long, so it’s a good reprieve from ‘the grind’ so to speak. ;)  We’ll post some pictures of the trip soon. ttfn.

ok, so eric said he would post but he has been distracted by our broken dishwasher, hence my quick update. 🙂

we haven’t been up to a whole lot around here. on the weekends we usually hit either the boulder farmer’s market or the longmont farmer’s market. favorite tasties have included local organic apples, peaches, veggies, some fresh s.f. sourdough (yum!) and lots of other stuff.

last weekend we drove up to estes park for their horror and suspense film festival. we got to view about 5 short films and 1 feature film, which was pretty fun. i liked the shorts better, the feature wasn’t spooky.

and since the growing season is winding down here in our garden, i’ve been harvesting all the green tomatoes to make ‘green tomato mince’ for pies, and a ‘green tomato cake’. we’ve also branched out into making our own granola. super yum!

and yesterday marked the ‘put up the halloween deocrations’ day! i will take a few snaps of the spoooooooky lights soon, and post the other misc pictures i have, i promise!

in other news, we, and the pugs, are eagerly anticipating the arrival of my fam for a visit in 2 weeks, followed by our visit to california!

[edit] the homemade dishwasher soap is made out of equal parts borax and baking soda. use 2 tablespoons per load, and add vinegar as your rinse agent, to rinse away the soap and it helps to get rid of spots, too. 🙂 i used it the other day and it works!

just thought i’d have a little show and tell about what i did today. i made our own laundry detergent and fabric softener! why, you might ask? well….to put it shortly and mildly, there’s lots of chemicals and unnecessary crap in commercial (i.e. stuff we’re told to buy) laundry detergent and even more so in fabric softer and dryer sheets. and not only do we breath that crap in but we also wear it against the largest organ of our bodies, our skin. SO….i researched some good recipes for some more natural (green, if you will) solutions! 😀

here’s my ingredients for both the detergent and softener. washing soda, borax, white distilled vinegar, fels naptha soap bars, baking soda, and essential oils.

i made the detergent first. i just grated a bar of soap into a bowl, added 2 cups of washing soda and 2 cups of borax, and my essential oils for a little kick. i used sweet orange with a cinnamon undertone. here’s the finished product in the canister…it only takes 2 tablespoons per large load.

next i mixed up the softener. i put the baking soda, about 1 to 1.5 cups, in a container, added 1 cup water, slowly added 2 cups vinegar (it fizzes), and then added 3 cups water and essential oils. it takes about 1 cup per large load, however the baking soda settles too much to use our automatic dispenser.

i just finished my first load with our awesome soap and it’s great! the laundry smelled fresh! i’m a happy camper, and so is eric. 🙂

btw, we have a shiney new maytag washer since our other one quit several weeks ago. i love it. 🙂 the old one was so noisy because the transmission was out. on a downside….this new purchase has pushed back the purchase of dining chairs, so for now, we’re eating on a clearance patio set while the table i made is in the living room. oh well…the joys of home ownership! 🙂

and take a look at jabba’s site! his 3rd birthday was yesterday and a good time was had by all!

super cool product post:

ok….so….i just mopped the floors…usually this entails using a swiffer and swiffer products. however lately i’ve begun to greatly dislike the amount of waste and type of waste involved with swiffering. seriously. dust pads you just throw away and mop pads you toss, both of which have plastic in them and just go fill up landfills, not to mention the chemical cleaning solution.

SO….this last weekend, as i was self-loathingly perusing the cleaning aisle for dust pads, i found the omop! it had the fundamental design of a swiffer, with a bottom for attaching pads and a long handle to push it around, BUT…..the dust pads are COMPOSTABLE! and the mop pad is WASHABLE microfiber! and the mopping solution is BIODEGRADABLE and won’t hurt my puppies! (note, eric and i are going to start composting…we throw away so much that we can use)

and, btw, it totally works better than a swiffer, my floors are much cleaner and smell nice and lemoney-gingery. 🙂

anyhoo…just wanted to share my super cool omop in case you, too, are sick of producing so much useless waste. 🙂 on a side note, it does come with a lot of packaging which i just had to throw away because we don’t have good recycling facilities here….kind of a bummer, but it is offset in the long run. and if you’re that concerned, just mop the floor with water, vinegar and a cloth. 😛

greetings!

as you may have noticed, eric and i aren’t doing too much. it’s not because we don’t want to, trust me! it’s just so hot! even though the temps don’t usually get above 98, the sun here is so intense! i think it’s because of the elevation.

so, in the interest of staying out of the sun and getting out and about, we went thrifting this weekend! there’s a couple stores that we frequent, including the humane society shop, aries thrift store, 2 big indoor flea markets, and serendipity, a really cute one. this last weekend we went to aries and serendipity. i found a cool recipe holder at aries and a totally awesome bowl at serendipity. the bowl is a popcorn/salad sized enamel bowl made in finland circa the 1970s.

we also watched ‘perfume‘ last night while munching on popcorn out of my new bowl. totally awesome movie, btw, i give it 2 thumbs up!

tomorrow is leia’s big day…she get’s her spay surgery! i’m a nervous wreck while she’s carefree and trying to assassinate jabba. we have a great vet clinic here by us with really caring vets and top notch equipment and facilities, so i am trying to calm myself. 🙂 she’s going to be one groggy pup tomorrow night!