Millards In The Mountains

Tonight on Mountain Millards: the official Kansas City post, complete with my limited selection of pictures. Before I start, I just want to say that Matt takes way better pictures than me, so I really need to find an easy way to get his pictures on to my computer. I wanted to find a good picture of the bride and groom to whom we owe the pleasure of our trip back to KC, but every single one I took was blury. Grrrr. The past weekend was a haze of wonderful people, fun times and perhaps a little too much sleep. The hardest part was getting through the Thursday night before we left. I had to take Pongo to the kennel by 6:30 pm Thursday because we had to leave home at 5:15 the next morning so I lost my evening buddy. It was really hard. But like I said yesterday, he quickly made friends with the biggest dog there so I figured he wasn't bad off. It is strange driving to the airport and actually parking our car there instead of being spoiled like we have in the past and having someone dro...

Well I meant to get to posting a blog about our weekend trip back to Kansas City earlier tonight, but I was out running errands and being productive so I'll just write a few words and then do an official KC post tomorrow. Let's just say I was a little emotional getting home yesterday, but I knew I would be after the first visit. It sure didn't help that I left my book (Twilight, Stephanie Meyer) at the KC airport terminal somehow. Don't worry, I got a new one today! It's a great book. Anyhow, it was nice to be somewhere where EVERYTHING was familiar again. Except KC, MO.... :) That's where the wedding was, which was wonderful and beautiful. Leza just looked so happy and radiant. And traffic was great, even with the NASCAR races in town. Not to mention the Chiefs somehow beat the Broncos. I don't want to get too detailed so I don't repeat myself tomorrow, so I'll change the subject. I had a pretty stressful day at work with one particular project that...

In the past few years, Matt and I have made the drive from KC to Denver and back several times for various reasons. Many people I know hate the drive because it's long and tedious and flat. I can understand that and sometimes it seems like it will never end. But I also don't mind the drive myself because I have some favorite "landmarks" and memories at certain mile markers that make the drive go faster. I will share these with you now, starting from Kansas City going west to Denver. Maybe the next time you make the drive, you'll think of some of these and it will make the drive more fun. Exit 202: Lawrence. Well of course I love this one. You can see Frasier Hall and its flags flying on top of the hill and the rest of KU surrounding it. I have so many great memories in Lawrence that I ususally take a stroll down memory lane for a while as we pass the city. Exit 365(ish): Topeka. This is where the "countdown" begins. When you get off the turnpike, the mil...

I apologize for taking a whole week off of blogging! I put it at the top of my to-do list this evening. After talking with so many people this weekend, I never realized how many of you read this blog. (I think everyone who reads should comment just so I know!) I have a feeling that my large readership has come from the fact that this blog is linked on my cousin Jaime's blog, which is excellent. I am really feeling the pressure to keep it updated now! We had a wonderful weekend in Stafford, KS at my cousin Jenny's wedding. It took me a while to finally get packed and organized for the road trip, but once that happened, we had a blast! I was so paranoid that I was going to forget something important in Denver, such as my bridesmaid dress, because I had a dream that it actually happened! We left Denver on Friday morning a little later than planned. Matt typed "Stafford, KS" into our Garmin and it gave us an estimated arrival time of 5:26 pm, which we were very happy abou...

Well it's been a few days, but I honestly haven't had much to post about lately. We had a fun night at Lodo's and the Rockies game on Saturday with Nick and Carlene. We had great seats and were among KU people, which is always awesome. Sunday, Matt and I were back at work. I didn't stay as long as I planned because the building was uncomfortably warm. I don't think they keep the air on during weekends, which makes sense because not many people are there. I went home after about 2.5 hours, went for a run and did laundry, which was way more productive than I would have been at work in the heat. I really wanted to comment tonight on a book I've been reading. It's called Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. She is one of my favorite authors. This book started off almost exactly like The Pact so I was a little bored at the beginning, as I felt like I had read it all already and knew where the book was going. To give a brief premise of Nineteen Minutes , it is mostly...

Today is our puppy's second birthday. I still call him a puppy, but it's probably time to stop that. As many of you know, Pongo is my first dog ever. I worried (and cried) like a new mom when I brought him home because I didn't know what to do with this little wiggly thing that howled every time I left the room. I read every major dog training website and memorized the Super Puppy book I bought from the vet during one of his many early visits there. What we have today is a wonderful and mostly well behaved dog, however spoiled he may be. Pongo is not only my dog but my running buddy, evening companion and howling guardian. He is so intuitive and knows when something is wrong, when to cuddle and when to just be his cute self. He sighs when we forget to feed him on time and groans when we move him during his sleep. He learns new tricks so fast I can't think of what to teach him next! Here are a few pictures of our dog on his big day. Pongo got a pretty red jacket from his...

I am trying frantically to get a crisis project done at work...while doing it right at the same time...while having various co-workers peek in my cube every now and again to check on the status. I don't mind any of this, and I don't mind having put in 25 hours already this week. However, when I got home this afternoon, I laid down on the couch and slept for an hour and a half! It felt so good, but what I didn't realize was that I left the back door ajar so Pongo could do his business and then come back in on his own. When I awoke from my glorious nap, Pongo was curled up next to me but something smelled horrible! It turns out that while he had free reign of the yard, he managed to roll in the most hideous smelling rotten something! He hasn't really done much of this since we moved out here, but it used to be a bad habbit of his in KC. I really thought he was over that stage of puppyhood. I guess not. I had to leave for a rec volleyball game and didn't get to bathe h...

When I was in high school, I worked on the MHS Mentor, our weekly newspaper. One of my first tasks was writing headlines for all of the stories and they were supposed to be attention grabbing. I'm kind of implementing that strategy into by blogs (sometimes). Did the title of this post grab your attention? Well don't worry, there haven't been any serious deaths in this house, other than that of about a million or more germs today. So here you have it: Matt is battling his first round of sickness just as fall is rolling in. He attributes this to working in a new hospital with a new set of germs and bugs and other unpleasant things. Regardless of what has made him sick, it's hard for me to really take care of him with our opposite schedules. I have not so subtly encouraged him to take vitamin C and echinacea , which boost the immune system. But other than that, I can't do much from my desk at work. So today, after my plans to see my former supervisor, Kyle were post...

It seems as if I am cursed now that I have closed my Commerce Bank account. Well, I guess this just had good timing... Matt and I finally got our re-embursement check from the hospital for our move and deposited it on Saturday so that we can pay some bills. Today I got a letter from our current bank (I'm not going to specify its name here) saying that two checks we deposited are on hold because they were too much money! I've never heard that one before, but I can certainly understand where they are coming from. They don't want to be liable for a check in a large amount if it doesn't clear. What I don't understand is why we have to wait another two weeks to get our money. Does it really take that long? Even more baffling is the fact that I was told that they wouldn't honor the checks right away simply because we don't have a long enough history with the bank and they were suspicious because we have had no other checks of that amount deposited to our account! ...

This post will be short. I just had to share this experience I had while on my normal running route tonight. I worked late today, so I got a later start on the run and it was sunset. My favorite part of the run is at the crest of a hill where all you can see are the mountains. The scene was something like this: (obviously, I didn't have my camera with me while running.) Sorry, this picture doesn't do it justice at all. But pair it with the song "She Goes All The Way" by Rascal Flatts and Jamie Foxx and it was such an incredible feeling. Either that, or I was high off of endorphins from running. I had chills from head to toe and was nearly in tears! What a wonderful feeling! It's hard to put into words.

I really hope Blogger uploads pictures tonight because boy do I have a lot! We had Alissa here for Labor Day weekend and we kept her very busy. I can already tell that this is going to be a long post, so hold on folks! I picked Alissa up on Friday afternoon from the airport, slightly afraid that there would be a lot of airport traffic due to the conclusion of the DNC on Thursday night. (By the way, what a speech by Obama! I was truly inspired.) However, I collected her with little problem, other than having to circle the airport twice before I finally figured out which ramp to take to get to her. I even managed to navigate out of the airport without getting lost. I was rather proud of this fact, even though I have been there a couple times now. When we got to the house, we all decided to go to Old Chicago for dinner during happy hour. (Big surprise, right?) We were all pretty tired since all three of us had worked that day and Alissa had traved across the state as well. We decided to r...