The Dog Days of Summer

Neither Megan nor I can remember a time when Gizmo was so tired.  She spends pretty much half of her day playing with Mickey.  The two then spend the other half of the day napping in close proximity to one another.  They are becoming the best of friends!

The only one who picks better spots to nap than Megan is Gizmo.

Mickey, for some unknown reason, always sits like a person in this chair.

My friend John brews coffee in this really strange but delicious way.  He is trying to teach me how.

Gizmo and I went over to John's one day last week so he could teach us how to brew beer.

Turns out it is quite a process.

John at one point told me what each of these steps was called and what were doing, but the correct vocabulary escapes me at this point in time.  I am stirring something right here....."mash" maybe?

Here we are pulling "wort" out of the shell after boiling and stirring it for an hour.

If I could drink wort everyday I would.  The stuff is delicious.  It is basically pre-fermented beer that is really sugary and sweet.  When you put yeast into the mix, it begins to consume the sugars in the wort thereby turning it into beer.  (Note: the real explanation is significantly more elaborate than this)

After we drained all of the wort out we were left with a keg full of grain and corn.

Gizmo was being uncooperative while we were trying to take a picture of her, John, and Genevieve.

She eventually graced us with her photogenic face.

Megan's parents have a black cat named Truman.  I woke him up to take a picture.  It was quite a struggle to get that one eye open.

Today, Megan and I went up to Fort Collins to visit some of our friends.  No trip to Fort Collins is complete without a trip to the Rio....

....and at least one brewery.

After hanging out in Old Town we went back to our friends' house to grill up some dinner.  I opened their fridge hoping to find a beer, but alas there was none.  I did however find three mostly drank bottles of wine.  We made do.

This is Megan's old college friend, Cinnamon.

Just like old times!

Life Back In Colorado Is.....Ruff.

The last day of school for me was on June 1st.  Gizmo and I quickly packed up all our stuff and got ready to head back to the great state of Colorado to join Megan, who was already here.  Megan is spending her summer working as an intern.  I have a super full schedule of hanging out with friends, hiking, learning new things, and relaxing :-).

Gizmo was so helpful in the packing process.

We are living at Megan's parents' house for the summer.  They just got a corgi-mix named Mickey.  He and Gizmo have become the best of friends, which is great considering Gizmo gets along with about 15% of the dogs she meets.

Megan had surgery on her right foot to remove a bunion the week she got back.  You can see that she is rocking a sweet surgical boot.

The first Friday I was home my friend John took me to this awesome frisbee golf course in Conifer.   It has twenty holes spread out over a couple miles.  This is the first hole.  You throw right through all these trees to the basket which is at the top of the hill.

The views from around the course were awesome, of course.

Action shot of John teeing off.

We'll be sure to keep you updated on all of our summer adventures!

We almost forgot we were in Missouri.

Since Spring Break ended, we were all feeling a little cooped up in the apartment.

 Some of us, a little more than others.

So we decided we would take advantage of a three day weekend and find somewhere to go camping.  Gizmo was very excited as it was her first camping trip.  I found a campsite at the "highest point in Missouri" called Taum Sauk Mountain State Park.  Yes, you read that correctly, Mountain State Park.  I was also unaware that Missouri had mountains.

When we got to our campsite, we went to the nearby scenic overlook to check these mountains out.  You can observe below that signage at aforementioned scenic overlook.  It clearly identifies mountains...

However, these are the "mountains" that we were supposed to see.  We laughed....a lot.

It was a still a good photo-op.  Mountains or no, it was a nice view.

 

At the campsite, we all got a lot of much needed relaxation.

I built a fire... 

...and Gizmo enjoyed sitting by it.

No camping trip is complete without the proper beverages.

Megan wanted to make sure that Gizmo was comfortable, so she put a blanket outside for her to lay on.  Gizmo, was much more interested in rolling in the dirt...everywhere.

The next morning we got up and went on a little 3-mile hike.  The hike took us to Missouri's "highest point" and to the biggest waterfall in Missouri as well.  

We made sure to take plenty of water breaks.

Here is the biggest part of the waterfall.  Above this is a series of "shut-ins" which is a term used to describe water that flows through a series of rocks.  There were probably 50 or so of these shut-ins above the waterfall.

Here is one such shut-in, right above the waterfall.

The view from the top was gorgeous!

You can see some more shut-ins right behind me and Gizzy.

Megan snapped this cool shot of me and Gizmo, looking like bosses.

Gizmo even did some exploring of her own.

Here it is, the highest point in Missouri.

Gizmo loved every minute of our trip!  She is a beast of a hiker and completely fearless when it comes to scampering around on the rocks (much to my delight and Megan's disappointment).

Gizmo was super dirty from all of our hiking.

When we got back home today, we decided an easy dinner would be frozen pizza.

At least until Megan broke the pizza cutter with all of her might!

Sorry it has been a while since our last post.  We hope this extra long one makes up for our lack of March blogs.  We'll be seeing all you Denver folks soon!  Megan heads back home in about a month with her first year of law school complete!  I will follow a couple weeks after that having completed my first year of teaching!  

- Luke, Megan, and Gizmo

Pizza

Hey, its me Gizmo. Finally got back on the computer, I'd been pretty busy napping and chewing so blogging took a back seat.

I watched them make this delicious pizza. I watched them put the cheese and peppers and sauce and such good things on it.

Then surprise surprise they ate it all. Humans are so predicable, keeping all the good food for themselves and then put some kibble in my bowl.

Oh well, I've been keeping snacks in a mini fridge in my kennel. I guess what they don't know won't hurt them.

-Gizmo