POW!

As promised, pics of Andy's room:

The Vision in Sketchup...

The bed and desk, (yes I had to build these too!)

POW! Super Hero themed, Andy has mini heros on his walls (From left to right: The Torch, Thor, Mr. Fantastic, Daredevil, Ironman, and the Silver Surfer)

Above the wondows there is a 3d montage of Marvel heroes. Can you click on the photo and look closely at the HULK? Andy was scared of the face on him at night, so we augmented things a little...

BAM! Wolverine, Captain America and Spiderman.

The biggest project here was the storage-box version of Gotham City. Some peices I bought, some I made by hand, hand painted. Its where he can live out his action figure fantasies and stage massive conflicts for world domination.

We're still missing some peices. A dresser and some other paint I intend to do someday, as well as the BATSIGNAL!

SHUBYS

I can't believe it's already been a month since we left California.

In all that time, we haven't gone out to dinner ONCE. I spend pretty much every day at the house, I go to Home Depot a lot for lunch breaks and after the kids are in bed. We are going out for dinner tomorrow to my sister's so that will be a nice treat to get out. All these projects are consuming me. Thankfully Jen and the kids are able to be more ambulatory than myself.

I finally finished Andy's room (mostly) and so ill have to take some photos and post. Im really happy with it, and he tells me that he is as well. He's sleeping tomorrow so you will have to remind me.

This weekend was very busy, mainly because we had our first sleep over guests... THE SHUBYS!

Yes yes, the Shuby's were on world tour -- Rick was dragging them all in a Suburban across the states, they had been up to Glacier National Park, and so they 'swung by' Colorado for a few days. It was awesome. We always have such a great time with them, and we seem to share many of the same values. Even when we don't see each other for over a year, we click when we are together like we haven't missed a minute.

Highlights:

-- Going to Red Rocks and planning fantasy concerts we are going to attend in the future

-- Our first Rockies game vs the Giants

-- Watching the put on dancing shows int he basement

-- The boys playing "target" a game they invented by rolling a ball on our new rug and getting points for different spot (gee the Sandos must have a real fun house if that's the youth entertainment)

-- Sitting on the porch and watching the lightning, listening to Jack J

-- And of course, drinking good wine, listening to good music, and playing Shanghai for the crown. We always play cards at night with Rick and Vic and this trip was no exception. We have always held a healthy competition around winning so Rick finally made a real 'crown' made from cards that the winner of the last night's game gets to keep until the next meeting.

Here's hoping that I get a chance to lose it back real soon. Thanks for visiting guys.

Roxborough

Projects, projects, work, work...

Been so busy making the house livable, while trying to acclimate to my remote job that it's been very busy here at Backcoutnry Lane.

The good news is we are making some real progress on the house, it almost feels like we have moved in. I have installed 5 ceiling fans, routed a cable through a wall and created jack, hung dozens of pictures and stuff, built 2 kid's bedroom sets, wired the whole house for music and Internet, set-up a TiVo in the master, applied frosted window tint in the shower, built the kitchen table and chairs, hooked-up rope lighting above the kitchen, built some garage storage, am half-way done with a special storage project in Andy's room, and about a hundred other small projects.

That doesn't even count the basic moving stuff around and unpacking.

Whew, I am sore a lot.

So we got a chance to break-away from the house and take a short field trip to Roxborough State Park. It's very close, about 15 minutes, and totally stunning. I now have been officially bitten by the Colorado State Park bug, and plan to visit every one of them.

We also got our for our first Krispe Kreme in Colorado the other am. We walked in through 2 sets of double doors, and Katie asked why they have 2 set of doors... I said, 'when it snows, you need that extra set of door to keep it warm inside' -- man, we have no idea what we are in for here, but it sure has been an adventure so far.

Rocky Mountain High

After a few nights in our new home, we went to a local outdoor 'concert in the park'. Met with TL, Woody, Megan and Zoey.

The scene was packed with families. The air was warm with patchy clouds. The music was by a really great John Denver cover band.

We ate, drank, danced, and swayed to classic JD songs that TL and I had learned as kids -- all against the outdoor backdrop of the Rockies.

The second half of the concert was marked with fairly significant rain, but the band was vigilant (playing under a tent) and I didn't see a single one of the audience pack-up or leave. Everyone just sat and got wet, while enjoying the music. We huddled together and covered the kids with tents made of blankets, supported by poles made from parents. Giggling sardines tickled my toes and the air never smelt so good.

(Yes, those lumps under the blankets are the heads of 4 little children -- Thanks Woody for the pics, your smart-phone has better ninja-photo skills than my iPhone.)

Everyone knew that they'd be poorer if they left when they were dry.
Rocky Mountain High.

Cha cha cha CHANGES!

For those of you who have not yet heard, we moved to COLORADO!

It has certainly been the MOST crazy month for us accompanied by the MOST change we have ever experienced. Let me take you all back to the time of my last post...

Um, oh yeah, Blogging! I haven't forgotten about you loyal readers out there (all 3 of you). But after this post I'm hoping you will have some sympathy for my lack of scribing, or at least a better understanding of why Sandpics has been in a temporary coma.

Let's see, right about the end of May, I had this bright idea of applying for a new job at HP. Now keep in mind, they had already let me take my old job remote to Colorado, and I was all set... but NO! I had to take on more responsibility, you see moving my family across the country just isn't enough stress for me, no sir. A week or so later, I come to find that I am the new Marketing Manager for HPs Media business. And HP is so cool that they let me keep my old Job for about a month while also doing my new job... Yay!

So working double duty, learning the ropes for this new gig, packing, doing all the mayhem associated with moving totally blasted my life into survival mode, and alas, blogging seemed to have fallen of the list of things I could manage. (I debated dropping more sleep or maybe skipping more meals but you cant subtract from zero)

In addition to stress, June was a very emotional month. Saying goodbye to all our friends in SD was really hard. We miss all of you already.

Saying goodbye to the Pacific was also difficult -- I have already used my windshield wipers here more than I ever did in my entire life in SD! I had this weird moment at one point when I sold my longboard on Craig's List. The guy walked out of the house with it and I saw my future in California go with him. Suddenly it was very real.

The few weeks before we left were filled with goodbye parties and PACKING. Boxes boxes boxes. I took 2 weeks off work and spent 5 of them packing up stuff, and saved the rest for the drive and unpacking.

We had movers come and haul everything for us. That was also eventful. The Semi truck driver decided not to take Jen's advice to back-in to our street. So he then gets STUCK trying to leave! This totally blocked our street resulting in police and tow-trucks to remedy the situation... crazy stuff.

But finally we made it on the road. On day one we drove to Vegas and stayed at the MGM. We decided to take an extra day there and soak up some sun and play. That was a really nice day as I hadn't had a break in soooo long.

Day three we drove 7 hours to Grand Junction. Along the way we noticed the tires on the 300 were looking bad and dropped a bundle on a couple of new tires.... yuck. At least it was fast.

Day 4 took us to Denver! It was July 1 when we pulled into our new home. Our stuff in the truck was still coming, so we spent a few days at Dick and Kari's making trips to and from the house working on some little stuff. Finally the truck came on the 3rd and we started the unload.

More boxes...

And now about 3 days later I sit here in my new den writing this post. We have done most of the 'opening' of boxes at this point, but there still is a TON to do, including getting the kids furniture assembled and delivered. Today is also my last day of vacation, and I face the music of my job tomorrow. It all went so fast as it always does.

I'll leave you with this last photo of the Denver fireworks as seen from our house. Unfortunatley my camera could only capture about half of the panorama but it was quite a show.

See you soon.