Wasn’t the moon beautiful on Sunday night? We actually were thinking there was going to be cloud cover and we would miss it, but luck would have it the front slowed down and we had good viewing. I used my 300 zoom lens to get some pictures.  It’s not easy taking pictures of the moon, it turns out! I was frustrated at the haze I was getting. Thanks to searching on the trusty interwebs, I changed the settings on my camera to aperature f/11,  speed 1/125 and ISO 100. That yielded this shot:

Of course, Sunday night was also Broncos football and we were dividing our time between the game and the moon!  I had the camera on my tripod. It became harder to focus on the moon as it went into eclipse and I would just fiddle and take a bunch of shots, hoping that one would be in focus.  I had to change the settings as the moon got darker when it stopped showing up in my picture. It took a while for it to dawn on me that I needed to change the setting again.   😳 I set the timer at 3 seconds (very slow – tripod necessary and remote trigger), the aperature to 5.6 and the ISO to 6400. This was the best shot. 

You can actually see 3 stars in this picture as well if you look closely (noon, 9 and 7 near the edges). Slow shutter speed let the light in enough for those to show up. I was happy with getting a handful of good shots out of this. Of course, a bigger zoom lens would be great, but I will need to save some pennies for that.  I truly am enjoying my new camera!

On a miscellaneous note, we pulled out fall decorations and set up the mantle.

I do love fall. It seems like the shortest season of the year, but it’s the same length as all the others. I think because at the end it feels more like winter!

My new cycling gloves arrived and they fit perfect! Plus they are fun.

They have that all important terrycloth thumb covering so I can wipe sweat. There is still enough time for some fall riding to put these to use!

John and I celebrated 19 years of marriage yesterday. I have known him almost half my life now. We met at age 24 and got married at age 28.  We don’t exchange gifts, but we did go out to a nice dinner.  We tried Sushi Aroy Dee, which is a Thai restaurant down the street. It’s only about 1/4 mile from our house and our first time there.

Thai iced coffee:

We split an appetizer that had potatoes, curry and I think green onions in it? With sweet and sour sauce:

John got a vegetarian sushi combo. It had all kinds of veggie sushi rolls on there with a side of tempura vegetables (not pictured). It arrived in a giant boat!

A+ for presentation.  Not a bit of meat in that boat either, isn’t that interesting?

I decided on a curry. This is Massaman curry that has carrots, sweet potatoes, onions and peanuts in a coconut based broth, which I added scallops to.

This was delicious. We would go here again for sure. It’s pretty reasonable price wise.  The best part was sharing it with my hubby <3

Our next round of company arrives on Wednesday. I wish the weather would be a little better, but we sure do need the rain. Here’s hoping there will be some fall color to show off by early next week!

Saturday was our anniversary.  John and I have been married for 17 years. Sometimes I get that stuff messed up.  I am bad with dates.  Last year we celebrated 20 years of dating.

Anyway, I spent the day with the man I love doing one of my favorite things!  Okay, that would be bike riding 😀

I cannot believe this fall weather we are having! We really booked it on the ride.  Not much stopping.  There was really no wind and it makes such a difference.  I did stop to take off my jacket about 8 miles in.

Then I notice the sign and ask John to pose for it.

Get it??  John’s response “All the stupid internet jokes and now I am a part of it.”

Sun through leaves:

We headed on down to Saratoga and got there around mile 23.  Fall displays everywhere.

We stopped at Betties to buy a cupcake.  I was sure they would have something pumpkin (and they did).

John got a chocolate rummie.  Then we went to Spot Coffee to get our lattes.

My latte from Spot Coffee – complete with a heart.  How sweet.

This cuppie was a vanilla cupcake with pumpkin buttercream and soooooo good!  Of course, everything tastes good when you have been exercising hard.

I also got a cannoli (maple bacon), which I totally forgot to take a picture of.

We couldn’t dawdle too long as there was a lot to do still! Not too much stopping again on the way home.  We have good bike legs at this time of year.  Around mile 30, we did a stretch.  More sun through leaves!

I take this picture a lot here.

Long ride home. Around mile 45, I was getting pretty tired and ready to be done. Can’t stop, though – or you just don’t get home, right?

Stats:

51.6 miles

Average speed: 14 mph

Top speed: 32.3

Calories burned: 1545

We showered and got all pretty and then went out to an anniversary dinner at Bistro Leroux. We have gone here for our anniversary for 3 years in a row.  It’s so good!

I love this place because they offer half sizes, which makes it more affordable.  There was a table of 4 next to us that had appetizers, full size plates and 2 bottles of wine. I can’t imagine how much that dinner cost, but it had to be at least $200.

We had a crabcake appetizer with a chipotle remoulade and some type of slaw on top:

My plate was a half portion of rosemary and cabernet braised steak risotto with blue cheese crumbles and crispy sweet potatoes.

This was amazing!  Lots of flavors going on in this dish.

John had the half portion of butter poached lobster risotto.

We had a 50 mile ride appetite and the food tasted extra good.

Then we left the bistro and headed back down to Saratoga since our anniversary is also one of the niece’s birthdays.  She turned 10.  The remains of a party:

My sister and BIL were exhausted because not only did 3 girls do a sleepover the night prior to the birthday, but then there was a party with seven 5th graders.  😯 😯

And look who it is!  Remember Phoenix when we babysat him?  I was holding him like a baby here. Ragdolls let you do that and stay there forever.  He’s gotten big!

I love his face.  He says, “I spent the day with a bunch of 5th graders. Will I ever be the same?”

We crammed a lot into this day!

Happy hump day!  I had trouble sleeping last night, so this post will be all over the place.  Hello 3 hours of sleep.

Here is the deal with my shoulder.  It has been slightly funny since I fell off my bike last year.  It was achy for months, so I think it probably was already susceptible to injury.

Anyway,  a couple weeks ago, I was gardening and pulling up sod, working very hard and pulling with my right arm.  I didn’t feel any immediate pain, but my shoulder was a little achy that night. The next morning it hurt a lot.  I could barely raise my arm up.  I figured I just overdid it.  A day or so later, I was in the shower and I noticed my collarbone on the right side was sticking out.  Weird.  It hurt a little bit, but more like a bruised feeling.  I know I have a high pain tolerance, but I knew it couldn’t be broken because it wasn’t that painful. Plus I could use my arm, even though it hurt in my shoulder.  Here is my collarbone sticking out.  Not sure if you can see it very well here.

Gross, isn’t it?  Well, I did a lot of google research and found lots of stuff from lymphoma to broken bones.  Gotta love google  🙄  With most of my work files in orthopedics, you would think I would have a better handle on it.  Well, I needed to look a little closer at my shoulder and less at the clavicle.  I noticed that my right shoulder was slightly dropped compared to the left.  Bingo – I think I have a separated shoulder.  I am curious to see how well I self-diagnose.  I’m not a doctor, but I play one on the internet  LOL!

Anyway, it took a couple weeks to get in to see the doctor, which happens on Thursday.  Not that there is much that can be done for it other than time and rest.

So, on to the good part of the day.  20 years ago today, John and I had our first date.  We met at CU Boulder.  I was there working on my doctorate in music and John was finishing up his masters in music.  We were thrown together into a graduate brass quintet, me on the horn and John on tuba.  Anyway, John called me up one Saturday (20 years ago!) and asked if I wanted to see the Colorado Symphony that night.  I said yes.  He then said something about hoping his car made it to Denver and back.  I thought he was joking, but he was not!  It didn’t occur to him that was not a great thing to tell a prospective date.  We did make it there and back okay, though.  And now here we are married.

We decided to have a nicer dinner today rather than on our ‘real’ anniversary.  We chose to go to Bistro LeRoux.

It’s getting all fall around here now!

Bistro LeRoux is an upscale place without the snootiness.  One thing that we love is that they offer half portions of everything, including appetizers!  That makes it much more affordable to eat here.  More restaurants need to do this.

My date.

John’s date:

Bad lighting in here, though.

We were getting half portion entrees, we decided to split a half portion appetizer.  The appetizer was toasted goat cheese with a madgascar vanilla and cherry fondue with baguette crostinis.

I don’t like cherries, so John ate all of those, but this was so, so good!  It was sweet and savory together and the goat cheese was an interesting texture.   Firmer than what I have had before and oh so good! There was honey on the plate as well, which went really well with the cheese.

John’s dish:

This was a crab cake risotto with tempura andouille sausage with a tomato and basil salsa.  I love the crabcakes here. They are amazing!

 

My entree was:

Sauteed steak with bacon parmesan risotto and chive sour cream with corn and a blue cheese mini twice baked potato on top. OMG!  This was so good.  Lots of different flavors going on.  The meat was super tender and the risotto was rich and creamy.   The little twice baked potato was tasty. I could have had about 10 of those!

Perfect sized portions and we weren’t stuffed!  John said we need to come here more than once a year and he is right 😀

Today’s pink item is more fall color.  Pink tree. I love fall!

14 years ago John and I  got married. Who knew when we first met how life would be now? Nary a wrinkle in sight when we met:

Always fashionable:

Usually we stayed out of trouble, but sometimes it caught up with us:

Years of holidays together:

Being buds:

And crazy fans:

Getting healthy together:

We are growing older together, but maybe not growing up.

In the words of Queen:

You make me live
Whatever this world can give to me
It’s you,you’re all I see
You make me live now honey
You make me live

You’re the best friend that I ever had
I’ve been with you such a long time
You’re my sunshine and I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
Oh you’re my best friend

I’ve been wandering round
But I still come back to you
In rain or shine
You’ve stood by me.
I’m happy, happy at home
You’re my best friend

Whenever this world is cruel to me
I got you to help me forgive
You make me live

You’re the first one
When things turn out bad.
You know I’ll never be lonely
You’re my only one
And I love the things, I really love the things that you do.
You’re my best friend

You’re my best friend.

Happy Anniversary John!!