It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, so here is a quick recap of the Marshall "doings." Nate and Julie came to Denver the middle of April to sign a lease on an apartment prior to the big move in June. We got to hang out while they were here, eating out, movie watching and hot tubing mostly. We've already talked about summer camping, fishing, and exploring...I love SUMMER, and we're so excited for them to get here!
Speaking of summer, the weather here has been teasing us lately, 75 degree days intermixed with occasional snow, but Spencer and I were able to go out last weekend exploring. We hiked around at Red Rocks, and I'm dying to see a concert there now. It's AMAZING! My camera died so we only got away with one picture,which isn't the greatest, but we're definitely going back soon. We drove up Bear Creek Canyon and looped around to Deer Creek Canyon and explored the "backwoods" of Denver. It was a lot of fun to finally be out and about in nice weather.
This last weekend Spencer and I put together another ward activity and then skipped over to a work event downtown. It was a charity event themed "Toga party" and I've never seen more goofy looking rich people dressed up in Greek garb. There was a silent auction, an incredible dinner and a short program. It was fun to hang out with some of Spencer's co-workers, and it was a good excuse to dress up for a night on the town.
And...photography is officially back in full swing. I've got a full week of appointments starting tomorrow and the following weeks are filling in nicely. Thank goodness! I'm more than ready to say goodbye to this winter temp job.
Well, Mom and Dad made the long drive home on Friday, but the Peterson's hung around for a whole other week. My sister is the greatest, and it was so fun to have her come to visit. She really is my best friend and her kids are so fun. We loved having kids in our home to play with and laugh at all the silly things they do and say. Some of the week 2 adventures included: Alvin and the Chipmunks, Horton Hears a Who and 27 Dresses that Alisa and I snuck away to while Spencer supervised the sleeping kiddos. We spent an evening at the Children's Museum where Ella had a love/hate relationship with her armadillo...we think...costume. We enrolled the kids in a playgroup/gym class, we shopped a little, hung out at the park, made sugar cookies, paper airplanes, forts, and lots of pirate and dragon coloring pages. Alisa and I went to the Hotel Cafe Tour Friday night which was overall pretty great minus some Jim Bianco guy that I wanted to throw tomatoes at, and the fact that I wore heals and then found out that it was a standing concert that lasted 3 1/2 hours, but Ingrid Michaelson was well worth it. Spencer had a nightly wrestling match with Owen, and Ella contributed a pretty good body slam a time or two as well. We hit up Chucky Cheese's of course, which the kids loved and Alisa and I took headaches away from, and the cupcake cafe stop was pretty yummy. It was so fun to have them, and always sad to watch them leave but we're excited to meet up again at the Oregon Coast in June. Love you guys.
p.s. looking back at the post I should have probably made a slideshow...sorry for the million pictures.
My parents and little brother Tanner drove in from Boise on Saturday March 22nd for spring break, and my sister and her 2 kids took the train from Chicago and got into Denver the following Tuesday. It was so fun to have family around, and the 2 weeks of family adventures went by way too fast.
Some of my favorite highlights from the first week were: Playing guitar with Dad, having kids around to wrestle with, bowling of course...such nerds, Hammond's candy factory tour, mini golf...nerds again, but so fun, taking advantage of Nana and Papa's hotel hot tub, eating out on Dad...another tradition I love, movies and ice cream and Mom's home cooking and key lime pie. As I've gotten older and my visits with Mom and Dad have become fewer, I realize more and more how lucky I am to have such great parents. I have never questioned their love for me nor their focus in life to do the right things. They are great examples to me of faith and love and patience, not to mention good humor. Thanks for coming you guys.
As some of you know, Spencer has recently joined a local cycling team "Champions for Children." He has been training for the Triple Bypass race this summer, which is the team’s signature ride. It takes place on July 12th, and is considered one of the most difficult single-day rides in North America. It takes cyclists from Avon to Evergreen over Squaw, Loveland & Vail passes, covering 120 miles and 10,000 feet of elevation gain.
It's a pretty incredible race and even more than the benefit of the personal feat, the race raises money for the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization that supports Colorado's abused and neglected children. This is the 3rd year of the race, and the 50 member team is hoping to raise $75,000.
If you are interested in sponsoring Spencer, you can visit the website at http://www.cfccycling.com. It's a tax-deductible donation, and it's easy to do. From the website, click on Donate and select Spencer Marshall from the list of cyclists. You can also mail a check made out to Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center with Spencer's name in the memo line:
Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center
1325 S. Colorado Blvd., #308
Denver, CO 80222
Any contribution is appreciated and we're excited to be a part of such a great program and event this year.
...additional fun fact: Spencer also designed the team jersey set for the 2008 race.
The SPE photography conference was last weekend here in Denver. My old photo professors and a few students from my class were in town and we met up with them for dinner on Friday night. I hadn't seen any of them since I drove away from Rexburg in December of 2004, so needless to say there was a lot of catching up to do.It was so fun to see everyone, and I even conned a couple of them into getting me some of their prints. Bro. Clark brought me a series of prints of snowy Rexburg that are amazing, and even more special because of the memories I have of that place.We had fun catching up, and gorging ourselves on food at the Cheesecake Factory, and the reunion bug has me even more excited for the "Shanty" reunion this summer.
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Spencer and I have been working with a web programmer to get a new photography website up at www.andimarshall.com. We took some pictures today for the "about me" page, and we're having a hard time deciding. I pretty much dislike most all pictures of myself.We want to send the image to our programmer on Monday, and we're hoping you all can help by telling us which one you like the best. It doesn't matter if you have any background in photography, I'm just curious to see which one the majority responds to. You can either comment here, email me, or call me. Sorry I'm not savvy enough to post a poll like Nate always does. Let's just say top to bottom 1,2,3,4,5, and if you click on them they open in a new window and you can view them larger.Anyways, the more opinions the better! Thank you Thank you.-Andi
