airbnb Daydreaming

Have you heard of airbnb yet? It's an online travel site that allows you to rent (or rent out) homes around the world, usually at a much cheaper price than you would get at a nice hotel. We'll be using airbnb on an upcoming trip to Vancouver, and as I was perusing downtown condos for our vacation, I started drifting off into travel neverland...

Here are some of the funky, cool, sleek and beautiful places I came across on airbnb that I would love to have a reason to book.

{A European island "container" home, Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain}

{Stockholm houseboat, Stockholm, Sweden}

{Quirky-chic penthouse in Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil}

{West Coast "glamping," San Francisco to Yellowstone and anywhere in between}

{Simply modern city loft, Athens, Greece}

Ups and Downs

This weekend was full of some really fun moments, but unfortunately shadowed by some not-so-fun things. Up // On Friday, Aaron and I both rode our bikes to work so we could meet up with some friends post-work at the Denver Beer Co. (where we sipped on the ginger saison) and My Brother's Bar for buffalo burgers. Down // Then we came home to a burglarized garage. A big bummer and very unsettling.

Down // Oh yes, and Dexter got stung by a bee and his face swelled up.

{Sleeping off his benadryl haze.}

Up // I met up with a few friends in Cherry Creek North for some shopping in the air conditioned mall and met another at Yogurtland for some toasted coconut frozen yogurt. Down // Unfortunately, this meant driving in the 101 degree heat in my car whose air conditioning decided to break during the worst heat spell in Colorado's history.

Up // Sunday was going to be our first venture to City Park for Jazz in the Park this summer, but we were deterred by the oppressive heat. So we popped on over to the neighbors for blueberry mojitos and a spontaneous grilling session on the patio. Brussels sprouts skewers, jalapeño cream cheese burgers and Marczyk's ribs. Down // We were having a great time relaxing as the sun went down when we found out the unfortunate news that a police officer had been shot at Jazz in the Park, just a few blocks from us. Perhaps it was fortuitous that we skipped the park last night, but our hearts went out to the officer's family as we crossed our fingers this incident wouldn't scare people away from our urban neighborhood.

Anyway, I woke up today determined for a fresh start to the week. So it was back to my typical mornings, consisting of smoothies, lunches, etc.

A berry banana smoothie for breakfast. Salad for lunch -- have you tried the Annie's Organic Mango Vinaigrette?? Brewing some Bigelow Pomegranate Half & Half Tea + Lemonade, which is my new solution to not drinking iced coffee and not spending money at Starbucks every morning. Check out the Bigelow site for tons of great iced tea flavor combos, iced peach chai anyone? Happy Monday!

cafe | bar, can you be our backyard?

To continue on with our backyard transformation, we recently took some inspiration from the patio at cafe | bar on Alameda. We stopped in last Friday for some happy hour delights. We left with a bunch of wishful thinking for our backyard and the outside of our house. Although these plans likely won't happen any time soon -- you know how quickly we move on projects -- it's some fodder for our ever-changing home.

The Seeker Sauv Blanc + Barely Buzzed Bison Sliders were the original motives for an evening at cafe | bar.

And then we became enamored with this patio set-up. Don't you just love the rustic polished wood mixed with the industrial iron? We also ooohed and aaahed over the dark gray stucco exterior bordered by the flagstone finish. Yes, this is what we were doing instead of eating and drinking.

Don't get me wrong, we also ate. The bison sliders and we were also enticed to order the duck drumettes. Like chicken wings but way better and you can pretend they are slightly classier.

Then I noticed this adorable bird hook on the perfectly robin egg blue door in the bathroom. A modish contrast to the dark gray and white interior. That's when I decided we could just move in to cafe | bar.

We ate outside, but next time we go we'll definitely be eating and drinking in the fabulous bar area. And that's when I'm sure we'll decide we need to redo our whole kitchen to match.

Backyard Business

Last summer, on the hottest weekend of the year, Aaron and I turned our pile of dirt that we called a backyard into an actual backyard. For the most part. We had a cement patio poured. We tilled, raked and evened out the whole thing and edged the yard into sections for grass, rock and bark. We thought it would be easy. We were wrong. Oh so very wrong. One year later, and we are just now finished. Why was it so hard? Let me count the ways.

When we started last year, we thought that large, 4" to 6" river rocks would look the best as an edging and filler component for most of the yard. They do look quite nice, but those pretty rocks were quite the back-breakers. A dump truck came and dropped off the rocks in a massive mound in our backyard. These not-so-little rocks were too big to shovel, so they had to be moved by hand into the wheel barrow and then dumped. And there were eight tons. We moved about six tons in three days. The remaning two tons then sat on the side of our garage until May of this year.

We also decided to rip out all the grass from our front yard with a rented sod cutter from Home Depot and move it to the back to cut down on the amount of sod we had to buy. It was cheap, we only had to buy four rolls of sod. But it was a horrible, painful, slow process. If you're about to put grass down, just spring for the extra few bucks and get sod rolls, don't be cheap like us. Better yet, just pay someone to put the sod rolls out for you. It's worth it, trust me.

Anyway, long story short, this is what we ended up with. And so it stayed until a month or so ago.

Splotchy grass, lots of rocks and a sea of bark. This was the good-looking portion of the yard.

And there were those pesky remaining two tons of river rock sitting on some more dirt in the back.

So what did we have left to do? We also had red stone pavers that formed a walkway from the house to the garage. Well we sold those on a whim on Craigslist shortly after we were "finished" to make a few extra bucks. Clearly not thinking of the consequences, we were left with a strange, uneven dirt path. And those rocks weren't going anywhere on their own. Plus we still had two giant patches of dirt on either side of the garage.

Finally in May, we got our acts together (only because we were hosting a Memorial Day BBQ and were embarrassed by our semi-finished yard). After a $400 bid on a cement path to cover the dirt path, we decided to suck it up and do it ourselves. We fancy ourselves as DIYers after all. At Home Depot, we grabbed 13 square cement pavers, six lawn edgers and six bags of dark brown mulch. Two hours later, we had this lovely little path for a total of $80.

Notice the snap-and-lock cedar planters in the back corner for our new garden.

We also moved the rocks to fill in some empty looking spots in our existing rock areas and then had the back two areas filled in with dark brown bark. At Home Depot, we found snap-and-lock cedar planter boxes on clearance for $30 a piece and bought three to make a stacked double garden bed. That was actually cheaper than our original plan to build raised planter beds ourselves at an estimated $200. The garden is now on the old dirt expanse on the side of the yard. After a few potted plants and flowers, a dozen solar pathway lights and two $17 Adirondack chairs, our backyard is finally presentable! Too bad weeding is a never-ending chore.

Our hibiscus tree may be the only plant that survives the heat this summer!

Frowns All Around!

I'm such a bad blogger! I fell off the face of the planet (well, maybe just the blogosphere). I feel just like this little guy about the whole thing. Actually, I'm sure he's frowning more from that ridiculous frog suit than from his inability to get his blogging act together.

{via}

So no more frownies -- and no more excuses! I have a great line-up of pics, stories, food and happenings to share. We've had a lot going on at the Denver Square house, including some landscaping, some painting, some eating, some biking and more. Get ready to turn that frown upside down!

Tasty Treats

The other night I was in a baking mood, and me and my horrible sweet tooth decided to make some little Easter goodies and strawberry shortcake cups to bring into work. Yes, this makes me quite popular among my coworkers.

Pretty pastels.

I found a pin on Pinterest ages ago for something similar to the above photo using candy corn for Halloween treats. So I tweaked it to make it appropriate for spring and Easter. These are so easy, but so cute! Preheat the oven to 325, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, place square pretzels over the entire pan and place unwrapped Hershey's Hugs on each pretzel. Place in oven for two minutes. Remove and carefully place an Easter-colored M&M on each melted Hug. Place in the freezer for an hour, then store in a parchment-lined container in the fridge. I like to place a handful in a small sandwich bag tied with pastel ribbons before giving them out. People go nuts of these easy little things, I'm not joking.

I also made strawberry shortcake cups, a recipe my mom has been making for ages. She always makes it on Easter Sunday, and then many many times throughout the spring and summer. While she usually makes this recipe in a large trifle dish, I decided to make individual cups to bring into work for a coworker's birthday.

Strawberry Shortcake Cups

• 2 packages of fresh strawberries, sliced into quarter segments
• 1 box of instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 container of whipped topping (like Cool Whip), thawed
• 1 package of frozen pound cake, thawed and cubed into quarter inch segments
• 8 disposable clear cups

Prepare the pudding per instructions. I actually use coconut milk to make pudding. It makes it a bit less sweet and a bit more creamy. Place a layer of pound cake at the bottom of each cup. Top with a layer of pudding, a layer of whipped topping and finally the layer of strawberries. Repeat once more and you're done! Chill and serve.

I wanted to make each of the cups look like this, but I ran out of time to find sweetly patterned tape. But it's on my craft supply list, so I'll be prepared next time!

{via}

Is it Summer?

Well today is definitely not summer. It's dreary and cold. A marked changed from the 84 degree weather we had over the weekend. That being said, the warm weather made for a fun weekend with lots of outdoorsy outings, including brunch with my friend Tracy at Jelly in Capitol Hill and a walk over to the Denver Art Museum for the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit. The exhibit was fascinating for us girly girls and the best part was (of course) all of the amazingly intricate dresses and clothes dating back to the 1960s from Dior (prior to his own label) and YSL.

However, I have to say, while the exhibit itself was wonderful, Tracy and I spent a majority of our time in the activity room following the exhibit. I'm pretty sure it's meant for little girls no older than age 12. But we had tons of fun drawings clothes we'd like to design and creating inspiration boards full of color, material and magazine cut-outs.

Blue skies and the dizzying architecture of the Denver Art Museum.

YSL activity room = artsy fun.

Fabric inspiration for our inspiration boards. Old school Pinterest, no?

On Sunday, Aaron and I rode our cruiser bikes all over downtown, ended up in LoHi and had a spontaneous Sunday Funday brunch at Lola. Huevos + breakfast tacos + snozberry mimosas + a patio overlooking downtown = a perfect day!

"Snozberries taste like snozberries."

Oh, and we also saw The Hunger Games (which I feverishly read a few days prior) and ate tons of ice cream (thanks sunny days and Little Man Ice Cream).