grid

over the past few months, i have been having a strong desire to make my blog more visual. this desire has grown since i am now unable to upload photos onto my computer. after looking at different options, i am excited to announce that i have found the perfect space! it is great for my situation since it focuses on iphone photography and i love how quickly you can display images. no more blogging stress! i am still deciding what i am going to do with this space. i may still use it for sharing videos since my new space does not include videography. we will see! i also plan to try and keep this site a bit different than my instagram and probably include more photos of the same trip like when we went to disney and outx. sometimes it is exhausting doing so many latergrams. and now, please join me at kirstenpetty.vsco.co. i hope you enjoy my new space!

love!

ps. watch the beautiful promo video for the cam and grid here. you will have to scroll down the page a  bit and it is the one with the thumbnail of fog among trees.

the flood.

well, we survived the flood! we were lucky enough to be visiting callie during all of the craziness and missed out on all of the blocked roads. the melt off creek by our house is still flowing, but we can now tell that all of the creeks are starting to go down a bit and look less frightening. our town was lucky compared to some of the other ones north of us, but it is still crazy to see some of the destruction. electrical trucks are holding up electrical poles along the creek and there is even an area where part of a parking lot is gone and lost in the creek. a few nights ago the national guard was in downtown helping with clean up. i am sure they are helping the area that is shown in the first video, but only people who live up there are allowed down the road. i can only imagine the destruction that has happened to all of the beautiful homes that are along the creek. here are some youtube videos i found of our town during the flood.

love.

the most wonderful visit!

since moving into the new house, we have started some improvement projects. one project that i have taken on is painting over all of the colors that i do not like. i have started the kitchen and powder room and man, painting a bathroom has to be the worst room to paint. i never thought about how one would paint behind a toilet and still have yet to figure it out. oh the adventures! so now i am taking a break to eat some macaroni (of course) and catch you up on the most wonderful of visits! (please excuse the font issue, i cannot figure out how to fix it!)

alisha came to visit about two months ago and we had the best of times! (and i cannot believe it was two months ago. wow how time flies!) we did all kinds of fun things and were completely exhausted by the time sunday night rolled around.

friday: 

we were initially planning to ice skate on the lake, but they unfortunately closed down ice skating the weekend before in preparation for the lake melting. but dont worry, we still had a glorious time! we introduced alisha to our brewshotski handsome made and then headed down to our favorite place to eat, one world. luckily, we made it there right in time because they were about to close. after making sure we had fun bellies, we headed down to the little bear for some drinks and music. i honestly do not remember the band that was playing, but we had fun talking and catching up.

saturday: 

we woke up to a winter wonderland! it was absolutely perfect and wonderful that alisha was here to see the wonderful large fat flakes falling! and the perfect day to head over to the frozen dead guy festival! with the blizzard going on, they had to change around some events at frozen dead guy because all of the teams competing in the different events weren’t able to make it. i think it also made the event a bit less crowded than usual. we found a local who knew what was happening to let us know where we should go. She told us where different events would take place and we decided to try out the “local hotspot”, PI (I cannot remember what PI stands for). it was a small bar and you could tell it was the local hangout. we got ourselves some beer in lovely souvenir glasses and decided to enjoy some queso, very weird queso that was served in a super tiny cup not much larger than a shot glass. ha! after making our bellies a bit more full than they were originally, we headed down to one of the event tents that was filled with people enjoying local brewery beer, live music, delicious snacks and buying tie dyed frozen dead guy shirts. we each bought ourselves a drink token and headed to the beer tables. it was nice because they let you sample the beer first to make sure you liked what you were getting. This was especially nice since all the options were beers that i had never tried before. we were hanging out, talking and people watching (especially on this guy who seemed obsessed with alisha, but wouldn’t actually come over and talk) when a nice guy came over and gave us a free VIP pass! free beer for the remainder of the day!

we tried out our new pass and then made our way to the other tent where the coffin races were about to begin. this has to be one of the funniest and probably most fun events to participate in! each team has made a coffin that they carry one of their teammates in while racing around a snowy path with snow obstacles that they must climb over. it must have been very slippery because no one was able to remain standing on some of them. There was one team made up of women in their 50s named the frigid beavers. We ended up meeting them in a tent after the race and they were celebrating a friends 60^th birthday! and they were from beaver, oklahoma! They were fun ladies.

here is a video of the coffin race:

by this time we were starving, so we went back to the first tent since it was around all of the restaurants. we watched a few people bowl with a frozen turkey and then ate some barbeque. after eating, we headed home. alisha and i napped while handsome was a safe driver.

we got home and were welcomed by a foot of snow! alisha and i made our usual artichoke ravioli using my new ravioli maker and we relaxed and ate while drinking homemade frozen bulls out of my favorite paper birch straws. by midnight, we finally felt rested and decided to begin extreme sledding! extreme sledding is the best ever where you go over bushes, have to dodge trees, hope you dont hit a rock and have to make sure you bail out of the sled before flying into a fence or over a smallish cliff. here are some videos of our fun! what a great time!

sunday: 

dont think the fun stopped on saturday! on sunday, we got up, dressed ourselves appropriately for snow adventures and headed further into the mountains for snowshoeing! we stopped for an amazing burrito for the drive and decided to have our snowshoe adventure on loveland pass. for those who do not know, loveland pass is along the continental divide. It is where the large tunnels are that you drive through to get to you breckenridge and vail so that you dont have to drive over the mountains. it is also where a bunch of adventure seeking skiiers and snowboarders (like handsome) backcountry ski. the snow is deep, pristine, and beautiful. i am pretty positive that snowshoeing is my favorite winter activity and i cannot give a reason why. i just love it! here are some more videos of our snowshoe fun!

we got to the bottom of the pass and then had to try and hitchhike to the top so that we could get to the car. this was definitely not the most fun moment. after waiting forever, we were finally able to get into a truck that we had to quickly jump into with a bunch of guys and equipment and sit squished for the ride to the top. we finally made it to the car and then headed to keystone to eat beer cheese, shop a bit and go tubing!

tubing was so fun! we had races and had the guys spin us as fast as possible. i regretted the spinning part a bit because once it was over, i could not walk. overall, great times!

we ended up getting home and eating a bunch of pizza and then having to pass out due to exhaustion. it definitely was a successful weekend!

i am so glad alisha came to visit and i am looking forward to more visits in the future!

love.

excitement!

well, we are excited to announce that as of last thursday we are homeowners!!! it took us pretty much the entire four days i was off of work to move in, but we are home! we still have some boxes to sort through and there are still more decisons to be made regarding what we actually keep. our donation pile continues to grow and it feels wonderful! there are lots of projects on the horizon and we hope to get everything organized by the end of this next weekend so that we can get started on them! i will share more as things come together!

love.

the pursuit of favorites: the humble pie store

since handsome was working out of town for awhile and it has been winter so there have been an extra amount of activities to enjoy, we have not been able to experience too many new places. there are a couple new places we have tried, and they were amazing might i add, but i wanted to focus all my attention on our date and not blogging since our time together was so special. basically, nothing was documented. in any way. and i am absolutely horrible at posting something if i do not have any type of visual media to accompany the post.

but anyway, last weekend was beautiful so we decided to spend our saturday trying a pie place down in denver. first, i love the name. the humble pie store sounds so cute, which it is. and the pies we had were amazing! i even went back on wednesday and picked up a couple more to enjoy at home! it kind of reminds me of cuppies and jo except they have pies instead of cupcakes. and the humble pie store doesnt have couches, but there are lovely succulents hanging around and they serve the pie on beautiful china!

we split a small white bean and seasonal veggie savory pie and a slice of a butterscotch praline pie. both were super delicious! i must admit that i did enjoy the butterscotch praline one more than the savory one, but i am a sucker for sweets and tend to prefer them. it also basically tasted like heaven and melted in your mouth.

to top off this pie trip and put us over the edge on a sugar/pie coma, we shared a pie shake. you can pick any slice of pie and choose from a different assortment of locally made ice cream and they will blend them together into a super delicious shake! we tried the chocolate peanut butter pie with salted butterscotch ice cream. delicious!

i brought an apple cheddar pie and chocolate chess pie home. they are both great! after only trying four pies, my two favorites are chocolate chess and butterscotch praline. the pies offered change periodically so there will always be new pies to try!

come visit and we can eat some pie!

love.

same love

you may have already heard this song, but i wanted to share it just in case you haven't. it has been around for awhile, but i wasn't lucky enough to hear it until early last week.  i love it. a lot. and i hope you do too. but more than anything, i hope it moves your soul.

love.

and the windows are open!

today was a beautiful day! temperatures reached the 60s! crazy! i even opened the windows to soak in all the beautiful. and, of course, it made me super excited for spring. i am excited for the colors, new plants, hummingbirds and driving around with the top off.

and this lookbook video doesnt help my spring craving. i love ruche.

love.

our food supply

i know i have already posted once today, but this was just too wonderful that i had to share it. this kid is amazing. watch it and love it!

i must admit that i do need to get better at following some of this. there are some foods that i buy strictly organic, but i especially need to look more into the GMO status of foods.

love.

monthly macaroni :: pear and gorgonzola

a few months ago, after i made the most delicious poached pears, i was on a pear kick. we were looking for a new macaroni to make and guess what we found?! a macaroni with pears! a pear, gorgonzola and rosemary macaroni. and so we made it. and it was delicious!

i am not one who usually goes for a gorgonzola cheese. it is very similar to blue cheese, which i am not a huge fan of eating. but this recipe sounded promising. gorgonzola can be very creamy and it also involved two of my favorite things: pears and rosemary!

the pears are sauteed with rosemary, butter and sugar and are then added to caramelized onions. It was the perfect mix of salty/sweet. handsome loved it and i sent him to rocky ford with lots of leftovers for lunch. he was kind enough to allow his coworkers to have a taste and they loved it too! this is definitely not your typical macaroni and cheese. in fact, i think it could possibly be classified as a different type of pasta, i just dont know what exactly.

love.

it is magical, this snowglobe world

i have decided that winter may be my favorite season! i have always hated it before because in oklahoma you rarely get to see the sun and the wind is so painful that you cannot even stand to be outside, but out here, it is so much different. you see the sun! and there is not usually painful wind! and i honestly think people are more active here in the winter! there are so many fun things to do like ice skating, ice fishing, skiing, snow shoeing, etc,  and you get to see beautiful snow! and there is nothing better than wearing furry snow boots, warm colorful scarves and cute knitted head bands!

snow is definitely one of my favorite things! one weird thing about the snow out here is that it will snow three inches one day and then it will all be gone the next day because it will be so sunny! one day it snowed three inches and the following day i was driving down the highway with my window down because i was so hot! oh so confusing, but oh so beautiful and wonderful. i also love the way the deer look when they are sprinkled with snow. it is all so very calming and wonderful. until you forget to put the car in four wheel drive and almost crash into your other vehicle white trying to park in the driveway. i have now learned from that experience!

and for those of you who do not or cannot have vine, here are a few videos of what i have been up to! and dont worry, they are only five seconds each so you will not be spending too much time watching them.

 

 

it has been snowing for the last three days, which is absolutely wonderful because the snow does not immediately melt/evaporate! the snow has been much lighter than usual so it has only totaled about two inches. i hope it decides to stay awhile!

i know i probably say this too much, but our home is heaven and i cant imagine it being more wonderful (well, it will be more wonderful once handsome is home). love! it!

love.

one more!

only one month left! handsome is scheduled to be home at the beginning of march!!! finally!!!!! until then, we have been filling the weekends, the ones that i dont work that is, with skiing and fun activities at the frozen lake. i love our little town!

love.

a few goals! (not to be confused with new years resolutions)

there are many changes on the horizon in the petty household and many projects and goals that i plan on starting/finishing such as (but not limited to): finally finishing hudson's 1 year birthday gift (i was on track and then got super off track so i guess it is going to end up being a 1.5 year birthday gift), taking needle felting classes, becoming a hooper, and the most important of them all, finally going to yoga again and branching out into a different type of yoga since kundalini is super hard to find. there are so many fun activities to do and it makes it super difficult for me to make a decision on what i really think is the most important!

it was unusually hot today. (i want the snow back!) so here are some warm summer photos from when we went hiking to a burn scar on one of the mountains near our house.

love.