Okay, not really. But, we went a little crazy trying to finish up the backyard landscape in August. We agreed to host our annual Arapahoe Acres Neighbor’s Night Out at the end of August. And, while we knew that we are never really “finished”, we wanted to have as much done as we could on our house. So, we got through the Neighbor’s Night Out and I ceremoniously decided to put all of our house projects on hiatus. But, we got to have a little fun.

- We went to the Denver Modernism Show in August. I didn’t find any new things for the house, but we had lots of fun wandering around the booths. I got lots of ideas for fun stuff, though.

- We found ourselves at the totally retro Lakeside Amusement Park outside of Denver one Sunday afternoon. It’s sorta neglected, but so awesome. The old roller coaster even has historical designation. I wish I could take a decent picture because the signs for each attraction were just so awesome. Such great typography!

- We took a long weekend to Grand Junction. We toured through Colorado National Monument.

Even found a nice 1960′s Mid-Mod Visitor Center. Don’t you love the Park Service?

- We visited the Dinosaur Museum in Fruita. We apparently are trying to visit every single dinosaur museum in the US.

- We picked apples & pears at a “You Pick Em” Farm. We snagged 25 pounds of Palisade Peaches for $20. We brought them home and froze them and now break them out for the happiest Peach Daiquiris ever.

- We attended the Wheat Ridge Modern Home Tour. We didn’t have a lot of time to tour, so we just hit a few homes. I was especially surprised how much I liked the 1970′s Modern Home that was featured. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of it…or, maybe I need to check my iphone).

Kudos to ModMood and the modern folks in Wheat Ridge for a fun afternoon.

Now, that we’re on hiatus, we’re planning for a big family Halloween Party and just trying to enjoy life a little. Well, at least when Tim is in the country. Maybe I’ll even get caught up on blogging again.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that our house was used to shoot a commercial for the Goodwill of Denver. We were connected to the location scout for the production agency through our real estate agent, Shannon Stanbro. They were here for about 12 hours with a crew shooting in our master bedroom and our office. We stayed out of the house for most of the day because 4 year old’s aren’t typically too good with staying quiet and still, right.

Here are the spots recorded. You can tell that it’s our bedroom, but they really just shot against our concrete block wall in the office. It’s funny how they pulled so many things from around our house in the commercial. There is actually one item that I purchased from Goodwill!

Pretty fun…They are welcome to come back anytime to shoot any more commercials. The money from this commercial paid for our C. Jere Bird Sculpture.

Even though I had hoped to post for 30 consecutive days to celebrate the Denver Modernism Show & our 5280 Magazine Article, this weekend got crazy fast!  My Arapahoe Acres neighbor, Cecilia, and I have been trying to potluck some meals when both of our husbands’ are working in China. (Her husband is a Landscape Architect, too…and since there is no work here in the US, they are both camped out in China for work). But, Cecilia made the event a little bigger. With all of the kids headed off to school next week, we did a neighborhood potluck with a few AA neighbors and our “North Side” neighbors in the adjoining neighborhood. There houses are all mid-century post-war wood houses. Because they’re on the north side of the street, they all have nice big front porches, which is perfect for drinking beer. We have a little friendly rivalry between the North Side and the South Side. It’s all in good fun, of course. We like to think we have the best block in the city. We have at least four formally organized block parties a year and a half-dozen informal gatherings a year, too.

To celebrate my love of our little block, I had my mom make beer coozies for my beer-drinking neighbors for a party a few weeks ago. They say “Bates Ave Social Club” on one side and either “North Side” or “South Side” on the opposite side. Aren’t they cute?

I just went down a little webby rabbit hole and found this great artist. The Chicken Fried Therapy blog today had a post about affordable art over at 20×20 Art. Because my walls are embarrassingly naked and I am cash challenged right now, I jumped on over there. Lots of fun stuff to buy. But, this one artist really caught my attention! He has an entire series called “More New Math” on his website and it’s just genius! I thought that some of my design friends would also like this…

If you click on the random button, it will generate more in the series.

Image from http://morenewmath.com by Craig Damrauer – Click on the image to go directly to his website to view more.

This home was technically only open to view the garden. BUT, the homeowner was so smart about how she allowed viewing the home. The entire back of the house is open to the backyard. So, it was like seeing the entire home without trekking through the house. I think it invited visitors to experience the house from a better perspective—the indoor/outdoor flow. This is a sneaky house. Very understated, but so special, especially in how every room is connected to the outdoors.

Another great Arapahoe Acres house. It’s one of the houses that is under 1000 square feet, but it sits on an amazing lot bordered by five other houses.

Here is the second house I visited on the home tour. Again, the commentary is in the Flickr descriptions…

I’ve created a slideshow in Flickr with all of the pictures. I’ve added my own “commentary” into the description of each picture. You may need to select the option to “Show Info” in the upper right hand corner to see my commentary with the slideshow.

Okay…I know it’s been almost three months since the 2010 Arapahoe Acres home tour. But, I’m so behind on everything in life, so I guess I’m actually a little early for me! So, I took pictures of most of the houses on the home tour. We had Ty in tow, so I was taking as many pictures as I could without any regard for artistry or composition. But, I’m selfish…I was most interested in capturing design and construction details that might be able to help me later in our own home.

Sorry for the lack in proper labeling on the houses. I’ll try to add my own personal notes as best I can…hold on for the daily blog posts for the next week with all of the pics…