Christmas Part 1

After Katy's first week of work, we had another round of visitors. This time Katy's parents, Dave and Sherry, flew out to celebrate an early Christmas with us. We picked them up at midnight on Friday night, December 17th. Saturday we spent the morning relaxing and then headed into downtown Denver that afternoon to do some shopping before meeting up with Aunt Cyndi for dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery. After a delicious meal we walked over to the Denver Performing Arts Center to watch "A Christmas Carol." The tickets to the play were given to us as a gift from Seth and Brittany...it was a wonderful play and a great evening!

At the Celestial Seasonings tour

On Sunday we headed down to Boulder and took Dave and Sherry on the Celestial Seasonings tour and then spent time sampling all of their different tea. After leaving Boulder we headed up into the mountains and went to Estes Park. We grabbed some lunch and after a little shopping headed to the Stanley Hotel. This hotel is a famous destination in the Rocky Mountains as it is the spot where Steven King was inspired to write The Shining. It is also the location where the TV miniseries based on the book was filmed, it was the fictional Danbury Hotel in the movie Dumb and Dumber, and it has been featured multiple times on the television series, Ghost Hunters. We spent time at the hotel walking around and enjoying the stunning views it offers. When we got back to Denver that night Cyndi, forever the hostess and chef, had cooked us an incredible meal of a pork roast with a grape chutney, potato gratin, brussel sprouts, rolls, and for dessert an apple pie.

On  Monday Katy took the day off and we headed up into the mountains again, this time up I-70W to Breckenridge. We stopped first in Georgetown and decided to walk on their lake, and yes, I mean literally!

After doing a little impromptu ice skating we went to Breckenridge to have lunch and show Dave and Sherry around one of our favorite mountain towns. That night we picked up pizza and watched a Christmas movie together before hitting the sack. On Tuesday Katy was back to work and so I drove Dave and Sherry down to Boulder to show them where Katy worked and to have lunch together. Afterwards Dave and Sherry did some shopping in downtown while I had two interviews. That night Katy and I cooked crab cakes for dinner and we celebrated our own little "Christmas" together, even if we were a few days early from the actual date. It was a special evening and nice to be together enjoying the holidays. Wednesday we said goodbye and then began preparing for the next round of visitors, my whole family, to come in less then a week!

Dave and Sherry got out of Denver just in time because Wednesday night we got hit with a snowstorm that dumped close to a foot of snow on us. On Thursday Katy stayed home from work and we enjoyed our snow day together, playing with the dogs outside and getting most of our wrapping done! Hard to believe Christmas is just around the corner!

Boulder Baby!

The big news of last week's winter vacation in Breckenridge was that Katy accepted a job in Boulder! She'll be working at Wynwood at Ridgepoint, an assisted living center. She started the job on the 12th, one day after her one year anniversary of graduating from Elon University. Katy was unable to find a travel job in the Denver area, but was offered this job with the understanding that she won't be here long term. However, we've decided that we will probably stay in Boulder through the summer as we are very excited about the job and the area and think it would be fun to enjoy the Colorado experience during winter, spring, and summer. So, now it's my turn to find a job...anybody know anyone in Boulder who's hiring?!?

For now we are still living with Aunt Cyndi outside of Denver, and Katy has about an hour commute through Denver traffic. After Katy's first day of work we met our close family friend, Laura Kuykendall, in downtown Boulder for dinner at The Kitchen. Laura, who lives in Boston, does a lot of traveling to Boulder for work. It was so nice to spend the evening with Laura and we are really looking forward to seeing her again when she travels back out west.

Another road trip and our first round of visitors in Colorado

I flew back to Virginia on the 29th of November and met Seth, Brittany, Mom, Dad, and, of course, Kylie at Crozet Pizza for dinner. It was nice being able to see everyone, and I spent most of the evening holding Kylie since I had not been with her for a week. The next morning Seth and I were up and on the road by 8:30am. Seth was driving with me out to Colorado to help get our second car and Colby and Barlow back out west. Katy stayed behind in Denver to continue the job hunt. 

Mine and Seth's trip was uneventful other then hitting a little snow in West Virginia, and other then hitting heavy traffic in Louisville due to a portion of I-64 being closed, it went real smooth. We stopped in Illinois for the night on Wednesday, and then rolled into Denver in time for dinner on Thursday. Josh had flown into Colorado Thursday evening to spend a long weekend, so we all arrived at Aunt Cyndi's around the same time for some waffles and gravy. 

Since we were all together we decided to spend Friday doing some sightseeing. We drove up to Fort Collins and spent the day visiting different breweries. Fort Collins has more breweries per capita then any other city in the United States other then Portland. We started off at Anheuser-Busch, but were late for their 11am tour. However, the people there were extremely nice and told us to come back for their 1:30pm tour and they would hook us up with free tickets to their beer school. At the end of the factory tour the guide asks a trivia question, and whoever gets it right gets free tickets, so they gave us the answer and made sure the tour guide called on us. So, with that we headed downtown and went to Cooper Smith's for some sampling and lunch.

After leaving Cooper Smith's we headed back to Anheuser-Busch and spent the next several hours touring the factory, attending beer school, and sitting in their bar sampling the beer. 

Once we left the Budweiser plant, we decided we had time for one more stop, so we headed to Odell's Brewing Company. We did several samplers of their different beer and just shared. They had some excellent beer, some interesting beer, and some strong beer. They had a whole sampler of beer that was 9% alcohol or higher! While at Odell's we decided we were hungry, and so I went out to the parking lot where a taco truck was parked and ordered us some munchies. 

 When we got back to Denver, Cyndi had cooked us a wonderful steak dinner with homemade eggnog pie for dessert! It was great all being together. Saturday morning Seth flew back to Virginia (it was a whirl wind trip for him, driving 26 hours over two days and then spending a full day in Colorado Friday before flying home). That afternoon Josh, Katy, Cyndi, and myself packed up the car and drove up to the ski town of Breckenridge for a week of fun and relaxation.

On Saturday night Alex, a friend and co-workers of Cyndi's, joined us in Breckenridge, and we went to the Breckenridge Brewery for dinner and then went back to our cabin and soaked in the hot tub with snow falling down on us. We were living the life!

On Sunday Josh, Katy, and myself spent the afternoon cross country skiing. It was not easy as we thought, and after three and a half hours and multiple trips on our butts, we were worn out! It was a lot fun though, and the scenery was gorgeous being up in the Rocky Mountains with the snow continuing to fall. That night Cyndi made one of our favorite meals, Chicken Tetrazzini...once again, we were living the life!

Did not make it out of the teens on Sunday!

On Monday afternoon Josh took off to fly back to Virginia. Katy and I spent the rest of the week doing a whole lot of nothing. My Mom's and Cyndi's cousin, Jeannie, and her partner, Keri, joined us for the week. We had one small hiccup in an otherwise wonderful week, both Katy and I caught some 24 hour virus around the same time, so that was far from pleasant. Once we got over that bug, we spent an evening downtown at an amazing fondue restaurant called the Swiss Haven...it was a delicious meal!

On Friday Katy and I took off on a gorgeous four mile hike up in the mountains with Jeannie and Keri. It was the warmest it had been all week (in the upper 20s) and there was not a cloud in the sky. We rented snowshoes, but did not end up needing them for most of the hike. 

On Saturday we headed back to Denver, stopping in Frisco for some shopping and then in Idaho Springs at Tommyknockers Microbrewery for lunch. It was a wonderful week and now we have Dave and Sherry to look forward to coming next Friday!

And..we made it!

Eli and I made it to Aurora, Colorado to Aunt Cyndi's house last Monday evening!  The past week has been very busy unpacking, moving things around the house, cooking a big Thanksgiving meal, and now decorating for Christmas!!  Cyndi told us that we were doing a "low-key" Thanksgiving meal.  We should have known that low key for us and Cyndi are not the same thing.  We made a turkey, a salmon roll, corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, cranberry chutney, bread, stuffing, and gravy.  Then we had Cyndi's neighbors, Lynn and George, over for dinner and they brought mashed potatoes, a delicious appetizer, and a pumpkin cake dessert!  It was a delicious meal with a great company.  We were able to watch football and take advantage of the beautiful 70 degree day for a bit with a run.  During this week, I have also been on the job hunt.  My traveling companies are able to find a lot of options about 2 hours away (or more) but ideally we would like to live with Aunt Cyndi, so I have been doing a lot of searching.  We are keeping our fingers crossed we can find something within commuting distance so we don't have to move again in the next few weeks!!  Eli is also looking for jobs in the area, so keep your fingers crossed for us!!

 

Garden of the Gods

Yesterday, Eli and I drove about an hour and a half to Colorado Springs in the morning.  We got lucky with another beautiful day and did about a 4 mile hike through the Garden of the Gods which is a park with phenomenal rock structures all throughout the area.  After hiking, we drove through a natural canyon to the Seven Falls Waterfall.  Both Eli and I still have sore quads after hiking up and down the very steep 224 stairs to reach the top.  On our way back home we went to the Helen Hunt Falls.  Both falls were pretty and covered with ice and snow but pale in comparison to the height of the waterfalls we saw in Oregon.  Once we got home and worked on decorating, Cyndi gave us her groupon to eat at the Washington Park Grille in downtown Denver.  It was a delicious 3-course meal.  I had an ahi tuna taco for an appetizer and salmon with grilled veggies in a coliflower sauce for the main course while Eli had a romaine lettuce salad with a gorgonzola and basil vinaigrette and beef tenderloin.  We both got the strawberry creme burlee for dessert which was wonderful!  This morning I took Eli to the airport as he is flying home then to drive across the country (AGAIN) with Seth and our pups :)!!!

Pike's Peak in the background at the Garden of the Gods

7 Falls...look at the ice!!

Lots of stairs!

Heading West...Crappie Capital and the Ozarks

We left Georgia this morning around 9am and have made good time driving through Alabama, including the town of Centre which had a big sign announcing itself as the Crappie Capital of the world. We also passed through Mississippi, a sliver of Tennessee, including Memphis and the Mississippi River, and then passed through Arkansas. In Arkansas we stopped at a scenic overlook to admire a view of the Ozark Mountains and the Arkansas River. While stopped we ran into a traveling occupational therapist from North Carolina...small world!