The third and final act of Christmas this year lasted for a week, with Mom, Dad, Seth, Brittany, and Kylie flying out to Denver to visit. They arrived on Tuesday afternoon, December 27th. It was so wonderful to have everyone under one roof and to be able to spend time together. We missed Josh greatly, but Josh had flown out earlier in the month and was now spending the week with his friends on their annual New Year's beach trip to the Outer Banks.
On Wednesday Katy had to work, so everyone else decided it would be nice to take Katy lunch and then spend the afternoon in Boulder. After getting a bite to eat and showing everyone where Katy spends her days, we drove into downtown Boulder to walk around, do some shopping, and enjoy the street entertainers. One performer that was especially good was a guy who could tell you what city you were from and then say something about that city, simply by you telling him your zip code. He knew Staunton and Charlottesville along with countless other cities. The other cool thing about the show was that Seth volunteered to be in his performance.
That night after returning from Boulder, Cyndi had prepared what she called, "nibble night." It was a feast of hors d'oeuvres with all kinds of appetizers and finger foods. This was our Christmas feast as tonight we decided it was officially/unofficially Christmas and that we were going to exchange presents. The best and most exciting presents of the night were all the homemade pottery we got from Mom, Dad, and Josh, along with tickets to go see the Broncos play on Sunday!
On Thursday we spent the afternoon in downtown Denver walking around and shopping. We then grabbed dinner before heading over to the Pepsi Center to watch the Colorado Avalanche play the Phoenix Coyotes in hockey. Mom and Cyndi took Kylie home for a girls' night while the rest of us enjoyed our first NHL experience with an exciting 3-2 win for Colorado! On our way home we drove by the City County Building of Denver, a must see attraction for the Christmas season.
On Friday Katy began a four day weekend, so we celebrated by going to breakfast at a well known restaurant in the Denver area called Sam's Number 3. This place is famous for their burritos (including a current one called the tebow-ritto). They are also well known because of their green chili, which they douse practically everything on their menu with. Sam's Number 3 was recently featured on the television show, "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives," so of course we had to watch the episode before leaving for breakfast.
After a delicious meal, complete with the opportunity to be really touristy and not only meet the owner, but also be photographed with him, we headed to an area of Denver called Southlands. Southlands is a big shopping area, so needless to say Dad, Seth, Kylie, and myself only lasted about an hour before excusing ourselves to return home because "it was time for Kylie's nap." The women spent a marathon day shopping and didn't return until dinnertime!
Saturday was a lazy day. We started off with Mom making an experimental Eggnog French Toast for breakfast, and then took a shopping to trip to Whole Foods to load up on fondue supplies for Dad's birthday dinner. This is a fun time of year for the Lovell clan as we are able to celebrate the obvious holidays, but also are able to celebrate Dad's birthday on New Year's Eve and Mom and Dad's anniversary on New Year's Day. We settled in to watch the UVA bowl game versus Auburn, but were disappointed by a lousy game...it was like we were all dressed up with no where to go.
We then celebrated Dad's birthday with a delicious fondue meal with two kinds of cheese and a chocolate fountain (which oozed more then it flowed) complete with anything you could imagine for dipping. Most of us wanted to just celebrate New Year's Eve by going off of East Coast time and heading to bed at 10pm Mountain West time, but us Coloradans convinced everyone that we had to stay up and ring in the new year in our current time zone, which was complete with watching the re-run of the Dick Clark countdown!
On Sunday Seth, Brittany, Katy and I headed down to the Denver Broncos stadium early to do some tailgating before the game. Despite the 7-3 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, it was still a fun game and a great environment with playoff implications on the line. Since the Oakland Raiders lost later that day, Denver was able to slump into the playoffs. We had a blast cheering and soaking in the energized atmosphere, and when we arrived back home we had Cyndi's homemade crab cakes with basil aioli to greet us!
Monday was our last full day together. We left in the morning and headed up to Golden, a town all of us had been to before and enjoyed for the free tour at the Coors Factory. Today, however, we headed up Lookout Mountain to soak in the views and visit Buffalo Bill's grave. After spending time up on the mountain we headed into the town of Golden and went to its second largest brewery,
Golden City Brewery. It is imporant to know this little fact about Golden, there are only two breweries in this city. As we were sampling beer we struck up a conversation with the head cook at the brewery, who not only led us on a tour of their brewing facility housed in an oversized garage, but also shared with us his/her (our guide was a cross dresser with a five o'clock shadow and breasts) famous green chili recipe.
After leaving Golden's second largest brewery, we headed back into Denver to eat dinner at the infamous
Casa Bonita. This restaurant, self proclaimed as the most entertaining place to eat in America, is a well known Mexican restaurant complete with cliff divers, a haunted cave claimed to house Black Bart's hidden treasure, strolling musicians, and many other entertaining aspects. Casa Bonita is probably most well known for being prominently featured on an episode of South Park. South Park actually does a good job of capturing Casa Bonita, so if you're interested, check it out (not for children younger then 21).
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| inside of Black Bart's Cave |
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| watching the cliff divers |
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| doing the limbo with Kylie |
Tuesday morning Katy was back to work and the rest of us were up bright and early to drive to the airport. After a wonderful week of celebrating all the happy occasions, especially the fact that we were all together under one roof, we said goodbye and came to the realization that the long drag of winter and routine lay ahead. Katy and I are loving the experience of traveling the country and what has made it so easy is the fact that we have extremely supportive families who we love more then words can express.
