We had a really busy week this past week. After getting back from Florida, we have had very little time to just relax in our abode. We had a charity event for Jake’s work, kickball-sunday-BBQ-fest, and then tons of work to accomplish for the “Parent’s” visit. They came in Wednesday evening, so we had just enough time to get the final touches to the house done before their arrival. We just moved into a way-to-large house, and can actually accomodate guests now, which is kind of nice.
They came Wed. and spared no time planning away our home; where they would make improvements, adjustments, etc. Oh and let me preface by saying that we only plan to live here for the year, we are probably going to be buying a place next year, more appropriate in size for just me and Jake, so we dont really care that much about putting more into this house…but none-the-less, it was really nice having help doing those cumbersome household things that neither myself nor Jake is any good at.
Thursday my mom went out around Boulder, while my dad and I worked at home. Lunch-time we decided to visit Jake at his office, so that my dad could play on his company’s 40K golf-simulator. Dad kicked Jake’s butt big time, as if that’s news…Jake’s not much of a golfer. We headed up to Flagstaff Mountain for lunch and relaxation in the beauty of Colorado’s wilders. We spent our $80 on whole-foods pre-prepared meals and enjoyed the scenery. Afterwards, we went to a pumpkin patch to get pumpkins, pet animals and do the corn maze. It was super fun and pretty. After that, we headed back home before going to downtown Louisville for some Lucky Pie and Sweet Cow. We ended the night watching a movie, which Jake bailed on after about 3 minutes because it was past his bedtime.
Friday was a big day, because we were having a party and we still had tons to do to get the place ready. It has been a bit of a battle getting this place up to snuff, but my parents spared no time or expense helping us do just that. They bought us a housewarming gift…a new grill…which we promptly decided to fire up the next evening for grilled goodness. My mom, decided that she needed to clean every square inch of the place….i’m not complaining there…I hate cleaning like that, and it was nice not to have to worry about all of the details since we had so many things to do. The party was super fun and tons of peeps came out to check out our abode, eat, drink and be merry… The parents were leaving the next day, and we managed to only get a few hours of sleep before we had to get up to entertain them before they left. We had breakfast at the Huckleberry – ie – best breakfast EVER – and then drove around the neighborhoods before heading to the airport. It was a really long morning in the car, so Jake and I took long naps in the afternoon. We vegged out all day and night, and it was fabulous.
Today, we didn’t do much other than work out in the AM. We decided that since our new grill came with so many fun “extras” we wanted to try it out. The grill has removable plates so that you can cook other things like veggies and pizza rather than just the typical steaks and burgers. We got a pizza stone from one of our friends, and decided to try it out tonight. We made homemade deep-dish chicken, basil, redpepper, onion, and tomato pizza….it was probably the best pizza i’ve ever had – no joke. The grill cooked it perfectly…and nothing is better than homemade. We are so excited that we made enough dough for another, so that’s what we will be having again sometime this week….
I woke up about 11am the next day (Monday), and quickly had to head out since we had reservations at “Germany” for 1pm. It seems like 2 hours is a lot of time, but between bussing to the parks and navigating through all the people, you can guarantee you will need at least an hour to get where you want to go. It wasn’t super crowded yet, so we went straight to our eating destination for the day. The food is always so freaking great, but the best part about this morning was that I got me a liter of delicious German-crafted brew all to meself. Our “Serving wench” said that it was “a man’s beer” and of course I was like, well i can drink like a man, so I did. Jake got the beer sampler including 4 different brews and also a shot of some yummy and strong peppermint (jager-type) drink. It was much smoother and apparently gives one the strength to keep drinking without feeling full…which Jake could attest to.
The rest of our time was spent playing around the parks and eating as much as we could. We even saw Billy Ocean in concert that night….that’s right BILLY OCEAN…you know the “get out of my dreams….get into my car” hit of the 80′s….I could actually quote lyrics to just about every song that he performed. It was hilarious and pretty sweet.
We ate lunch at the Sanaa which is basically like a private reserve for safari animals. It was also fantastic. I love Indian/African food, and this was definitely a highlight for us. The place was really quiet and pretty and we saw lots of safari wildlife from our table. Delish. The rest of the day we went to Hollywood studios to try out some new things, and some old things….drawing some disney characters and denying Jake the “Jedi Training” since he is too old (you have to be 8 to 12). After all that, we still have all afternoon, and we SHOULD have just gone back to our hotel to chill out, since we were so full and tired by this point, but we thought we wanted to go to the Boardwalk to hit up the corn dog stand and then maybe go into epcot for dinner. But, we aren’t accustomed to eating so much food, so we shared one corn dog and then were so full we couldn’t bear to eat more real food…so we hit up France for their amazing Pastry. it was just the pick-me-up we needed…but we were really tired so we pretty much left the park after that (which took about an hour since it was so packed and we had about a mile and a half to walk to our bus). That was a tough day since we tried to do so much in so little time.
Our last day was probably the best, since we figured out our flow, and we had done almost everything we wanted to do. We went to the Magic Kingdom in the morning, which worked out because it was also not very crowded. We did everything we wanted and finished just in time for the huge crowds to emerge. We didn’t have anywhere to be until evening, so we went back to our room and took a nap before we went to dinner at the Living Seas “Coral Reef” restaurant, which is basically underneath their 220 million gallon tank of sea-animals. We had VIP seating right in front of the ginormous tank, and enjoyed super yummy fish for dinner. It was nice to take time and relax since we were really zonked from the day before.
We FINALLY had a couple of free days to go backpacking before winter hits the Colorado Mountains! We usually are very good planners before we go on any backpacking trip, since it is important to plan for any possible situation or injury that could occur (and most likely will). But, in our haste to have an adventure, we did not have a lot of time to plan our trip this round. We figured that we would only be gone for one night, so we didn’t worry about it too much.
We camped at a mountain lake which was absolutely stunning. We were at about 10,000+ feet, so it was quite a bit colder than the beginning, and we also realized that we weren’t really bear-prepared and really paranoid that the night would bring about unwanted animal visitors that would eat us, so we didn’t sleep as well as we would have liked. BUT on the other hand, we had the place completely to ourselves and it was just so amazing to be out in nature. Our hike out was about double-time faster than the hike in, and we decided to hit up a relaxing brewery in the mountain town Silverthorn, before heading back home. Beers are the best way to heal any ailments, and we needed it big-time.
