Kent and Dave are a fabulous couple that live in a GORGEOUS townhouse in Denver. We didn’t know them, and no one in our band actually met them but they contacted us a few days after our show and asked us to play for them at a private party. Once they told us how much they’d pay us, we were pretty much sold…although we still had no idea what to expect. We showed up with all of our gear in tow, and it was pretty fantastic. I’ve never seen a more swank place…decked out in super mod fashion, tons of music iconic and artistic iconic pieces…it was like every nook and cranny of the place (to the most minute detail) was thought about and designed. This is something that I can truly appreciate! The show went off great! FB4K (us) played for about an hour and a half total, and everyone was gushing after we were through…it was such a nice treat to play for people who actually wanted to hear us, and pay us a great amount of money to do what we love.

Now I am not so deathly afraid of heights that I can’t handle it, but I was a bit nervous at first. My nerves were quickly shattered though because it was A BREEZE (no pun intended). You couldn’t even feel the sensation of lifting up it was like we weren’t even moving. You didn’t know we were moving until you saw the ground speed away from you and you could kind of feel the breeze, but because you are riding with the wind…you almost don’t feel anything. It is a really bizarre feeling for sure! But I say this because I would encourage anyone WHO IS afraid of heights to give it a try – because you will be pleasantly surprised by how easy and totally stable and safe you are in the basket.

We went up about 1500 feet which is pretty high and it was so cool. The balloon cannot go in a specific direction other than up and down, so we were at the mercy of the winds. We floated across the front range towards the east, and after about 2 hours, we landed in a large patch of open space. We also learned that you can’t control exactly where you land in a balloon…its kind of a crapshoot. Again, its up to the wind, but we were hoping we would land in some rich person’s front yard, talk about a wake – up call!

The adventure had to happen 4 days after my official birthday because of the weather, but i’m sure glad we waited, because it was phenomenal. Thanks Jakey for the best birtday gift ever! (or one of them!)

Jill

But its all rectified and we have so much to catch up on. It has been MONTHS since our last post, which was around October of 2011. Lets see, in a nutshell we have been travelling, we went on a huge sailing trip in January (which was amazing), we have been training for hard climbing trips in the upcoming months, I lead my first 5.11C in the gym – no falls, no takes, perfect form….been climbing the 12.A’s now which seems way too hard for me, but I’m able to get up them. Jake has been climbing hard too, and we bought our very own sailboat, which we are going to be naming after our best buddy ‘bosco’ in his honor, and we are going to get it out on the water very soon.

Besides that, its just been work, school, gym, cooking, music and trying to have a social life on top of all of that. We will have the gory details of our boat project in the next weeks, so stay tuned.

~ Jill

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….

Our first night, we decided to lay low and didn’t go anywhere other than the village for some margaritas. We ate at the “T-Rex” restaurant, which is similar to a rainforest cafe, but obviously dino-themed. Food was good, environment was pretty awesome, but probably overly stimulating for us since we were already really tired from travel. We were pretty wiped out after that, and crashed as soon as we got back to our room, sleeping for over 12 hours into the next day.

I forgot to mention that our entire trip was situated around food. One of the best things about Disney is the unbelievable food and booze that you can consume, and we spared no expense to try a bit of everything. The infamous food and wine festival was underway during the entire month of October, so we were fortunate to experience cuisine from over 25 different countries. I’m pretty sure I gained about 10 lbs but it was well worth it.

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.

Let me give you a rundown of our favorites, no particular order:

• Belgium: Belgium waffle with fruit compote and whipped cream
• Poland: Kilbasa, Pirogie, Caramelized Onions…AMAZING!
• New Zealand: Lamburger Slider
• Germany: Chicken Schnitzel, Spatzel & Hunter Sauce
• Germany: BEER
• France: Chocolate E’clare
• Australia: Lambchop & Shrimp on Barbie
• Greece: Lamb w. Tzaziki

The second day was the businest, by far. We started out going to Animal Kingdom which was surprisingly not crowded. We did everything we wanted to do in under 3 hours, which is almost unheard of at Disney. It was probably the best Safari we have ever seen…we practically got to touch the Giraffs, saw tons of elephants doing things that you never see…and even saw the Lion get up, walk around, growl a bunch and eat something or other…probably some dead meat of some kind…pretty sweet if you ask me.

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.

That night we were going to stay and watch fireworks, but decided to bail right before, since we had an early flight home the next morning, and didn’t want to deal with being tired….although that didn’t work out since I had to wash everything before we left, and didn’t finish until midnight.
All-in-all it was a super fantastik trip full of great memories and lots of eating. We love Disney, and it was fun to go on our own, but I think its more fun going with a bigger group of family and friends.

All-in-all it was a true “Adventure” as it was tedious and painful and exhausting, yet very beautiful. We realized that we didn’t have any water purification items with us, so we had to make do with a substitute of tablets that take about 4 hours to purify a liter of water (which is REALLY slow and not very much water when it is the main source of energy during an exhaustive adventure). So that meant we couldn’t really have water during our 6 mile hike with about 50 lbs on our backs to the lake. It was pretty, especially in the beginning, with the golden leaves of autumn. But i have to say that after the first few miles, I was ready to pass out (which I did as soon as we reached our destination).

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.

We had a great time and can’t wait to do another one soon.

The day we got back, we had to begin the exhausting moving process to our new place, in Louisville, Colorado. I must say that I’m not a huge fan yet, but hopefully I will change my mind once we settle in and make our place more homey. I miss the coziness and comfort of Boulder, but I must say we have discovered some really cool parts of this town. It is super quaint and feels a bit like we are in the country. Everything is about 5 blocks from our place, and we discovered the CUTEST breakfast spot which we walked to this morning. There are also tons of really pretty hiking trails and open space right by us, so its not all bad…but I do miss the mountains….I mean, that’s why we moved here right?!?! But, they are close…only about 4 miles away…

It has been so busy we really haven’t had a lot of relaxation time. While we have been moving and setting up (which is practically a full time job on its own) I, Jill, have been super busy with work and so has Jake…though not as much as me….and I have school on top of that so it has been pretty hectic. I am looking forward to the time when things slow down and get “normal” for lack of a better word.

We had a really excellent show last night, which we played all-acoustic-style. It was not the greatest turnout, but those who came had an awesome time and we had so much fun with the other bands, who are some great friends. So, that’s about all for now, I will post pictures when I have some more free time (which may not be for awhile) OR when Jake yells at me to do it.

Hope everyone didn’t miss us too badly! We will be better once life simmers a bit. Until next time…J&J