Slainte!

I hope that everyone has a fantastic St. Patrick's Day! Today is my favorite day. Well, my second. My birthday is my favorite, for obvious reasons.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Slainte!

Thank you Denver Restaurant Week 2009!

I am so excited about my date night next Friday! Denver has an annual Denver Restaurant Week where you can choose from over 200 restaurants serving a 3 course dinner for $52.80 per couple! Incase you are not familiar,Denver is one mile above sea level, which is 5280 feet, so that's why the meals are $52.80. Anyways, I made a reservation at Bistro Vendome and booked the night at The Curtis, which coincidentally happens to be $52.80 for the night! I am so excited! Have I mentioned that already?

A bit about each place:

Bistro Vendome, designed to evoke the look and feel of a long-established, family-owned bistro plucked from a Parisian street corner, features a carefully crafted menu that contains a wealth of French flavors served in a comfortable and charming environment.

The Curtis: You don’t just stay at The Curtis, you experience it! We are committed to good old-fashioned fun. From the minute you walk through our lobby doors, you are immersed in the best of pop-culture. You’ll find cartoons playing in our lobby. Each of our guest room floors has a personality all its own. Every detail has been revved up to create a boutique, one of a kind Denver Colorado hotel experience. You can even get a wake-up call from Elvis or Austin Powers!

Pickled herring meet Jack Daniels

I don’t know why we do it and I don’t know who started it, but ever since I have known Kenny, on New Year’s everyone eats rye bread with pickled herring and cream cheese. It is disgusting and I do not participate. I have been in charge of buying the herring the past few years, but that is my only involvement with it. The fish is grey and in a sour cream sauce. How appealing, no?

For some reason, this year, a new nasty tradition was started. Pass around the bottle of Jack! Why on earth did something think this to be a good idea? First, we are going to eat some nasty fish and then we will wash it down with some booze. But not delicious booze, the gross stuff.

Pocket Shock It

Kenny's brother, Kris, gave him this game when he came out for Christmas. You can have from 1-4 players. Each person holds a corner and a song begins to play. When the song stops and a red light appears in the middle, everyone has to squeeze their corner. The last person to do so gets shocked. Like, really shocked! Kenny made me play until I lost and, let me tell you, I am not a fan.

Then after some delicious beverages, we all decided to try it between various body parts. Skin has to be in contact with both sides, so the armpit seemed like a genius place to try.

Goodbye 2008, hello 2009!

A quick recap on the holidays:

The holidays are done and gone. Too bad. I had a really great time. Kenny's family was here and we hung out pretty much every single day. A new family member joined us this Christmas too! Delanie McKee. She is adorable. Karl and Mon did a great job making that one!

Drinking and eating.

Christmas morning was spent at our house. We like to make breakfast for everyone-waffles and fruit sauce, eggs, and sausage. Then we headed over to the Bingmans for the rest of the day, and pretty much the rest of the year. Everyone came in on different days, but we were all here for new years.

Drinking and eating.

On new years, we all ate pickled herring (well, most of us did) and a new tradition of taking a shot of Jack Daniels started. Straight from the bottle of course.

More drinking and a lot more eating.

Hailey's birthday and Delanie's baptism were just a few other important dates rolled in.

Drinks, food.

I also loved how not being at work and rarely looking at a computer made my focus change. My stress reduced. Not knowing what is going on in the economy for 2 weeks was fantastic! Out of sight, out of mind I say! I was never too stressed about it because there is no point in stressing about what you can't change, but I didn't like always knowing what was going on, good or bad. It was nice to just enjoy friends and family.

I've said it before and I will say it again…Kenny's family (extended included) are some of the nicest people in the entire world! I enjoyed every minute I spent with them and look forward to their next visit.

Oh, first blog of the new year, so I suppose I should address resolutions. F resolutions. They are just more to live up to. Frankly, I don’t have the time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have been horrible lately with posts, and I would like to apologize.

I'm sorry.

I would also like to wish everyone a safe and relaxing Thanksgiving! I am off to Dallas with my mom. Since Kenny works retail, he will be here working the weekend away. He will be spared a weekend with my family. My crazy, fantastic family.

A few quick things that I am thankful for:

Kenny
Maple anything
My friends-without them, I would have gone crazy long ago
Mojitos and grape vodka
My family-without them life would be sane, but frankly, a lot more boring
The stupidity in this world that makes me laugh daily
My doggies
Cheese bread
My home
Candy of any kind
The beautiful mountains I see every single day
It's Always Sunny reruns
Weekend getaways and trips to anywhere-but-here
Coffee
Fisherman-more specifically, crab fishermen: dressed up in full on fishing gear

NKOTB

When I was in 3rd grade, I remember walking around the track during recess listening to New Kids on the Block on my Walkman. I would belt out Please don’t go Girl and Hangin’ Tough among others. I adored them. I adored Joey. I had one shirt and one giant pin. Nothing more. I was never allowed to go to one of their concerts though, Too young I suppose.

Well, I can check KNOTB concert off the list!

On Friday night, Kris and headed up to Broomfield to see them in concert. I was looking forward to it, but was not expecting much. I was excited, but not thrilled. Oh man, was I wrong.

It.was.awesome!

I thought it was hilarious that their first time around, most of us, were between the ages of 8-15. Now, we are all in our 20’s and 30’s. I was pretty happy that I would not be hearing screeching girls the entire show. When I went to see N’Sync a while back, I was deaf for a week from the blood curdling screams of 12 year old girls. Completely mistaken. I am still half deaf, but it’s because of the sheer volume of the screaming/cheering. The boys could not even be heard over the screaming when everyone was full on! It was hilarious. Then they started to sing. Holy crap did it take me back. They were really great live! We had seats on the floor and during the show they came over to the middle of the floor and sang about 3 songs from a rotating platform. We were maybe 10 feet from them! They are a lot shorter than I thought they would be, but that’s beside the point.

I also thought it was hilarious that I had no clue how popular Donnie was. Back in the day, I was completely smitten with Joey, which makes sense. I was young and so was he. He was the youngest by far. Little did I know that the older girls were all about Donnie. When he started to sing for the first time, the cheers were just as loud as they were for Joe! The tone was obviously a lot different this time too. Being a lot older, the guys were quite pervy at times. Donnie totally took the cake. I am pretty sure no one minded though.

The seats were filled with about 95% girls and 5% guys. Those poor fellas. Couldn’t even compete with what was happening around them. Donnie even made a comment about how he felt sorry for them, he really did. But seeing as they were soooo nice to take their lady to the show, they were owed a little bit of love when they got home.

Kris and I had a great time. The seats were filled. The energy was awesome. It was a fantastic show!

The rest of the weekend was spent in Breckenridge for Kris’s birthday. We went shopping, hung out and had a delicious dinner. (Note: If you have never tried Three Olives Grape Vodka and sprite I suggest you do so IMMEDIATELY. It tasted like grape soda!)

I wish every weekend could be like this.

Seattle or bust!

For our second wedding anniversary, I took Kenny on a surprise trip with surprise friends! Kris and Patrick came over on Wednesday night and Kenny had no clue. Patrick showed up first and Kenny thought that he was just stopping by to visit. When he finally figured it out, he was really excited!

We also kept the “where” part a surprise until we got to the gate. I cannot tell you how many times I almost wrecked where we were going! This trip has been planned for months and things have happened, or we have seen things on tv, where I wanted to say, “Oh, we can go there when we are on our trip.” or “I can’t wait until we are in Seattle to do…..” I did it though! I kept it a secret until the last possible second!

For the record, I love everything about Seattle. I would move there tomorrow if I could.
I decided that on this trip, everything we did had to be accessible by foot, monorail, ferry, etc. So, we stayed right downtown at The Alexis. It is a beautiful hotel and was in the perfect location to get to everything with ease.

We arrived in Seattle on Thursday morning and went straight to The Underground Tour. I highly recommend this tour if you ever make it up that way. It is really interesting to think that 16 blocks of Seattle’s “ground floor” is actually really the second floor. It is also weird to think about what goes on in the other 13 blocks where the tour doesn’t venture. I can imagine there is some very sketchy stuff happening down there. The rest of the day we spent walking around town figuring out where things were and what else we could do. We met up with Marcus that night for dinner and went to the Crab Pot. The guys all did a boil and it was a ton of food! We finished the night with a (loooong) walk to The Cheesecake Factory for dessert.

Friday, we woke up and went to Pike Place Market. I love that place. Kris and I found some fantastic finds and Patrick and Kenny ended up buying a load of fish, lobster tails, and crab from the Pike Place Fish Market. I also found my second husband there. I don’t really believe in past lives, but I seriously have a very strong obsession with anything to do with lighthouses, fishing towns, fisherman (only hot ones of course), fishing boats, etc…..realistically, I cannot stand the ocean and I get sick standing on a docked boat. Kenny was nice enough to take a picture of my 2nd (wearing waders and sporting a beard). It was too funny. I miss him already. After the market, we made our way over to the aquarium. It is a bit older, but you can tell they are working on it. It was also a lot of fun and we got to see some adorable sea otters and an octopus eating 2 fish. They also had my favorite, the decorator crab, so that made me happy.

Saturday was an early morning. We took a ferry ride over to Bainbridge Island and walked around there for a while before grabbing some lunch right on the water. It is a gorgeous island and I was a little disappointed that we couldn’t see more. When we got back to Seattle, we stopped by the best crepe place in the world, and then took the monorail over to Seattle Center where we went to Empsfm and took a few pictures with the Space Needle. That night, we met up with Marcus again for dinner and some drinks.

This is the short story of everything we did. I know it’s pretty long, but we were out and about walking up and down huge hills the entire time we were there! We never had a bad meal, and I honestly enjoyed every second of my trip. I even got to see an old friend while there. He works right across the street for where we stayed!

I love Colorado and everything it has to offer, but Seattle has always been one of my favorite places ever. Who knows. Maybe someday I will be able to call it home.

Weekend recap

Kenny and I brought my mom to see Great Big Sea on Thursday night=Awesome

Went to Denver to go out with Alanna, Brie and Lacey for my birthday (a month late)=Awesome

Got to hang out with Karl (Kenny's brother) who was in town for the weekend=Awesome

Little Danielle (Jeff and Jamie's spawn) turned two and had a fun little birthday party=Awesome

It was the first weekend that felt like fall=Awesome

The carpet guy came over, ripped carpet out, sectioned off the entire area with plastic and put really loud fans in there to dry everything out and the fans had to constantly be running all weekend and the house is disorganized because of everything we had to move out of the way and he wrote a quote totaling $5300 freaking dollars=NOT Awesome

So, this should be interesting

Kenny called me from work one night asking if we could go to a show in Denver in October. A coworker of his knows one of the guys in the band and wanted us to go with him to see them play. I am always up for whatever, and going to see new bands is always fun.

That may be the final time that last statement leaves my lips.

Above is a picture of the Super Diamonds. I've never been known to keep my opinions to myself so, I will just say it. Eeew. They are a Neil Diamond cover band. Please-go to their site and listen to a tune. Holypooponastick. I am not saying these boys are not nice or good people or not "talented" but I am saying that never in my life would I recommend them to others.

Who knows. Maybe I will be posting something on Monday about how amazing these fellas are and how everyone should see them at some point in their life. I doubt it, but you never know. If I do, make sure to ask me how drunk I was.

F you Simply Sleep

This past weekend a few of us went camping. I would first like to say that I do enjoy camping and I am good at it. Apparently, I do not look like the camping type. APPARENTLY, it is assumed that I am too prissy for it. Not showering for a few days? You can't handle it Lauren. Peeing behind a rock. Yeah right, Lauren. Well you know what? Screw all of you nay-sayers. I am a legitimate camper. I spit on pop-ups and people who bring tv's and "toilets". I am hardcore.

The only part of camping that I do not like is the "nature" part of it all. I mean, I like the outdoors and I love campfires and sleeping next to a river and all that. I do not like spiders, bees, bears, mountain lions, and whatever else can eat me, bite me, or sting me. This being said, whenever we go camping, I don't sleep. Like, at all. I lie awake the entire night waiting for a bear to rip through the tent and eat me, then Kenny, then the girls for dessert. Kris told me that she takes Tylenol PM when we go camping so she sleeps better. AWESOME. Why didn't I think of that? I went to Target the next day and bought some Simply Sleep. Friday night I was so excited to take it and to be able to sleep though the night. To sleep at all actually. Yeah. Right. Friday night was long and sleepless and I didn't fall asleep until the sun started to rise on Saturday morning. To add insult to injury, the girls refuse to sleep in their own sleeping bag-they totally have their own mini bag. Not 30 minutes after we went to bed, they decided they wanted to be with me, in mine. I have a mummy bag that fits me comfortably, aside form being a bit too short. Add two little dogs, and forget it. So, I stayed in my bag all night, not moving for fear of suffocating a dog, awake, and waiting for the sun to come up so I could catch some zzzz's. The part that pisses me off the most is that Kenny barely hits the pillow and he is out for the entire night.

Saturday, I said shag it and I was going to double up. It had to do something if I took twice the recommended amount. Nope. Nothing. F you Simply Sleep. Next time, maybe I will just take some shots of jager and hopefully pass out.

Weekend was fun, however 5 total hours of sleep over an entire weekend is not ok.

Mile High Music Festival: Part I

The Mile High Music Festival was this past weekend. It was an outdoor two day event with 5 stages and a ton of bands.

Friday night, we decided to go and buy some shooters to bring into the festival. Obviously, liquor was not allowed. This is where the genius happens. We had a few different boxes of snacks: Cheezits, Rice Crispy Treats, Etc. We opened the box of Cheezits, pulled the bag out, put 3 shooters on the bottom of the box, put the bag back in and then resealed the box. GENIUS. We had 3 more shooters and no more boxes, so I decided that I would roll one up in my towel. Lacey put the other 2 in her jacket pockets. She rolled up her jacket and put it in the backpack. Fast forward to Saturday morning. We get to the front of the line where they are checking bags. The women tells me to pull out my towel. Fine. I am holding it, still rolled up, while she looks through my stuff. Then she asks me to unroll my towel. Ccccccrrrrraaaaaaaaaap. Whatever. What else am I going to do? I unroll and my little bottle of Malibu goes rolling towards the gutter. She sees it and then puts her arm above her head and starts point and yelling, "This one tried to sneak in alcohol! This one right here." She was trying to humiliate me. Didn't work. Then she tells me to stand right there and she is going to call someone over. I said, "No, that's ok." and walked into the festival. Then, Lacey was getting her bag checked by the same stupid woman and she pulled her jacket out. One of the pockets was open and another shooter fell to the ground."This one right here! This is what I am talking about. Watch out for this!". This women was taking her job way to seriously. She thought she was this amazing booze catcher, but she didn’t even get half of it. Suck it lady. We win.

We made our way to the main stage and found a great spot. We put our blankets down ready to camp out. Over the course of the day we saw:
Meese
Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers
Gaven Degraw
Citizen Cope
O.A.R.
Tom Petty
It was insanely hot outside and pretty much impossible to keep hydrated. I have never sweat so much in my entire life. I honestly do not understand how people could drink. It was the last thing on my mind. I also did not smoke anything, but am pretty sure I was high half the day. The entire place had a cloud of smoke lingering about the crowds. Every single band was great, not a bad one anywhere. There were a few lame people throughout the day, pushing their way closer to the stage. Nevermind that many of us had already been there for hours making sure we had a good spot to see Petty. They didn’t care. Tom came on around 9pm. He was amazing. We were enjoying the show when all of a sudden…..