A few words on my trip to San Francisco

I'm home. Had a great time. The work part of it was pretty painless and then Kenny came out Thursday morning. Ryan and Darcie were fantastic hosts. We ate way to much food and walked a million miles. Hopefully, we walked off most of the calories consumed but I highly doubt it. I got a bunch of blisters on my feet. We saw the Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz, Golden Gate Park, the aquarium, went to Napa, and did some other things in between. We were bombarded by seagulls and mass poop bombs, ate too many delicious treats to count, and Kenny had a failed attempt at surfing (too cold and windy).

San Francisco

Well, I am off to San Francisco. I will be there for work through Wednesday and then Kenny is going to fly out on Thursday! We will head back Sunday to spend Easter with family. We are both really looking forward to the trip, and our good friends Ryan and Darcie will definitely make it a fun one!

I will be sure to post some pictures when we get back and hopefully I will have a story or two to share.

Valentines weekend

This past weekend was Valentines Day, which actually slipped my mind completely. It’s a cute holiday, and I love the colors, but it really doesn’t hold too much weight in our house. People should be nice to their loved ones every day, not one day a year! Kenny mentioned that he thought we should make a nice dinner on Saturday night and I asked him why. Oh, yeah. It’s a holiday.

We decided on mussels and scallops, so onto www.Foodnetwork.com I went. I found a basic white wine and garlic mussel recipe and looked for something a bit different to try with the scallops. Success! The scallops were amazing. I would even go as far as to say they were fancy restaurant quality! Kenny and I really enjoy cooking, and we are even getting better at doing it together.

Sunday, we headed up to Breckenridge to go snowshoeing. It was fun and exhausting. After about 2 ½ hours of that, we headed to lunch in Breck and then home.

Monday, we met Bonnie at Starbucks for a drink before she headed back to NYC. It was a gorgeous day so we took the girls down to the dog park to play for a while. I love Bear Creek dog park. They have a separate area for small dogs that is completely fenced off. It’s a huge area with trees and bushes where the girls can just run wild!

Kenny doesn’t get too many weekends off anymore, so I really enjoyed being able to spend time with him. We have a lot of fun and I never take advantage of our time together.

There are a few pictures from the weekend on our page -------->

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

Motorcycle weekend adventure

With the bikes

Crazy Horse

Profile of George (Mount Rushmore)

Deadwood

I have always said that I do not like doing "touristy" things when I go on trips. After this past weekend, I need to change that statement to say that I do not like going on trips and doing "touristy" things during tourist season. Late August is a great time to go anywhere because school has just started and roads trips are mostly over for the year.

We left on Thursday morning bright and early to head out to Keystone, SD. We had to drive though WY to get there. I have nothing nice to say about that state. I'm not a scientist (or engineer or whoever figures this out) but I am am pretty sure we could power the entire nation with the wind in Wyoming. I should definitely check into that. Ridiculous. Wyoming was windy as crap and hot. The wind felt like a space heater blowing directly onto me. When we hit South Dakota, the wind slowed and the temperature dropped. Which is another thing. Everyone told us that SD is hot and humid this time of year. Not this past weekend-it was in the 70's and gorgeous. We totally lucked out. We got to our hotel in the early evening and just hung out the rest of the night. It had been a long day of riding.

Friday morning, we rode to Deadwood, Sturgis, and Rapid City. If anyone decides to visit South Dakota for any reason, I strongly advise staying in the Black Hills. They are beautiful. Reminded us of Colorado actually. Sturgis, we are pretty sure, only exists for the Rally. The rest of the year, the city is run down and full of empty buildings. It was pretty gross. Granted, Sturgis was only a few weeks ago, but it was a ghost town. Rapid City? Meh. Nothing great. Deadwood was so cute. We all liked it. The whole feel of the town was great. We caught lunch where Wild Bill was shot and then rode up to the cemetery where he is buried. They had a hot rod thing going on also, so there were a ton of cool cars everywhere.

Saturday we went to Jewel National Cave where we took a lantern tour. Basically, they take you in the cave, with just a lantern, to show you how it would have been experienced back in the day. It was really interesting. It lasted about 2 hours and we went up and down a ton of tiny, skinny stairs, crouched through some openings, and sucked our guts in to get through some narrow passageways. A lot of fun. On our way back we stopped at Crazy Horse. The size of the project is astounding. If you don't know anything about it, check it out here. If you are from Colorado, the whole idea and process of CH reminds me of Bishops Castle. A crazy family wanting nothing to do with the government building something "great and significant". Great and significant takes on a different meaning when talking about Bishops castle though. Crazy Horse was really amazing and really frustrating all at the same time. The face took 10 years to complete and it was done in 1997. That is still all that is completed. I don't think I will be here to see the finished product. Shame really. After we were done there, we went to Mount Rushmore. It was about 5 minutes from our hotel, which was cool. Here's a fun little fact. All of Mount Rushmore fits into the head of Crazy Horse.

Sunday, it was time to head home. It was pretty uneventful aside from the fact that all three of us got pulled over by the State Patrol and we missed 3 tornadoes by about 20 minutes.

I never realized how much the wind can take out of a person. I am completely exhausted from the trip. The Black Hills are amazingly beautiful and it was a memorable trip to say the very least. Photos to be added soon.

My eyes hurt, my head aches

Sorry for the lack of posts! Work has been beyond insane this week. I guess what I am trying to say is that I actually have to do my job. There are less then half of us here so the remainder of us have to pick up the slack. My days are flying by, but I leave with the worst headache in the world and my carpal tunnel acting up. Fun times.

On a side note-our 2nd wedding anniversary is in October and I am planning a very fun trip! All Kenny knows is that we will be gone from October 16-19. Hooray!

Mile High Music Festival: Part II

This post would be rated "R" but I decided to censor it. I am sure you will be able to figure it out.

The five of us had put our bags in a pile on the ground during Petty. We were all standing around them. They had our phones, cameras, and nice sunglasses in them. Pretty fragile cargo. This girl was trying to leave and walked right towards us. She was getting ready to step right on our bags…

Me: Oh, hey. Can you please walk right here? We have bags on the ground. (The way I asked her to go was like 10 inches to the left.)

Dumb Beotch: I'll walk where the F I want to walk.

Me: Oh.

She then started to walk onto our bags when Alanna and Brie shoved her back. The girl went flying back. There was a cute little mom behind her and I didn't want her to be squished (This beotch was a BIG girl) so I grabbed her arm to save her from falling.

Dumb Beotch: Why the F are you pushing me? Why the F are you pushing me?

Me: I caught you, you dumb B. Why would I hold onto your arm if I pushed you?

She turned to Alanna and started yelling at her asking her why she pushed her. One thing led to another and the girl was walking away and then turned around and spit on Alanna. It got on my cheek and hit the other girls too. OMG. That did not just happen. I have never been spit on in my life and don't understand why anyone would do that! Alanna grabs the girl and rips her shirt while throwing her to the ground. Right on top of our bags (and some saucy dumplings). The girl gets up, guys are holding her back from going after us, and the guy next to me steps in front of me to block her from me (aaaaw, so nice). She finally gave up and left.

Yikes. The whole time I was just thinking, "Ugh. I really do not want to get into a fight. I really like this dress."

Sunday was much more uneventful. We did not even try to sneak any booze in and no fights broke out. The weather was a lot more tolerable and, overall, it was just a more laid back day. We got to see:
Brett Dennen
Ingrid Michaelson
One Republic
Rodrigo Y Gabriela
John Mayer
Dave Matthews Band
I wanted to catch the Black Crowes, but we missed out. I am still uber disappointed about that. I also have a new found love for John Mayer. I have always thought he was an amazing artist, but never really liked him beyond that. What was I thinking? He was so great live and quite the looker! Never knew! I am pretty sure he has been working out or something. Who knows. Who cares. I love him.

If they make this festival an annual event, I am there. A ton of fun.

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…..

This sign offers very good advice

This past weekend Kris, Patrick, Kenny and I headed down to Durango. We just wanted to get away for the weekend. On the way there, you have to drive through Wolf Creek Pass. Not the worst pass in Colorado, by any means, but not the best either. There were these huge brick walls along the side of the road, up against the mountain. Their purpose is to catch all of the falling rocks. There were some insane boulders caught by those walls. We were just driving along talking about falling rocks and how none of us have ever been hit by one. I mean, really? Who ACTUALLY ever gets hit by a falling rock? In the middle of a sentence, BAM! What the H was that? A basketball sized rock smacked into the rear passenger side door! What are the freaking odds? 2 seconds faster and we would have missed it completely! The dent was not as bad as you would think, but it was still totally crazy that it even happened! It could have been a lot worse, so all in all, it's a good thing that it hit there of all places. Great, now we can add that to the list of "Stupid Things I am Afraid of". That damn list gets longer every year!