Great Sand Dunes National Park

On the drive back from our Thanksgiving trip to Texas, we decided to hit up Great Sand Dunes National Park. They're the tallest sand dunes in North America, and they're at 8,000 feet elevation. As a bonus, it had snowed the night before. It was gorgeous, and totally surreal to see huge sand dunes ringed by snow capped mountains. We didn't have as much time there as we would have wanted, but since we have to go back to the general area for Royal Gorge sometime, we decided that we'd also re-visit the park. The dunes, for your viewing pleasure...

If you're ever in the area, please check it out. It's definitely worth driving a bit out of your way (two hours round trip for us added on) to experience it.

And So This (Was) Christmas

Last week of school before Christmas break- I actually had time to go out! A pre-Christmas miracle. Also, we look photo-shopped and insane.

Festive downtown

Tree, inside, before (we suspect) it tried to kill me.

Bobby came home from Texas bearing stocking gifts

We checked out the lights display at the park on the way home from the hive-free haven of our friends' house.

Blueberry Lemon Baked French Toast on Christmas morning- I managed to take the most unappetizing picture of it ever. Recipe here if you're interested.

White Christmas!

The hot tub in our new place wasn't up to par, so we drove over to our old apartment and used their facilities.

Antici....pation

Christmas hot tub needs to be a permanent tradition.

I came home and cooked for about two hours. Poppy seed crusted butternut squash and pomegranates in kale salad with homemade dressing; roasted brussels sprouts; pan seared wild caught salmon; roasted fennel with red onions, oranges, and mint; Stove Top Stuffing out of a box (just to mix things up)

After dinner Bobby made a fire, so we could sort of enjoy the tree by the fire. I took a shower and curled up in my robe in front of it with all the lights off and candles lit while Bobby cleaned up after dinner. Then we stayed up talking for a few hours.

Christmas 2011 was great, hives and all.

Absentee Excuses

I been hangin' around (somewhere in Capitol Hill in Seattle)

 I had the best of intentions to avert such a long silence on my blog, but things got hectic, and here's why. My last post was on Thursday, July 7th. I then spent all of that day and the next cooking, cleaning, laundering clothes, packing, and organizing because on Friday, July 8th, we hit the road for a 3,000 mile/12 day road trip. I thought I'd have more time than I did, but I didn't, so my plans to blog a lot on Friday afternoon before we left were tossed right out the window. But I'm back! Here's where we went:

Summer Road Trip 2011

A night and a morning in Thermopolis, WY to check out Hot Springs State Park

2 days in Yellowstone:
Madison Campground reservation first night

Mammoth Hot Springs Cabin Reservation second night

Yellowstone to Seattle, WA- with a long visit to Helena, Montana- to visit friends for 3 days and check out their new place

Amtrak to Vancouver to visit our Canadian friends for 2 days

Back to Seattle for one last night out on the town

Portland, OR for one day/night

 

Portland to Salt Lake City (with a long stop in Hood River Oregon for lunch, and a stop in Boise, Idaho for dinner)to stay the night and visit my cousin before she leaves Utah for Texas

Home to Colorado

 

While we were gone, our friends stayed in our place for a few days to apartment hunt for their upcoming move, which is one reason I wanted it to be clean. We got home on Wednesday at 1 a.m., Bobby went straight to work a few hours later, and I got to work cleaning/unpacking/doing laundry. Thursday afternoon, our friends Brooke and Chris stopped by on their way home from a family vacation in Wyoming, and they were here until yesterday morning- a second reason I wanted the place to be neat and tidy. Bobby and I napped like professionals yesterday, an unexpected gift since the aforementioned moving friends had originally asked for our help in moving them in Saturday afternoon. The plan was to say goodbye to Brooke  and Chris and head straight over to Tyler and Amanda's. Turns out they got in a day early and unpacked everything. So we napped away the afternoon, met up with Jenny for some frozen yogurt, and crashed out relatively early. I wish I could say I continued catching up on sleep fest 2011 with a deliciously lazy sleeping in session, but nope, I woke up at 7:45 this morning without an alarm, just as I did yesterday.

 

But don't worry, it's 10:12 and I'm typing this in my underwear with an unwashed face and unbrushed teeth. Bobby just woke up and I'm going to convince him to go to Snooze for brunch. In random updates, my plants are still not dead, and they grew 6 inches while I was gone. Oh, and I barfed 30 minutes into a 3-D midnight showing of Harry Potter 7 in Canada (sorry, neighbors to the North!) so we're having a  re-do this afternoon with our friends Matt and Paige. I think first I need to put on some pants though.

4th of July Weekend, or, I Discovered the Filters on My Smart Phone

I cannot tell you how glad I am that Bobby and I did not spend 4th of July weekend in Santa Fe. We were crazy lazy, sleeping in and staying up late and I didn't cook one time. Thanks to all the local restaurants for feeding us. We played in the pool and local toy stores, read books, worked out a few times, rode our bikes a bit, and had an excellent 4th of July.

 These puppets were grossly over priced, and had the most condescending faces. At least Bobby's was funny.

 Mine was kind of terrifying. Like he's muttering "Don't MAKE me do something I'll regret". Got it, bunny.

 Here's another reason I'll never have thousands of followers. I had never been to a frozen yogurt- sorry, fro-yo!- place, so we went last weekend. It was tasty, but I'm still not understanding the fro-yo obsession. Maybe it's the adorable over lapping hand hold that makes it crazy delicious? Or maybe it's pretending to kiss it while having your significant other take a picture of your fro-yo love? Who can say. Was it good? Sure. Is it deserving of more than one picture on any blog on the internet? I would say no, but that's just me.

 On the 4th, we noticed that no one was at the pool. How did we get the place to ourselves on the 4th of July? Who can say, but we were happy.

  Yeah America, let's go cowboy hats. The pool was deserted the entire time we were there, and after a few hours we decided to mosey into some dry clothes and grab some grub. We had already decided that parking 2 miles from City Park and schlepping ourselves + any creature comforts to a park filled with 4th of July celebrants was not on the agenda. Here's why (the following is slightly sarcastic and tongue in cheek, but mostly just brutal honesty). 4th of July revelers usually fall into two diametrically opposite camps- drunken assholes who are way too loud, too drunk, and wearing far too few items of clothing, or harried, stressed families dragging a bunch of kids out way past their respective bed times to watch fireworks that will either a) bore them to tears or b) scare them to tears. Now, of course, I'm being a bit hyperbolic and over simplistic. There are certainly many people, drinkers and families alike, who do not fall into one of those two groups. But those two groups tend to dominate the energy because they are mortal enemies. So the sloppy drunk college girls piss off the parents who really don't want to have to explain to their 4 year old those kind of age inappropriate things, and the parents piss of the sloppy drunk college girls for trying to ruin their good time. On top of all that, it's generally hot, crowded, and there is an unacceptable port a potty to person ratio. Then, when the fireworks are over, everyone willingly takes part in an ungodly traffic jam that rivals any Wednesday morning rush hour situation, and we all sit in our respective cars in bumper to bumper traffic, listening to terrible music from said sloppy drunk college girls, watching people get arrested, and trying in vain to just get home because we're hot and tired. Don't get me wrong, I love watching fireworks. I've also had excellent 4th of July experiences in parks, with strangers, despite all of the previous. But we weren't interested in looking on the sunny side of things while ignoring the bad, so we decided to just skip the potential bad altogether and have our own little celebration.

We did drive around City Park, just to check out the situation, but it was already madness a full two hours before sunset. People were parking miles away, and it looked like a fireworks march to Mecca. This confirmed our plan to do our own thing. We changed course and drove out towards the reservoir. There's a convenience store at the base of the foothills that services the boaters and campers that are heading towards the reservoir, and it had a huge fireworks tent set up.

These took me way back. They were my favorite as a kiddo

 We snagged the hen and a box of colored sparklers and then continued on our way up into the foothills. A lot of other people had the same idea, but even with cars lining the shoulder the hectic, packed feel of the City Park celebration was absent.

 After the sunset (which was beautiful in its own right) the horizon started lighting up with fireworks. From the hood of our car on the shoulder of the road we were able to see 3 or 4 shows at once.

I spent my time watching, not taking pictures, so this is the best one I got.

 We also played with our sparklers, which was nostalgic fun. I discovered the filters on my smart phone, that night which created some neat images. I put them all into overexposed black and white, and I really like the way it turned out.

We left our shoulder side spot and headed back home right as a storm started up. The hen was shot off in the parking lot of our apartments, a fact I regretted a bit once I was reminded that it made a shriek (sorry neighbors!). The rest of the night was spent on the back porch, sitting by candle light and listening to the storm blow through the enormous aspens in the courtyard behind our apartment. We didn't plan one bit of it, and it couldn't have gone any better.