Penny On the Train Tracks

yum! bacon-wrapped sea scallops

2008-05-29T18:26:00.001-06:00

engaged!

2008-05-18T18:35:00.002-06:00

table for two

2008-05-15T18:28:00.003-06:00

Snapped a picture of this guy from the car while driving by Duffy Roll.

It looked like he was waiting for his girlfriend to meet him for lunch, but sadly, she had stood him up.

sarah gets a new job

2008-05-13T13:18:00.000-06:00

Kidding. I'm in Parker, AZ for an exercise this week.

Anna and I got to take a spin in the fire engine the day before the exercise.

you are feeling very sleepy

2008-05-10T18:15:00.001-06:00

spring blossoms

2008-05-07T20:17:00.001-06:00

We got back to CO late last night and look what greeted us this morning.

bowman hill wildflower preserve

2008-05-05T21:07:00.003-06:00

I didn't take any pictures yesterday so I can't do a blog post about it but it's still worth mentioning. The four of us headed into Philadelphia and checked out a street festival in a really nice, old neighborhood. We had sushi on the street and Sean drank some street beers which made him happy, and we walked up and down checking out the different tents/booths of wares. Abby and I both bought the same green scarf and she also got a gorgeous necklace that looks a lot like one that I got in Kauai. Brad wasn't as happy as the rest of us because he had forgotten to put sun screen on and was frantically searching for it and not finding it at any of the stores. He finally found some and applied it minutes before we left. Next Brad took us on a fabulous driving tour of the city and showed us all his old vet school haunts and different historic sites and neighborhoods of the city. Then we drove home and cooked up some Mexican food for dinner and some chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels for dessert. YUM!

But that was yesterday. On to today! Abby took the day off work and the three of us went to the Bowman Hill Wildflower Preserve and took a guided tour.

Sean and I both love guided tours of any kind so it was a good day for us. It was a lot of fun to learn to identify some of the wildflowers. Sean actually said that this was his favorite activity of the entire Doylestown trip.

This little yellow flower is a wild orchid aka: lady slipper.

There were lots of frogs croaking in this little pond, but they were pretty hard to spot in all the duckweed.

After the tour we went to New Hope, PA for lunch.

All the little towns along the Delaware river in this part of PA and across the river in NJ are really charming. It's too bad they're so expensive!

doylestown dog show

2008-05-03T20:26:00.002-06:00

Mark was kind enough to drive Sean and I up to Doylestown Thursday night so that we could visit Abby and Brad for a few days. We were really excited to see them again and to witness first hand all the progress they'd made on their new house. It looks great! Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of their renovations, but I do have a picture of me and Lex the mastiff at the Doylestown dog show.

The dog show was a lot of fun, especially checking out all the different breeds running around.

We talked to the owner of this afghan hound who said that they wrap their hair in head scarves so it doesn't get tangled between judging rounds. It made her look like an old-style movie star.

rutherford park

2008-04-30T17:50:00.003-06:00

Before Lindsay and Sara flew out of town today, we took a walk to Rutherford Park with Charlie, my mom, and Lindsay's mom. I hadn't been to this park in such a long time so it was good to go back. Lindsay and I spent many hours playing softball here. In fact, this is where it all started for me because my very first team practiced here when I was 10 and then subsequent teams I played for held games here until I started playing in high school. And then Sara and I also spent time here as kids catching minnows in the creek with colanders, and then releasing them at the end of the day.

Charlie took a ride on the little horsie...

And of course I couldn't resist taking a ride myself! As you can see, I definitely couldn't help reverting back to childhood in this park where I used to play growing up.

new nationals stadium

2008-04-29T17:16:00.005-06:00

After work today I met Lindsay (one of my oldest friends - we met in kindergarten) downtown at the brand new baseball stadium built for the Nationals in DC. Sara and Rachel were supposed to join us too but Rachel got some last minute premium tickets to see her cousin, Emmy Lou Harris, get inducted into the County Music Hall of Fame. I'd say that was a pretty good excuse. Poor Sara was too slammed at work to be able to leave in time for the game so it was just Lindsay and me.

The new stadium was beautiful. I loved the way they gave it an old fashioned feel. I saw a Modern Marvels episode about the stadium when it was being built that said it was designed so that there was not a bad seat in the house. And true to that statement, even though we only paid $12 for our tickets, the view was excellent.

Between one of the innings, they had four guys dress up like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt including big foam heads and race around the perimeter of the entire field. It was hilarious and Lindsay managed to capture a shot of it. Good ol' TJ won!

hiking at great falls

2008-04-27T21:41:00.000-06:00

After spending Friday night at Mark's in Baltimore, we got up Saturday morning and headed over to Frederick to spend some time with Sean's family. Then that evening, Sean drove me to my parents' house where we all (Sean included) had a really good dinner. It was a lot of fun with maybe a little too much wine drinking and a lot of laughing. Sean really liked Elizabeth's boyfriend Andy, who was also there.

This morning Andy, Biz, and I headed to the MD side of Great Falls to go hiking. They had this great old fashioned boat in the canal that was modeled after ones that used to run up and down when the canal was still regularly operating.

It had been raining so much during the month of April that the falls were really booming. In the past, I've usually seen kayakers out on the Potomac, but not today; it was way too rough.

It was a perfect time to be out hiking because everything was so green! Especially coming from CO.

Lots of little wildflowers were blooming.

We decided to hike the Billy Goat trail which I had never actually hiked before.

During the hike, Andy somehow ripped his pants. And with each big step he took to climb over rocks, he would rip them a little more and a little more.

He was so funny about it. He would say after a particularly steep scramble, "Man! That was a real pants ripper!" Elizabeth and I were dying.

I definitely recommend the Billy Goat trail. I think it was about 3 or 3.5 miles and it was a really pretty hike. We even came across a swampy pond where we found lots of tadpoles.

the big apple

2008-04-25T21:30:00.002-06:00

Got up bright and early this morning to fly east for a trip to visit family and friends. We were flying into NYC to visit the Belgians for the first leg of our trip, but it turned out that Sandrine was accepted into Stanford business school so they had to fly to Palo Alto for admit weekend instead. So upon arriving at JFK, Sean and I took a train, then a subway to get to Union Station. There, we caught the Chinatown bus down to Baltimore.

Believe it or not, the bus was actually really comfortable. We found it more comfortable than a plane because there were foot rests. And even though it was a Friday and our bus left at 5 pm, we didn't actually sit in that much traffic! We arrived in Baltimore at 10 pm where Mark picked us up. It took us thirteen total hours of traveling via car, bus, train, subway, and plane to get home. If only we had ridden on a submarine and a helicopter too, we could have covered all our travel bases.

palm springs

2008-04-24T12:58:00.004-06:00

My flight home got delayed this morning so I had a couple hours to kill and decided to check out Palm Springs. I got breakfast at a little street cafe and then found this great courtyard in back of the restaurant to sit and eat in. I swear, every man I saw in Palm Springs was wearing white deck shoes and walking a Pekingese. The Pekingese must be the popular breed to have in Palm Springs just as the Burmese Mountain dog is the popular breed of Denver.

After breakfast, I just walked around and checked out the town for about an hour. Saw Liz Taylor's Palm Springs star and many others on the sidewalks.

I loved all the fuscia flowers growing on many of the stuccoed building walls.

I didn't get to spend very much time here, only about an hour and a half, but it was definitely interesting to check it out. The biggest thing I noticed was the amount of irrigation the city must do to keep it so green. I'm not kidding you when I say that this place is in the middle of the desert. As soon as you cross the city limits after leaving town, everything is brown brown brown. No natural vegetation anywhere to be seen except scrubby weeds.

morongo casino resort and spa

2008-04-23T22:04:00.007-06:00

This morning before heading out to my meeting, I had to snap a shot of the entrance to the Morongo Casino. They have this elaborate metal structure that upon first glance seems pretty ugly. How'd you like that oxymoron?

But after considering it for a moment, I realized that not only does it provide much needed shade but it also seems to fit in well with the landscape.

My meeting went pretty well today. I survived, at least. I hate speaking in front of a crowd so I was pretty nervous. Also, I'm leading this exercise so I want to make a good impression and do a really good job.

After the meeting, I came back to the casino and had probably the best Chinese dinner I've ever had. It was early and there weren't that many people in the restaurant, so I decided to sit up at the bar so I could watch the chef make his dishes.

I ordered Mu Shu chicken, my usual Chinese dish and the reason I can confidently gauge the quality of one Chinese restaurant over another. LOVE those pancakes spread with plum sauce, rolled up like tacos! The restaurant really delivered and it was easily the best Chinese food I've ever had. It was so good because they didn't over-sauce the Mu Shu chicken, which is so typical of most Chinese restaurants.

After dinner, I wandered through the casino and took this picture before learning that you can't take pictures in the casino. Oh well - looks like I got off one illegal shot. I didn't gamble because I hate to waste my hard-earned money. Maybe next time I'll take a chance and see where it takes me. Or should I say, what it makes me.

banning, ca

2008-04-22T20:57:00.004-06:00

Headed out to Southern California today for a work trip to the Morongo Band of Mission Indians Reservation. The Morongo Reservation is located in Banning, CA which is about 80 miles east of LA and 20 miles west of Palm Springs.

Snapped some quick shots from the car to show what the typical scenery looks like in this area.

Here's the view from my hotel room at the Morongo Casino Resort and Spa. I originally wanted to stay in Palm Springs but felt like I valued sleep too much to make the 20-some mile drive for my meeting the next morning. I'm actually glad I stayed here because the rooms are cheaper than Palm Springs and they are NICE. It's definitely one of the nicer hotels I've stayed in.

rockies vs. dodgers

2008-04-21T12:18:00.002-06:00

This evening we took Matt to Coors Field for our first baseball game of the season.

Once in the gates, we ran into a filming set-up where they were soliciting volunteers to do a "Don't Drink and Drive" commercial. Both Matt and I did the commercial. Supposedly if it's chosen (fat chance) they will air it on TV.

As we were taping the commercial, you could watch what it would look like on a TV screen.

The Rockies were winning the entire game until they lost it in the ninth inning.

Despite how freezing it was, we actually stayed until part way through the 9th when they fell apart. If Sean had had his way, we probably would have left after the 7th!

ward

2008-04-20T22:06:00.004-06:00

Sean's childhood friend Matt Lynch flew out for the weekend to visit us here in CO. We started out yesterday by driving out to Rollinsville, CO to visit his cousin Scott and his wife Mary. We had a really great time hanging out with them and even got to see a video of Scott's little brother playing on a Japanese game show where they shock you when you get the answer wrong! We spent the night there and then did a little driving tour of Ward, CO this morning on our way back to Denver. Usually Sean and I just do a drive by of Ward because it's definitely the type of little town where your car goes to die. There are rusted out cars everywhere and it feels as if everyone who lives there was just driving through town once themselves when their car gave out and they were forced to take up permanent residency here. There's a 3 legged shaggy brown dog right at the entrance to town and you will always see dogs and barefooted children running loose. Anyway, Matt wanted to get out and walk around! He wanted to go into what we thought was a general store based on the sign in the picture above.

But once we went in and after the owner had offered Matt a cup of coffee, we learned that it wasn't a general store, but someone's home!

The guy was really nice though and didn't seem to mind at all that we were walking around in it picking things up.

Then the local drunk stumbled in and took a seat on the couch in the back room.

Here are a few more local characters that were sitting on a bench outside the so-called general store.

Here's the owner selling Matt a bag of coffee beans. He claimed that he had the highest elevation coffee bean roaster in the country. Another typical trip to the town of Ward. We drove Sara Mullins through here when she was visiting us last November and she took a bunch of pictures of all the rusted out vehicles. She would have loved the rusted out CONESTOGA WAGON we saw this past trip. I wouldn't be surprised if that wagon died on its way through town two centuries ago.

old man in the sun part 4

2008-04-19T22:02:00.000-06:00

hiking in helena

2008-04-17T21:29:00.003-06:00

After a productive meeting yesterday, Trista and I had a few hours to kill this morning before our flight home.

We decided to go hiking on a trail up a mountain right outside Helena.

The trail had us huffing and puffing, but the view of the city was great from the top.

And we even got to check out some wildlife on the way back down.

Our flight home had a connection in Salt Lake City. It was interesting to fly in there and see the big lake and the huge mountains surrounding the city because I'd never been there before. Who knows...maybe I'll have a work trip there someday too.

helena, mt

2008-04-15T21:22:00.000-06:00

Cross another state of my list baby, because I'm going to Montana today! I had to snap this shot of the CO mountains during my flight because I never get tired of seeing them when I fly.

You may wonder why this picture is here but for those of you readers that are close friends from UVa, doesn't this look like Jen R. from behind?

old man in the sun part 3

2008-04-14T20:58:00.000-06:00

biking in the park

2008-04-13T20:36:00.003-06:00

Today we broke out our bikes from the utility room for a spin around the city. That is after we drove to the bike store twice - once for a new inner tube for my tire, and again for a new chain for my bike. After a few technical difficulties, we were off. It was a really pretty day, one of the first warm days this spring so far. We headed north through some really gorgeous neighborhoods and ended up at Cheesman Park, which we cycled around. Then we headed back down south through some more neighborhoods and rode around Wash Park. We paused in the park to check out all the people enjoying the great weather, playing sports, and walking their dogs. We smelled all the grills cooking dogs and burgers and decided to ride straight to the grocery store to pick up our own burgers for dinner.

where did spring go?

2008-04-09T20:23:00.003-06:00

old man in the sun part 2

2008-04-07T20:15:00.000-06:00

old man in the sun part 1

2008-04-06T19:34:00.003-06:00

breakfast for dinner

2008-04-05T19:28:00.001-06:00

a treat for my sweet

2008-04-04T18:49:00.000-06:00

mr. happy man

2008-04-03T18:46:00.000-06:00

couscous with tomatoes and asparagus

2008-04-02T18:28:00.002-06:00

Today I made some couscous and decided to jazz it up by including some tomatoes and asparagus and adding vegetable broth instead of water and it was SO GOOD. I highly recommend it!

caribou

2008-03-30T17:01:00.000-06:00

Today we decided to check out another one of the scenic destinations in our John Fielder's Colorado book: Caribou, CO. John is one of the best known CO photographers so the scenic destinations he highlights in his book are usually breathtaking. I love that he explains exactly where to capture the image he has captured. He also details places to stay, hiking, camping, biking, etc. so if you live in CO, I highly recommend you get it.

We found this beautiful little road on our way to Caribou and had to jump out to snap some pictures because the bushes in the field were reddish/yellow which highlighted the green pines in the background. Plus it started to snow which made the whole scene even more beautiful.

At the end of the road we found Caribou, which at one time was a thriving town but has since been completely reclaimed by nature except for the occasional stone shells of a few buildings.

By this time the snow was really coming down and Sean and I were lucky that we even had light jackets and hats. It was pretty warm in Denver so it was shocking how much it was snowing in the mountains.

We just walked down the road a ways before getting back in the car to go home. Maybe we would have done a little hiking had it not been snowing, but the beautiful drive in and of itself made the whole trip worthwhile.

st. patty's day feast

2008-03-14T16:24:00.003-06:00

Our next door neighbor Steve came over today and invited us to eat dinner with him. He'd cooked up the traditional Irish feast of corned beef and cabbage with potatoes.

Typically I don't really enjoy this type of food, but he'd done a really good job and it was delicious! The red skin mashed potatoes were my favorite.

The corned beef was really good too, as were the veggies. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

tardiff in the house

2008-03-08T15:35:00.001-07:00

My co-worker Rachel came out to CO for part of this week and graced us with her presence last night for some pool and beers. She spent the night and then this morning we took a walk to the park with Logan and his friend Riley.

Sean broke out his shorts in an attempt to bring warmer weather, but I'm not sure that it worked.

Rachel's flight left later in the day, but not before I got a quick snap of her hot rod!

snowshoeing at rocky mountain national park

2008-03-01T11:16:00.005-07:00

View out the car window while driving to Rocky Mountain National Park. Notice the lack of snow! We were worried that we had rented snowshoes for nothing.

View from the parking lot at Bear Lake.

Smiling mountain man

We hiked up a little side path we came across. We got pretty hot from climbing and stripped our jackets off. It was a strange feeling to be on so much snow in so little clothing.

View from a rock outcropping we climbed up.

It was off the path, but so worth it because the view was phenomenal.

Check out the reflection in Chris' glasses. You can see Sara and I taking pictures as usual, and Sean standing with his hands on his hips, also as usual.

Which way to the Starbucks? There? No there!

Bristlecomb pine

This is Nymph Lake. It was totally frozen and there were people walking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing across it.

The wind was so strong at the top of the mountains that it was blowing snow all over. Luckily, it wasn't windy at all down where we were hiking.

skiing at arapaho basin

2008-02-29T10:58:00.003-07:00

Last night Sara and Chris arrived to visit us for a weekend of fun in the snow. Sara had been missing winter so we were glad to have them out here for a fun weekend of skiing and snowshoeing.

We started the weekend out right by taking today off from work to go skiing at Arapaho Basin ski area.

Here's a steep scary hill of moguls - my worst nightmare.

A look backwards on the chair to the bottom of the mountain. It was a gorgeous day to go skiing and it was actually pretty warm.

See what I mean by my worst nightmare? I don't mind steep hills, I actually love them. But steep hills with moguls are the one thing I can't seem to master.

Sara and Chris did really well. I started them out on the bunny slope and felt like they were ready to hit some greens in no time at all.

Here are my smiling beginners at the top of their first hill. Sara fell a few times and Chris never even fell once!

After skiing, we met Sean at home, packed up for the weekend and headed to a cabin in Rocky Mountain National Park for some snowshoeing the next day. After a night of drinking, Sean fell asleep on the floor in front of the fire.

quiche

2008-02-19T10:56:00.001-07:00

Sara Mullins gave me this recipe for quiche today and it sounded so good that I decided to make it for dinner tonight. Yum!

the ingredients for a perfect winter weekend

2008-02-17T10:50:00.002-07:00

Today was much better. Last night we played games and I kept to my vow and didn't drink a drop. I went skiing again with Steph and got her to the point of going down her first blue. She's going to be on black diamonds in no time. After skiing we cooked dinner, played some more card games and pool, and then had to head back to the city around 7:30. We wish we could have stayed longer but we all wanted a little downtime before starting work again on Tuesday. But it was a great weekend and we hope to have a repeat there again some time soon. Thanks for inviting us Emily!

chateau revealed

2008-02-16T10:07:00.006-07:00

Oh my gosh this place was so nice. Huge state-of-the-art kitchen with high-end appliances, pots, pans, and anything and everything else you can think of. It was so funny because we were trying to use the can opener and NONE of us could figure out how to use it. We kept joking that it was a rich man's can opener and none of us were smart enough to figure it out. We finally found a common poor man's can opener so all was not lost.

Ginormous icicles

Here's the living room. The fire place is open on both sides which was really nice because everyone got a chance to sit by the fire.

View off the deck

Gotta love those thick wood beams running throughout the house.

View from windows behind fireplace in living room

Steph glowing with satisfaction after she got the fire going again

Relaxing, reading, and snoozing by the fire. There's a whole back story to this day that I hate to reveal, but I suppose I should in the spirit of laughing at myself. Last night we did a lot of drinking, as any common folk would when thrown together with lots of friends into a palatial mountain home in Breckenridge. This morning I woke up hung over, but geared up with everyone else to go skiing. Only I stupidly decided to try snowboarding because one of the girls wasn't going to use her snowboard and said I could try it out. Dumb. After about 30 minutes of falling on my face, I had had enough and decided to go back to the car where I had strategically left my skis. Oh, and I forgot to mention that before I even left the car to board, I realized that I hadn't brought my goggles. Another dumb move. Luckily, Stephanie was meeting her cousin on the slopes who lives in Breckenridge and was able to call and ask her to bring an extra pair. So after 30 minutes of falling with a splitting headache and hangover, I was ready to trade in the snowboard for my skis. But first I have to try to hook up with James who had driven so I can get his keys. That took about an hour. Then it took another 45 minutes to ride the gondola back down the mountain, walk to the car, switch out the board for my skis, etc. I actually found my goggles during this process as I had stuffed them into my ski boots. Thank God because the borrowed goggles were not tinted and I could barely see with the bright sun reflecting off the snow. So with my own goggles and skis in hand, I lock the car, walk back to the gondola and ride back up to meet up with my friends. About half way up, I realize I have left my darn poles in the car. D'oh! I think for a couple seconds about whether I want to ski the rest of the day (which is really only about 2-3 hours long at this point) without poles, or whether I need to go back and get them. I decide to go back and get them, which takes another 30 minutes because I have to ride it all the way up and then all the way back down again. I walk back across the parking lot, get the stupid poles, and catch the gondola back up again. As I'm riding up, I get a call on Steph's cell phone (couldn't find my cell phone that morning for some strange reason). It's Emily telling me to call Sean, who had gone snowshoeing. I call Sean and he tells me to call Sara Mullins regarding my lost purse. Oh no! OH YES. I call Sara and find out that I had left my purse at Wendy's the night before, but that a nice lady had picked it up and was keeping it at the Wendy's for me. No wonder I couldn't find my phone. The woman had called my mom, who had called Sara Mullins' mom, who had called Sara, who had called Abby to get Sean's number in order to get to me. In the hubub of me calling Sara back, trying to carry my skis, my poles, and get off of the gondola at the same time, I lose a glove. This day just keeps getting worse and worse. I don't discover the lost glove until I meet up with everyone who is waiting for me. I discover it at that point, retrace my steps back to the gondola, and don't discover the glove. Now I'm really screwed b/c there's no way I can ski without a glove. Luckily, someone has a thin spare that will get me through and I make 2 runs. TWO RUNS before the mountain shuts down. I'm now wishing I had never even gone out today. The only good thing that I accomplished is volunteering to take Steph down her first slope. It took a long time but she was getting the hang of it by the bottom. At least I can take some credit for teaching someone how to ski. I vow there and then not to drink a drop the rest of the weekend, which was not a hard vow to keep. I had to come back and take a long nap to sleep it all off. I missed getting in the hot tub and playing pool due to my hangover. What a freaking day.

breckenridge

2008-02-15T09:57:00.004-07:00

We headed out of the city tonight to stay at our friend Emily's cousin's cousin's home in Breckenridge. It's a 3 day holiday weekend and what better way to celebrate than a weekend of friends, skiing, and fun in the mountains. Little did we know how nice this place was going to be. In fact, as we were rounding the corner of the neighborhood road, we saw this place and all agreed that it would be so awesome if this was the actual house. We were expecting a tiny cabin. We were wrong!!

eucalyptus tree tunnel, koloa, and national tropical botanical gardens

2008-02-07T09:26:00.006-07:00

Today was the final day of our trip. In fact, we flew home at 11:30 pm this night. Obviously, we had a lot of hours to kill before going to the airport. We started by driving through the famous tree tunnel. All of the trees are eucalyptus trees planted by one man. Of course, right after we'd pulled over to the side of the road and I waited for some cars to go by before being able to walk out into the middle of the road for a picture, it began to POUR. So I had to run back to the car and take the photo from inside the car.

We then headed into little old town Koloa, which was SO CHARMING. We loved it. Sean got a coffee while I went into a couple of the stores.

One of the things that made Koloa so charming was all the giant old Monkey Pod trees that were on the other side of the street from the cute little shops. The sad thing is we saw protest signs posted all over the stores because a developer is scheduled to come in and cut them all down for parking lots. So sad.

Next we went to the National Tropical Botanical Gardens and took a tour.

This is a tree believed to be planted by Queen Emma herself over a hundred years ago. It's a really interesting tree because it fell over, but the branches that came into contact with the ground then grew roots and sprouted new branches.

This is the site where Queen Emma's house was located.

Some native Kauai plant. There are hardly any native species of plants left on Kauai because the goats that were introduced to the island have decimated almost all of them.

This was a really pretty "garden room" at the botanical garden that was very peaceful and beautiful, complete with two matching mermaid statues at each end and a fountain running down the middle.

Moreton Bay Fig Trees in Allerton Gardens

This is the tree where the raptors were laying their eggs in Jurassic Park.

ginger blossoms

After the tour, we ate some dinner, then returned the rental car to the airport. Then we waited in the airport for 5.5 hours until our flight. We had an awesome time in Kauai, but were glad to get home and see a bright blue sky here in Denver.

helicopter ride

2008-02-06T00:00:00.009-07:00

This morning we headed out to the helicopter tour place for the second morning in a row. Our scheduled tour had been canceled the previous two days in a row for bad weather (imagine that) and we went actually hoping it would be canceled again because we didn't want to pay all that money for a ride through a layer of clouds. It started to clear up as we drove there and the biggest and brightest rainbow yet appeared. It was so pretty I made Sean pull over on the side of the road so I could snap a picture of it. It was definitely the best rainbow we saw on the trip, and trust me, we saw A LOT with all that rain.

Here is the helicopter we flew in. Sean was really excited because he had researched the companies and picked this one because he wanted to ride in a helicopter WITHOUT ANY DOORS. I reluctantly agreed, only because Sean exploited my photo-taking weakness and convinced me that I'd get much better pictures with no glass or plastic between my camera and the open air. Smart boy!

We really lucked out with the weather this day. It was the least rainy day of the entire trip and was perfect for the helicopter ride. This is a photo of the coffee plantation on the island.

Truly the best way to see the island of Kauai is via helicopter. There's only one road around the outside of the island, and it doesn't even connect all the way around. In the helicopter, we flew all over the whole island and got to see everything.

First we flew up the Waimea Canyon, which was just beautiful from the air.

Then we continued north and began approaching the Na Pali Coastline, which we'd been dying to see up close since the first day of our trip when we caught a brief glimpse of it from our muddy hike.

There were waterfalls galore from all the rain.

At least lots of rain means lots of rainbows. I now know why the rainbow is on the license plate for Hawaii.

We finally burst out over the crags of the Na Pali coast and it was truly beautiful. One really good thing about the helicopter company we chose is they actually fly much closer in to the scenery than the bigger, more comfy helicopters. But the bad part about that is that we were so close, that I never was able to get a really good wide shot of all the Na Pali coast. You should google it because it's really spectacular. Countless movies have been filmed here.

This is the beach where the 11-mile trail ends. It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in all Hawaii.

If you look closely in this picture, you can see part of the 11-mile trail. Looks kind of scary knowing how muddy and slippery it is!

This is Hanalei Bay. The Princeville Resort where we ate that phenomenal 4 course dinner is the big building at the very top left-hand side of the picture.

More waterfalls...

And more waterfalls. I couldn't stop taking pictures of them, even though they were everywhere.

Next we headed inland to Mt. Wai'ale'ale, which is the wettest place on earth. Can you guess what we saw? More waterfalls! We thought the whole island of Kauai felt like the wettest place on earth, but evidently, there was a specific place on the island that was literally the wettest place on earth. The only way to see Mt. Wai'ale'ale is via helicopter.

Then we headed back south again for the end of the ride. This is looking towards the Po'ipu area where we liked to snorkel while we were in the south.

And here is the little airport where we took off and landed. After landing, we immediately took advantage of the good weather and went snorkeling again. Then that night, we had our second high end meal out at the Beach House on recommendation from James and Melissa. It was DELICIOUS and we had a table with a beautiful view. We watched the sun set from the beautiful green lawn in front of the Beach House restaurant.

This is also the same beach where we snorkeled in the south.

Lots of people came out to see the sun set.

It was a truly beautiful evening and a perfect ending to our favorite day on the island.

rain, rain, go away

2008-02-05T23:51:00.003-07:00

Today was the rainiest day of all. We were pretty frustrated with this day because it rained about 25 times or so throughout the day and despite having raincoats and one umbrella, we got pretty wet several times.

We started the day out with a hike at Koke'e State Park which is north of the Waimea Canyon. We had checked out the views of the Na Pali coastline from up there a few days ago and thought about hiking, but were too tired and decided to do it later. Well we tried a hike this morning, but I don't even have any pictures of it because it was so cloudy and overcast that you couldn't see a thing but white clouds in front of your face.

So after the hike, we decided to hike to a little locals beach we'd read about called Maha'ulepu Beach. Try pronouncing that. Anyway, the land is owned by Steve Case (Apple) and is supposedly a beach that locals love to go to because it's hard to find for tourists. The book says,"Locals consider this pristine swath of beach to be Kauai's last undeveloped coast."

It rained a bunch of times while we were walking along the beach, but we did meet a local woman with two cute little Jack Russell mixes that were so much fun to play with. The beach was pretty, but it was a little hard to appreciate with all the rain.

wailua falls and hiking nounou mountain

2008-02-04T21:47:00.001-07:00

Today we checked out Wailua Falls, which is best known for its appearance in the opening credits of the Fantasy Island TV series.

In the book, it was described as a double waterfall, but I think with this record level of rain Kauai had been getting, it was a thundering single waterfall. There was so much mist raising off the surface that there was a rainbow.

We also saw Opaeka'a Falls on our way to go hiking the Sleeping Giant (Nounou) mountain.

Afterwards we went hiking. This is Sean pouting as I set up the camera to take a timed picture of both of us. He hates when I set up the camera on a timer. Unfortunately, if I don't do that, I have to ask someone to take a picture for us, which I consider to be the worst of two evils

He behaved and turned on the smile once I ran up. We hiked the Nounou Mountain East Trail. The hike was pretty muddy, but nothing compared to the Na Pali coast. It rained a few times, but we of course had our rain coats to whip out.

snorkeling in po'ipu

2008-02-03T21:42:00.002-07:00

Today, despite the pouring down rain at the place we were staying, we decided to drive down to the beaches at Po'ipu to see if it was nicer there.

We decided there must be a permanent raincloud that sits above the house we were staying at because it was sunny at the beach. It did rain a few times, but by this point, we had a routine worked out for covering the towels and pack with an umbrella so our stuff didn't get wet. The snorkeling was really great here too.

po'ipu and spouting horn geyser

2008-02-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

Today it poured all day and we kinda needed a break from getting wet in the rain so we watched about 5 hours in a row of Lost Season II episodes on my computer. Then we finally left the house (it was still raining) and drove down to Po'ipu to check out the beaches and resort down there. Imagine our surprise when we discovered it was warm and sunny there! And it was only a couple of miles from where we were staying. We went to the Hyatt first to check out the grounds and beach. There was this koi pond at the entrance with two black swans that were fighting each other.

The Hyatt was pretty darn luxurious and evidently it doesn't rain there.

We walked down to the beach and sat there for a long while to watch all the surfers on the huge waves.

There were about 20 or so out there surfing and it was scary to watch because the waves were just pounding the shore. We saw lots of really scary wipe outs.

My friend Melissa had suggested we take a surfing lesson, but the surf at every beach we went to was so powerful, that we were both too scared to try it.

This is the view from where we were watching the surfers.

Afterwards, we headed up to Spouting Horn to check out this little geyser at sunset. I didn't really get a great shot because we missed sunset by a matter of a minute or so, but it was still neat to see.

waimea canyon and koke'e state park

2008-02-01T21:00:00.005-07:00

So that wrapped up our first part of the trip on the North Shore. Today we headed down to the South for the rest of our vacation. We stopped at the place we'd reserved from Craig's list for the last 6 nights to drop our stuff, then hopped back in the car to check out Waimea Canyon State Park.

The canyon was beautiful! It looked like the Grand Canyon, but much greener.

We thought about doing a little hiking, but were too tired and thought we should save it for a future day when we could get started earlier in the day. We regretted that decision later because it rained much of the remaining days and though we did try some hikes, it was so overcast and cloudy that we couldn't see anything. But today was truly gorgeous, one of the prettiest days we had.

We continued driving north on the canyon road and eventually reached Koke'e State Park, which has stunning views of the opposite end of the Na Pali Coastline. The other end was along that 2 mile part of muddy trail that we hiked. Not sure if you can see it but there was a rainbow in the mist at this overlook. This is the furthest out overlook and though it was a little misty/cloudy, we could see the ocean and the valley below.

It was really pretty and made us wish that we had hiked the whole 11 mile trail. But only for about a second because we would have fallen so many times on the trail and would have trashed all our camping gear in the mud.

This is Sean smiling because we made the decision to take a helicopter ride instead of hiking the 11 miles in the mud so we could more closely see the coastline and other sites on the island.

There were these funny little birds flying around by this overlook. They have heads that look just like cardinals.

na'aina kai botanical gardens and snorkeling at tunnels beach

2008-01-31T20:42:00.005-07:00

Today we went to Na 'Aina Kai Botanical Gardens for a morning tour. These gardens were created by Joyce Doty, the former wife of Charles Schulz (creator of the Peanuts comic strip).

We saw a pair of Hawaiian geese (the endangered HI state birds) while we were on our walking tour of the gardens.

If I remember correctly, these are banyan trees. These trees have dangling roots that turn into trunks when they reach the ground so that the tree gets wider and wider. The garden staff trim the roots so that they never quite reach the ground to prevent it from getting bigger that it already is.

These gardens comprise 240 acres and were clearly a labor of love and Peanuts money.

After the botanical gardens, we headed back to Tunnels Beach for some more snorkeling. As usual, we saw lots of feral roosters and chickens hanging around hoping for a snack. These guys are running around EVERYWHERE. They must do very well in the wild because they have all descended from the roosters and chickens that escaped during the hurricane Kauai suffered in the early 90s.

We read in our book that the snorkeling is best here on the island and it truly was amazing. There were tons and tons of bright tropical fish swimming around the natural reef at this beach just feet away from the edge of the water. The water was freezing but it was worth it to plunge in to see these fish. A nice old couple gave us this water bottle full of frozen peas, which they assured us the fish would go nuts for. They weren't lying.

Close up of the taro fields of Hanalei Valley.

sunset dinner at princeville resort

2008-01-30T20:28:00.004-07:00

The next day I think we went snorkeling at Tunnels beach, but I already can't remember because I didn't take any pictures of what we did that day. That night we walked up to the Princeville Resort for dinner at the swankiest hotel on the North Shore.

We had received recommendations from both Sean's friend James and my friend Rachel to eat dinner here at sunset, despite the expensive prices. Because we had a little kitchen in the condo and a full kitchen where we later stayed on the South Shore, we cooked dinner (and breakfast and lunch) ourselves almost every day so that we could splurge on two really expensive meals. This was the first one and was definitely the best of the two. We had a truly delicious 4 course meal at about the best table they had. It was totally worth it!

As we were leaving the hotel, we saw a big stand full of leis so we asked the attendants if we could just try them on for a photo.

They were so nice and just told us to keep them. So we wore them home and finally felt like true Hawaiian tourists.

kalauea lighthouse, queen's bath, and princeville resort

2008-01-29T22:09:00.012-07:00

This morning, we decided to go back to the Kilauea Lighthouse to check it out. It's situated at the end of a peninsula on Kilauea point National Wildlife Refuge, which meant that we got in free with our National Parks pass. Score!

One of the best parts of visiting the lighthouse was standing there at Kilauea Point and watching these absolutely enormous waves crash against the coast. This picture doesn't do the waves justice because you can't tell how tall the rock wall is that they're hitting.

The waves must have been at least 25 - 30 feet tall and we had fun watching them for several minutes. We also had fun watching all the birds. We had read that this was one of the best places on the island to watch for humpback whales and for Laysan albatrosses.

We did not see any whales but we saw lots of albatrosses flying around. The lighthouse was pretty cool too. It has the biggest clamshell lens in the world.

After visiting the lighthouse, we decided to check out a beach that several former guests at our condo had recommended called Hideaways Beach. The beach was neat to see because there was a lot of volcanic rock that formed little mini pools with lots of little beach critters to watch.

After checking out Hideaways, we decided to visit Queen's Bath, which we had both read about and been told of from Sean's friend James. Queen's Bath is a natural pool formed by lava rocks in a circular pattern. We read in our tour book that "it provides a natural protected swimming and snorkeling hole where the surf splashes in softly flushing clean the ice-blue pool, which is so salty you float along effortlessly. Look for turtles and monk seals just beyond the pool." Sounds pretty great right?

Thank God we just looked at it for a while because suddenly this monster 25 foot wave slammed into Queen's Pool and left the whole surface covered in froth. We would have definitely been killed.

It was still neat to watch though and we sat there for a good hour watching wave after gigantic wave slam against the back rocks of the pool. To be fair, the book said that the waves can be much rougher in the winter, but nothing we read in the book prepared us for the true size and strength of the waves we were seeing. Only about 3 truly monster waves crashed into the pool while we were watching and unfortunately, I was never able to capture a picture of one of those, but I think you get the gist.

After Queen's Bath, we decided to walk up to the Princeville Resort which happened to be only about half a mile from where we were staying. We had heard and soon found out for ourselves that this resort is the nicest one on the island. Of course on the way there, one of those famous 5 minutes rain storms blew through and soaked us to the bone so that we looked like drowned rats when we arrived.

We weren't really dressed well enough to eat dinner there so we decided to come back another night and just checked out the view from the top patio. You can see the dinner tables in the photo above where we ended up sitting the next night.

As we drove back to the condo, we passed a beautiful little church with this gorgeous stained glass window.

kilauea point lighthouse and hanalei bay

2008-01-28T20:39:00.018-07:00

The next morning, we went to this awesome bakery/cafe for breakfast. The food was amazing and not too expensive (for Hawaii, anyway). This little cat was making the rounds among all the patrons. Don't you love how the angle of this picture makes it look like only half a cat?

Sean was playing around with the cat, and the cat was playing around with Sean until suddenly the cat decided to sink its claws into his foot. Maybe he 'rubbed the cat the wrong way' or something :)

Since it was so close to the cafe, after breakfast we decided to check out Kilauea Point to see the lighthouse, but unfortunately it wasn't open yet. That's what going to bed at 8:30 pm will do to your schedule! The view from far away was still beautiful and very worth it.

So then we decided to drive on north and west toward Hanalei Bay. We had to pull over on the side of the road to take a picture of these beautiful taro fields of Hanalei Valley.

The fields were SO GREEN! Very nice to see so much green after the brown winter fields of Colorado.

We decided to drive to the end of the road on the North Shore and check out the beginning of the 11-mile Na Pali Coast trail, which we had planned to hike and camp during our trip.

We decided to hike the first 2 miles of the trail to check out the conditions, which looked pretty muddy by the legs and feet of the people we passed coming out. The views were amazing, but we had to tread so carefully and plan each step so that we didn't slip and fall down in the mud. There were lots of helicopters flying up and down the Na Pali Coastline. This coast is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in all Hawaii and the only way to see it is to hike the 11-mile trail or to take a helicopter ride.

We finally reached a beach after hiking 2 miles and decided to stop and turn around there. The mud was just too slippery and we also decided not to hike and camp the whole 11 miles because we were just asking to slip and fall on our butts with our huge packs on.

There were some beautiful wild orchids and flowers along the trail.

This little peak is near the famous Bali Hai, which is the peak in the background of South Pacific, the movie.

Kauai, where the red fern grows. I was expecting to see Old Dan and Little Ann bound out of the bushes after seeing this fern. Instead, I saw some feral roosters emerge.

After hiking the 4 miles, we were covered in mud and starving. We stopped in a cute little restaurant in Hanalei and had some delicious fish sandwiches.

After eating, we headed to the little condo we rented for the next 4 nights in Princeville. It was adorable and had this beautiful view off the back porch, or lanai as the Hawaiians call it.

yay! hawaii!

2008-01-27T20:52:00.004-07:00

Got up at the crack of dawn today to catch our flight to Kauai, Hawaii for a nice long vacation. Here's a shot of Denver in the bottom right-hand corner as we were flying away from the snow and toward the sun.

I noticed about halfway through our flight that there was another plane flying pretty close to us, which I thought was pretty cool. It was also a US Airways flight, probably flying to HI as well from another airport.

So for our first night we planned to camp. We didn't know where we were going to camp, but we figured we could look up sites in our book and drive around checking them out until we found one we liked. How's that for go with the flow? We ended up at Anini (rhymes with bikini) Beach Park, which was really beautiful and was right on the ocean. We met a couple that had come from Canada that actually live in the park all winter. They pointed out a bunch of other people who lived there in tents in the winter as well. This was good because we were worried we would get kicked out in the middle of the night by a park ranger since we didn't have a permit. We went to bed at about 8 pm because we were so TIRED and fell asleep with no problems now that we knew we wouldn't have to break down our tent in the middle of the night.

stranger than fiction

2008-01-25T18:13:00.003-07:00

I noticed the strangest thing today. Do you see what I see?

Is that a leaf that's half leaf and half petal? When I first saw it I thought that one of the petals had fallen and landed on the leaf, but when I tried to pick it up, I found that it was actually part of the leaf. So STRANGE!

gorilla take 2

2008-01-22T18:05:00.003-07:00

This time I got him to make a gorilla face for me.

still looking good

2008-01-21T18:19:00.001-07:00

These tulips are still looking great five days later! They just make the house look so much brighter.

giddy up!

2008-01-19T17:17:00.004-07:00

Today we headed down to the Denver Coliseum to see the rodeo for my birthday. The rodeo is part of the National Western Stock Show which comes to Denver every January. I believe it might be one of the biggest stock shows in the country.

We saw lots of bronco roping...

Little kids riding sheep...

Barrel running...

and bull riding. I took tons of pictures during the day but my camera is no good at catching such fast movements. All the shots turned out pretty blurry except for a few that were only partially so.

After the rodeo was over we decided to check out the stock show. Lots of animals were for sale, especially cows.

All of the cows were constantly being washed and blown dry so they were clean and fluffy looking. I guess the theory is that soft, fluffy looking cows will sell better.

Next we checked out a lama obstacle course! We read it on the program and thought it sounded pretty interesting but it turned out to be a little tamer than we imagined. It was just some kids leading their lamas through different "obstacles" one by one. Some of the lamas were pretty stubborn and would refuse to do certain obstacles like walking through tires or walking over a mattress on the ground, which was pretty funny.

29

2008-01-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Sean got me my favorite flowers (tulips!) for my birthday. He also got me tickets to see the rodeo and stock show this coming weekend. Yeehaw!

my little gorilla

2008-01-13T23:24:00.001-07:00

I bought Sean this apron while I was in San Diego last August. He never wore it last year but has taken to wearing it lately whenever he cooks. Love it!

sneak attack

2008-01-08T23:20:00.003-07:00

Biz came to visit for a few days to go skiing. Strangely enough, the only picture I took the four days she was here was this picture of Logan sneaking up onto the air mattress with her. Anyway, we had a great time skiing for two days at Arapaho Basin. Can you spot Biz in this picture?

mark's housewarming in baltimore

2007-12-29T23:09:00.003-07:00

Tonight my parents, my sister, Andy, and I headed up to Baltimore for Mark's big housewarming party in his refinished row home. He'd been working on restoring it for a little over two years now and had finally finished it.

It was a great time because Abby and Brad came down to spend the night from PA, Jen and Dan came up for a few hours from Alexandria, and the Belgians came down for the night from NYC. The place looked AMAZING! I had seen it roughly a year before and it was a wreck. I could not believe how transformed it was. I was especially impressed with the kitchen and the bathroom.

Mark lives really close to the famous Baltimore 34th Street where all the neighbors go over the top in decorating their houses for Christmas. A bunch of us walked down to see the gaudy display.

I don't think any of us had ever seen anything quite like it. Especially the Belgians.

The next morning we went out to breakfast before Sean and I caught our flight back to Denver. It was great to be home!

could it be?

2007-12-27T22:47:00.006-07:00

Yes it could. Another trip to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in less than a month. I accompanied my sister and her new guy, Andy, to the elephant museum again and it was fun in a totally new way because we checked out completely different things.

Namely, this was a trip about rocks. We saw all sorts of rocks and gemstones. It brought out the nerdy side in all of us. Don't you just love malachite?

During lunch we played cribbage. Yes, I know - also another nerdy thing to do. But I don't really care what you think because given the chance, I'd PEG YOU TO THE WALL like I did Biz and Andy. No, I'm not competitive, thank you very much.

The Castle...

Some outdoor antics...

Ahhhh! So cute.

And what better way to commemorate my day than to squash a penny into the Smithsonian elephant shape?

the cat's new outdoor spot

2007-12-26T22:42:00.005-07:00

For any of you that have a cat, you know what I mean by her new spot. She is always finding a new and inventive spot to snooze in for a few days in a row. During those days, you can't seem to get her out of this new spot. Even if it's on a tarp in a trashcan.

merry christmas!

2007-12-25T22:39:00.001-07:00

happy christmas eve!

2007-12-24T22:35:00.003-07:00

i tripple dog dare ya!

2007-12-23T22:30:00.002-07:00

Don't you just love watching The Christmas Story during the holidays?

who doesn't love chocolate chip cookie dough?

2007-12-10T20:50:00.001-07:00

the broncos vs. the chiefs

2007-12-09T22:19:00.002-07:00

When we got back from Beaver Creek this morning, we were pretty hungry and decided to head to our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Gaia Bistro. We were sitting across from this older couple and somehow got to chatting a little with them. They asked us what we were doing this afternoon and when we said nothing, they offered us their tickets to the Broncos game that day!

Both of us were pretty excited because we definitely had been wanting to go to a game but hadn't been too thrilled about the cost of tickets. By the time we got home from Gaia, Sean didn't want to go anymore because it was so cold outside. I think it was less than 20 degrees out, if not less than 10.

However, I was finally able to convince him and off we went on the light rail, Denver's equivalent to the subway or metro.

It was pretty freaking cold so we only stayed for about half the game. But it was worth it. Now we can say we've been to a Broncos game. Plus, as you can see by the photos, we had amazing seats on the club level. The Broncos also kicked some chief ass, which was fun to watch.

home again

2007-12-09T22:04:00.002-07:00

We had to head back this morning because if we'd skied today, we would have been sitting in the traffic for several painful hours tonight. The traffic heading from the mountains to Denver on a Sunday is equivalent to the traffic heading from the Outer Banks, NC to DC on a Sunday in the summer. Not good. Once you've sat in that I-70 traffic once, you make the decision to never ski another Sunday again. It's just not worth it. Much more pleasant to take a day off work and ski on a Friday instead.

powder day!

2007-12-08T21:49:00.005-07:00

Today we got up bright and early to hit the slopes. We were lucky because it had snowed several inches the night before so there was lots of powder. Too much so for me because I'd never really skied in powder like this before. In some places, it was almost knee deep and it kept making me fall. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it before the end of the season.

That night we enjoyed some beers and the hot tub. This Bud's for you, James! Thanks for inviting us :)

beaver creek

2007-12-07T21:37:00.003-07:00

Tonight we headed out of town for a weekend in Beaver Creek with our friends James and Toshiko. Toshiko had received a weekend timeshare at this nice hotel in Beaver Creek (one of the nicer ski areas in CO) in exchange for babysitting a little boy for the entire weekend. Nice trade! Are you digging the elephant made of towels?

Toshiko being the amazing cook that she is whipped us up some penguin appetizers made of black olives, carrots, and cream cheese. It was shaping up to be a fabulous weekend in the mountains.

dogs for hire?

2007-12-01T20:36:00.005-07:00

We were walking around downtown today and stumbled across a gang of Newfoundlands lashed to miniature wagons.

There were at least 10 - 15 of these guys, only some of which were dragging carts behind them. Such a strange site to see!

They were so cute and laid back looking. They had the personality of Logan, only they were a ton bigger. I would have gladly taken one home with us but I don't know if Logan would have liked sharing our attention. We talk about getting another dog occasionally, but we'd at least wait until we owned a place.

smithsonian museum of natural history

2007-11-24T21:14:00.005-07:00

Ahhhh, the elephant museum. My very favorite museum. I haven't been here for a loooooooooong long time so Sara and I decided to take a trip down memory lane while we were visiting our folks for Thanksgiving.

I decided my objective for the day was taking lots of pictures of Sara acting like a walrus...

a lion attacking a water buffalo, or whatever else we happened to be looking at. Specifically, I think I had a caveman at the back of my mind.

There was this awesome photography exhibit there too, which was a complete bonus for us photography fans.

A meeting of the minds?

I wish I could look like this when I get really angry. I think people would take me more seriously.

I think this buffalo shot was my favorite of all.

Hope diamond

These shark jaws were pretty cool too. The one in the background is the jaw of a modern day great white shark. The absolutely humongous jaw closest to the camera is the jaw of a prehistoric shark. Makes our modern day biggest shark look like a tadpole, eh?

YES! Finally we found a caveman for our imitation photos! I was so excited :)

I LOVE the Easter Island stone statues. Their faces depict the mood I'm in every morning when I have to wake up for work.

Piece of the Berlin wall.

cakes in a bag

2007-11-23T21:08:00.001-07:00

Today when I came downstairs I found the bag of open cat food just lying in the middle of the kitchen floor. I asked my parents why it was there and they said that sometimes they leave it like that for the cat because she has fun eating straight out of the bag. Sure enough, I busted her in the act later on that day.

happy thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T20:59:00.009-07:00

Wow. I couldn't believe that many of the leaves were still on the trees when I got home. Talk about late fall foliage. December is only 10 days away!

Looks like I lucked out and was able to see the east coast fall foliage after all. I took both of these pictures out of the windows facing my parents' backyard from their sun room. The little blue house is the playhouse my dad built for us when we were kids. Now it serves as storage but it was a lot of fun for us and the neighbor kids when we were little.

home for thanksgiving

2007-11-21T20:54:00.002-07:00

I got the last minute opportunity to fly home on the company's dime to cover a hideous meeting the week after Thanksgiving that no one else wanted to be a part of. I didn't either, but it was worth it to fly home for free for Thanksgiving with my family. I hated to leave Sean in Denver, but he understood and encouraged me to go home. I'm glad I was able to because I've never missed a Thanksgiving or Christmas with my family.

riley

2007-11-19T20:27:00.007-07:00

We're watching my friend Rebecca's dog Riley over Thanksgiving and in exchange, she'll be watching Logan while we're home for Christmas. It's great to have a backup dog sitter for Logan when Emily and Stephanie can't do it. At first, Logan was extremely competitive with Riley. He never sleeps in our room at night but Riley evidently always sleeps in Rebecca's bedroom so we put R's bed on the floor by our bed. Logan started out sleeping on the floor next to Sean but by the morning, he'd managed to kick Riley out of his bed and had taken it over for himself. And every time one of us was petting Riley, Logan would shove himself in between us and Riley so that he could get pets instead. It was pretty funny watching Logan compete for our attention. Riley was very sweet and easy to watch, thank goodness. I loved the way that he would halfway worm up onto the couch with us to rest his head on our shoulder. We'd even let him get away with it because it was so cute.

yum

2007-11-17T22:07:00.001-07:00

rocky mountain national park

2007-11-09T09:14:00.011-07:00

After three days in a row of commuting downtown, we were ready to get out of the city and into nature. Now some of these shots are Sara's and some are mine but I've got them all mixed up since we downloaded them both onto my computer. No matter! I just wanted to give Sara some credit. In fact, I know she took this gorgeous shot which is the spitting image of the picture I get in my brain when I think of RMNP.

We parked at a lookout and had fun taking some shots of the magpies.

These guys were pretty funny and I can understand where the term "thieving magpies" came from.

They put on quite the show for us.

"Wow! Is that a Stardicks I see?"

"Is it? Point it out on the map for me Sara. I need to know EXACTLY where it is."

Next we continued on our way toward Bear Lake and were lucky enough to see a couple different herds of elk.

Poor Sean had to take a rest while Sara and I went camera crazy.

Here is Bear Lake. It was so beautiful with the trees and mountains reflecting in the water.

Speaking of reflecting, Sean decided to take this special moment to reflect on how much he enjoys distracting me while I take pictures.

He did behave long enough for Sara to take a good picture of us.

And he also took this great one of us. This might just be the first picture of just the two of us since high school.

It was a really fun day and it made me sad that Sean and I hadn't been out to RMNP until we had a guest visiting. We'll have to make a better effort in the future to come back and hike some of the great trails they have here.

pinch rolling

2007-11-08T23:18:00.002-07:00

Sara Mullins arrived for a work conference this past Monday. Both of us had to work downtown all week, but we are taking tomorrow off to check out Rocky Mountain National Park. Sara and Sean decided to sport pinch-rolled pants for my (and your) viewing pleasure. Keep your fingers crossed that this 'trend' never comes back in style.

santa fe and taos

2007-11-02T21:55:00.012-06:00

We woke up nice and early after night number two of cold cold camping. The best part about waking up early was seeing the gorgeous sunrise.

I took Logan for a walk and couldn't believe that he was choosing this beautiful moment to act like a crazy normal dog by running around and not coming back when I called him. I finally managed to catch him by the collar and had to run him back to the campsite because of course I hadn't brought a leash since he never needs one normally. By the time I ran back to the pretty view, I almost missed the sunrise but still got a few decent shots in.

After packing up the tent, we drove into Santa Fe and started the day off right by getting the best breakfast burritos we've ever eaten from a local place recommended by some native NM-ers that we met. Then we began walking around Santa Fe. We passed by this church, which I believe is the oldest church in America.

We also visited the Loretto Chapel which contains what is known as the Miraculous Staircase. The story behind this staircase is really interesting. The staircase itself is beautiful and the amazing thing is there is no visible support for these stairs. When they were originally built, there wasn't even a banister, just the stairs themselves. How scary would that be to climb those stairs to the choir loft?

After spending a few hours walking around Santa Fe, we drove on to Taos, NM. We didn't really stop there, we just drove through the cute little downtown area and on to this cool bridge Sean had heard about.

We parked and walked back over the bridge, which felt pretty scary because there wasn't much of a railing between you and the deep Rio Grande River gorge beneath us.

This photo doesn't do the bridge or gorge justice because you can't tell how deep it really is to the river below.

After Taos, the big question was whether to camp a third night and head home the next day, or head home that evening to avoid camping in the cold again. As it continued to get dark, we decided to take the plunge and drive the 5.5 hours home. Not sure if it was the smartest move considering we almost hit deer multiple times as we were driving through the night, but our warm bed was calling us and we ended up making it home safe and sound at 1:30 am.

That was of course after we were guilt-tripped into stopping for dinner at a restaurant of a friend of our landlord's in Trinidad, CO on the border of NM. You might wonder how this could happen. Dan (our landlord) knew we were out of town for the weekend camping in NM and he had been telling us about how great Trinidad was for months. He told us we had to stop at this certain restaurant for dinner and called us multiple times over the weekend to let us know that he had called Frank, the owner, to tell him that we would be coming through. Needless to say, this was all a big pain and delayed us further, but we felt like we couldn't get out of it because of Dan's persistence. We felt kind of embarrassed to eat there because we were so dirty and gross after not showering and camping for the past two days. Even worse, it was getting pretty near closing time and we called Dan to tell him we wouldn't be able to make it in time but Dan called Frank without telling us and then called us back to say that Frank was going to keep it open for us (oh GEEZ) so there we are, speeding through the dark and praying not to hit a deer and total our car to get to Trinidad before Frank closed up his restaurant at 9. We made it and were happy to see that there was another couple still eating when we arrived. Frank ended up being really nice and claimed (and later proved) that he had been a singer in his youth. The reason I say proved is because at one point he turned on some sort of microphone and came up to our table and SANG A SONG to us. I wish I remember which song it was. He was really good, but it was so hard to keep a straight face because the whole situation of us being forced to come to this restaurant on our mad dash home and having Frank serenade us was too funny. The final crazy Dan bit was when we called him to report back on our meal after dinner. He had asked us to call him (of course) and after we had reported on the delicious meal and the gracious host, Dan told us he'd called the hotel he and his wife always stay at (because it accepts dogs) and that they had availability. GEEZ! So then we felt like we were going to be trapped into spending the night and blowing close to $100 bucks, or we would have to lie to Dan when we saw him next about spending the night. We finally decided on just lying if he asked. We came up with this story to tell him, if necessary, about how we stayed over but had to get up at the crack of dawn to come home because Logan got sick. You wonder why he would even know whether we had spent the night or not? Dan is around our building all the time and he comes EARLY. We were worried he would show up first thing the next morning to tinker around the yard and would see our car there! We got away with our little lie and were very excited to sleep in our nice warm bed that night for free.

bandelier national monument

2007-11-01T17:10:00.008-06:00

Before leaving the Great Sand Dunes, we had to attempt a few action shots of us jumping down them. Logan had fun partaking in the action as well.

After some good satisfying sand dune jumping, we hit the road for New Mexico. Lucky Logan snoozed in the back with our camping gear while we drove.

Our first stop was Bandelier National Monument where the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people built dwellings along the sheer rock cliffs around 600 years ago.

We learned that these ancestors of the modern Pueblo used to be known as the Anasazi. I remember learning about the Anasazi in a college archeology class because they somehow aligned these enormous stones so that sun rays shine through small slits between the stones on the solstices. To this day, they still have no idea how they even moved the stones, let alone moved them in such a way as to line up with the solstices.

Anyway, the dwellings were pretty neat to walk through.

Saw my first tarantula in the wild.

See all those rows of holes in the side of the cliff below? That shows how much higher the homes were. They could be several stories high and some were accessible only by rope or through rock climbing.

After checking out the cliff dwellings we took a hike along a path that led us to this extremely high up village in the side of a cliff.

To get up to it, we had to climb up several series of really steep ladders that led us up somewhere between 100 - 150 feet up. It was pretty scary! I can't even imagine how the ancient Pueblo people climbed up without ladders.

Walking back to the car we passed a few strange squirrels that looked like they were crossed with rabbits by the size of their ears.

It was getting late so we found a campsite and set up our tent for the night. We discovered that Logan is such a camping wimp that we had to let him sleep in the car for the night. He was scared of the fire and kept walking over to the car just begging to get in. He hadn't much enjoyed sleeping in the tent the night before so we decided he would be better off just sleeping in the car. I think he missed sleeping in his big comfy bed. City slicker.

great sand dunes national park

2007-10-31T16:34:00.006-06:00

Today we packed up our camping gear and our dog to do a little three day tour of southern CO and northern NM. We began by driving straight to Great Sand Dunes National Park in SoCO and arrived there in the late afternoon in time to set up our tent and take a walk to the sand dunes.

I just had to take a picture of our little campsite because it was so beautiful with the dunes towards the left and the mountains in the right and our little green tent under the tree.

There's no other word to describe the tallest sand dues in North America located out in the middle of the mountains of Colorado, about as far as you can get from an ocean, than surreal.

At the park, we read about how they were formed. I remember it had to do with water from the stream or creek, or maybe from the runoff snow from the mountains and the wind, but I can't remember now and the NPS website isn't helping me out.

Oh well. There was lots of sand and we ran around in it, and then Logan had a seizure. It was pretty scary because we were in the middle of nowhere and there was nobody around and it was getting dark. Luckily he came out of it with the only casualty being my jacket and pants covered in his foam and slobber. Don't worry - I only have to wear this same pair of pants and jacket for three more days...

goodbye NOLA

2007-10-29T23:51:00.000-06:00

broken eggs and broken hearts

2007-10-28T22:52:00.000-06:00

Today was our last day in the deep deep South. We started the day off right by having a late breakfast at the Broken Egg Cafe in cute little downtown Mandeville. Sean went to town with the crayons and the place mat.

We followed it up with a walk in the park along the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. This was the first time we saw the lake up close and from the shore, you couldn't see the other side and it almost looked like the ocean.

The boys had a swing...

While Jackson had a swim.

And Brad and Sean walked out onto a little pier while simultaneously turning into J Crew model wannabes.

There were so many huge old live oaks with really interesting twisty branches. I couldn't stop trying to get the perfect picture of them.

The day just kept getting better when we hitched Chris' boat to the back of his truck and took it for a spin on Lake Pontchartrain and up the Tchefuncta River.

We landed on this little sandy spit and drank a few beers and walked around. We came across this father and his daughter and their 2 dogs enjoying the sun.

The boys jumped into the river, even though it was cold.

Afterwards, we climbed back in the boat and drove over to a restaurant for some dinner. No hands!

Here's our fearless captain!

Miz Rachel and Miz Sara...

And the lovely Abby with her sexy hat of flames. She's on fire!

And of course the smiling Sean, who is already waxing sentimental about his prefect southern vacation coming to an end. Eating, drinking, swamp touring, and boating...the only thing that could have made the trip better in his eyes is if we had had an extra day to check out Chris' land in the country and go ATVing.

swamp tour

2007-10-27T21:28:00.000-06:00

Today we want on this awesome swamp tour of the Louisiana bayou. We saw lots of wildlife, Spanish moss, and crazy redneck river homes. This guy came right up to the boat because the guide was throwing marshmallows and hot dogs overboard for the gators to eat. It kind of seems like that should be illegal, but the gators all seemed to love it.

You can see how high the water recently way by the dark lines on the tree trunks.

This huge guy is El Whappo. He's the biggest alligator that lives in the swamp. The tour guide did NOT throw him any marshmallows or hot dogs!

We passed a bunch of houses, but this one group in particular were pretty memorable. If you click on the picture above, you'll see that they've named their house Redneck Resort.

And these folks have a pretty good collection of redneck flags going.

And my favorite: you know you're a redneck if your roof is trashed but you still have your direct TV satellite hookup.

After the swamp tour we went to Chris' youngest son, Zach's football game. Now Chris had been telling us how good Zach is and I'm sure we all thought he would be decent, but a big part of us thought it was just a proud papa talking. But Zach really was the best kid on the team and we got to see him tackle a few kids and score a touchdown. And afterwards, Chris demonstrated his cooking talents once again by cooking a huge dinner of veal cutlets for us. And his older son Drew was an amazing host and kept our wine glasses full and cleared the plates from the table WITHOUT BEING ASKED! Can we stay here forever and be taken care of by the Walker boys?

new orleans

2007-10-26T21:28:00.000-06:00

Today we all loaded into the van that Sara and Chris so kindly rented to transport us around in and headed over the bridge to New Orleans.

First stop was the original Cafe Du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets.

Beignets are like doughnuts, only you dip them in powdered sugar before each bite. We crushed a big bag of them in no time flat and wore the powdered sugar on our clothes for the rest of the day to prove it.

We walked around for most of the day checking out shops, Jackson Square, and the Mississippi River.

We stopped for some hurricanes late in the afternoon in a beautiful little outdoor courtyard with a fountain and lots of plants.

As it got dark, we headed down to Bourbon Street to check out the Halloween decor and costumes.

Sean tried on some costumes of his own in an attempt to fit in on the streets.

Sara smoked a cigar...

And Chris and Sean tried their hands at advertising.

It was a really fun day :)

louisiana!

2007-10-25T20:53:00.000-06:00

Today Sean and I flew to New Orleans to visit Sara and Chris along with Brad, Abby, and Rachel. We pulled up to their gorgeous Cape Cod house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Mandeville, which is on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, and felt immediately at home due to their amazing hospitality and delicious food. Sean all but cried when he tasted the delicious gumbo that Chris prepared for us. We were super excited to discover that the soup is made by Dr. Gumbo and is available for purchase in New Orleans or on the internet!! It comes in bags that you freeze and was known only as "soup in a bag" for the rest of the weekend. Sara and Chris of course "doctor" the soup themselves by adding craw fish. We highly recommend it!

logan's graveyard of pots and bowls

2007-10-22T20:41:00.000-06:00

fall and winter in the same photo

2007-10-21T10:53:00.000-06:00

It's hard to tell in this picture since the trees have JUST started turning in Denver, but check out what's on top of the cars.

heavenly hound

2007-10-20T10:59:00.000-06:00

happy birthday to keith

2007-10-15T12:08:00.000-06:00

We headed over to Brad's sister Tricia's place to help celebrate her husband Keith's birthday yesterday evening.

I finally got to meet their son Ryan, who was adorable. And Brad's parents were there as well. It's always a pleasure to spend time with them.

Keith cut the cake after blowing out the candles.

And their cat sat at the table as if he were the 4th member of their family.

doylestown day 3: buckingham valley vineyards

2007-10-14T12:19:00.000-06:00

Today we headed out to try some Bucks County wine tasting. This little vineyard was really cool because all the tasting was free and they had good snacks laid out as well. It's a family-owned vineyard with several generations at work to make it run smoothly. We got to chatting with some of them and discovered that they take all of their pets to the Kube's vet practice. The coolest thing of all was when they showed us their bottling machine. They put an empty bottle in it and we watched as it passed through the machine to get cleaned, filled with wine, sealed with a cork, sealed, and labeled. I'd never seen that at any other vineyard that I'd visited before.

Afterwards we took a drive through the countryside of Bucks County. As usual, it was a gorgeous drive with lots of old stone houses and quaint farms.

We even saw 2 headless asses!

doylestown day 2: polo

2007-10-13T19:31:00.000-06:00

After the covered bridges tour, Abby and I headed to a polo match, the last of the season. Evidently, polo is played at this pretty field every Saturday.

We brought a picnic lunch and had a great afternoon pretending we were Julia Roberts. Only we weren't wearing cute brown polka dot dresses and fancy hats.

But we DID get to stomp on some divots!

Do you think Logan would like a sweater like this?

At halftime? (I'm sure it's not called that!) there was a crazy hat contest held. Thought I'd explain that just in case you thought this is what the citizens of Doylestown dress like.

After the polo match, we headed upstairs to dinner courtesy of Sarah and Mike, Brabby's upstairs neighbors. They made an excellent Mexican dinner for us followed by after-dinner entertainment courtesy of their two hilarious cats Earl and Mr. Ralph.

Earl doesn't mind being held like this. AND, if you stick your finger in the corner of his mouth, he gives you vampire teeth as Abby happily demonstrated for us all. Believe it or not, Abby used to hate cats! I got her started on them during college and I think deep down, she's a cat lover now.

Here's Earl in his little blue mouse house.

And here's the Mister in his chair. I hear they box together but unfortunately, they were not up for fighting while I was there. There's always next time!

doylestown day 1: the bridges of bucks county

2007-10-12T13:25:00.000-06:00

Abby mentioned that there were 12 covered bridges in Bucks County so we decided to go see a few of them while taking a leisurely drive along the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River.

We weren't all that impressed with the first one we saw, but nevertheless, Abby still made the bridge look beautiful.

I can't even remember the second bridge, primarily because I didn't take any pictures of it. Couldn't have been that great right? But we LOVED the third one. It was painted red just like they should be and right before it was this gorgeous house that looked like it belonged in New Orleans.

The inside of the bridge was really neat too. And there were peak holes right in the middle where you could look out over the creek.

Here's Abby & I making love to the camera.

There was a really pretty house on the other side of the bridge once we walked through it. And here we noticed that it was called the Uhlerstown Covered Bridge and it was built in 1832. Pretty damn old!

After the bridges we headed to a polo match for a late picnic. I'll save that for the next entry though as I have lots of pictures from 2 days that I want to spread over the course of the 5 day trip.

philadelphia

2007-10-11T12:00:00.000-06:00

Today I flew into Philadelphia to visit Brad and Abby. Brad picked me up from the airport and by the time we got home, Abby was in the kitchen making us all an awesome dinner of salmon complete with homemade gingerbread.

virginia creeper

2007-10-09T10:44:00.000-06:00

This beautiful vine is growing on my next door neighbor's garage/barn right next to where I park my car. I had never noticed it before but now that it's changing to red and has these pretty blue berries growing on it, it would be impossible not to notice it.

fun with macro

2007-10-05T20:50:00.000-06:00

10 year reunion

2007-09-29T19:07:00.000-06:00

Today Sara and I flew in for a combo work trip and to hit our high school 10-year reunion. It was a big night - a night where we were going to show up looking hot. A night where we were going to show those "cool" kids what they had missed out on. A night where we dropped $97 (how cutesy that the cost was the same year we graduated) for an open bar that we only got a chance to have 2 drinks from.

It actually ended up being a fun night. We caught up with a few people we had spent time with in high school, and chatted with a few people that we had never talked to at all. It was interesting seeing what people were doing with their lives now, and I have to say, everyone was really nice. Even the cool kids :)

peanut butter bliss

2007-09-26T18:51:00.000-06:00

I can't help it. I know I've done the whole Logan licking out an old peanut butter jar before, but he's so damn cute when he's doing it that I had to take pictures again this time.

i hate mondays

2007-09-24T18:48:00.000-06:00

aspen explosion

2007-09-22T09:55:00.001-06:00

Today we took a drive through the mountains to check out the aspens.

We had heard that they reach peak in late September so we loaded the dog in the car and hit the road.

The scenery was beautiful all day, but this place we pulled over on the side of the road to snap some shots at was by far the most spectacular.

We left Logan in the car and as we were walking back to it, we saw that he too was taking in the scenery.

The second place we pulled over at was also gorgeous. You can see Chief's Head peak in the far left of the photo.

Here we met a very interesting cross dresser who was also taking some pictures.

Here's the most beautiful church I've ever seen. It's truly in the middle of nowhere and we've never seen people at it but lo and behold there was a wedding going on! When I asked Sean to pull over so I could take a shot, he got nervous because he thought I wanted to run right up to the church!

My first elk shot! These guys really are everywhere though so I guess it's not that special.

a word to the wise

2007-09-17T18:38:00.000-06:00

Don't ever rent one of those $20/hr carpet cleaners from the grocery store. Our neighbor had rented one and offered for us to use it for free after he was done, which was nice. We didn't really need to, but decided it would be a good idea because it was getting a little dingy from the dog. It looked spectacular after we used it, but within two to three weeks, the picture above is what happened.

We had to hire a professional cleaner who spent almost two hours just on this one room! I didn't think he'd be able to actually get it all up, but he did finally. He said that those rent-a-cleaners are bad because they use a lot of heavy soaps mixed with water. He said it takes a really long time for the carpet to dry from that and in the meantime, any sort of dust or dirt particle from us walking on the carpet or the dog lying on the carpet sticks to the surface of the semi-dry soap. The result is a way dirtier carpet than you had to begin with before you used the $20/hr cleaner!