Prairie Dog City

Today on my bike ride home from work I decided to finally count all of the prairie dogs that I see on my cruise home on my two wheeler. You see....my path home from work goes from the hospital, past the public golf course, through a nature center (that is full of prairie dogs among other wildlife), and then home. I always thought that there were tons out there every afternoon and initially thought that I would at least make it to 10. But I quickly realized that I would go way past #10 early on as the darn dogs kept on comin'. Then before I knew it #15 had come and gone....then 20...then 25...with a final count of 29 freakin' prairie dogs!!

We "bagged" one!

A 14er that is. We hiked Grays peak this weekend. We started off the weekend camping at, to be honest, an illegitimate camping site on the shore of Dillon Reservoir. This morning we got up early to make it to our trail before the weather could turn on us. But thankfully we had nothing but blue skies the whole way up to the top. And if anyone was wondering the top of Grays is 14,270 feet....about a 4400 elevation change for us for the day...we are BEAT! And I got to add to my list of things that I have never done...hitchhike;) We were so thankful for that ride!!!

Us at the summit:)

All that Jazz!

Every summer Sunday night in Denver there is a free outdoor jazz concert in City Park. So in celebration of my last night as a house wife we packed a picnic and rode our bikes to the park to listen to some tunes. The band was great, the weather was beautiful and dinner was super yummy! We made one of our favorite sandwiches...the S.B.L.A.T.T. Blackened Salmon, Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Tomato and Tartar Sauce. It is Dee-lish!!

And finally the pics from our visit to the Mother Cabrini shrine last week....Thanks for the great visit LJ and Eli!!

Denver Days

Thanks to Eli not quite adjusting to the time change, Leo having a doctor dinner out and my sister going to bed at 8:30 (Eli tires a gal out!) I have plenty of time to blog this evening about our days activities. The main activity of the day was going to the Denver Children's museum where Eli had a ball playing in the different areas that were available for him to explore. Some of his favorites were the giant size ant hill that he could crawl through (they even had animal costumes for the bigger kids...very cute!) and the grocery store... but no walking while he shops for him.... thanks but he is more of a riding man.



Help!!! My mom looks crazy and I can't crawl fast enough to get away!

Why does everyone in Denver think that I am a girl?!?! Don't I look tough?

And a HuGe congratulations to Sarah and Curtis who welcomed Connor Joseph at 7lbs 5oz this afternoon... We cannot wait to meet him!! But the pressure of being the favorite aunt and uncle to so many nieces and nephews is starting to become overwhelming for us;)

The Eagle and birdie have landed

Our visitors, Laura and Eli, arrived this afternoon. After getting settled in we had a relaxing day of playing in the yard and practicing blowing out one year old birthday candles on cupcakes with Eli...but sadly he prefers to grab the flame with his fingers rather than blow them out. Thank goodness we have a lot of cupcakes for practice this week:) Then we celebrated Laura and Eli's birthdays with a dinner of homemade pasta topped with Leo's alfredo and some tasty Colorado beer (LJ's fav beer Fat Tire and the Farmer's Friend was too cute of a microbrew to pass up)...well...to be honest Eli was in bed before the party started but once we did presents before dinner he knew that he had already peaked. He is a smart kid!

Drying pasta.

Devil's Thumb Print Lake

We hiked today outside of Nederland in the Roosevelt National Forest. It was beautiful with the wildflowers filling the valleys and the river running, at some points raging, next to the trail... quite the different Sunday activity coming from Oklahoma:) We were pretty excited on our hike when we saw our first Columbine flower in bloom! But sadly we did not make it to our final destination because of a large amount of lightning coming over the Continental Divide that made us turn around and high tail it back down the wet trail. But we warmed our wet selves back up in Nederland where there is probably one of the cutest coffee shops ever that is an old converted train car.... Nederland is quite the hippie town and full of character.

Our first holiday Colorado style

Although we missed our families' lake fun and fireworks shows we had a great time yesterday celebrating our first holiday...duh-du-du-duh....by ourselves;) It started with pancakes 4th of July style with blueberries, strawberries, whipped cream and nutella (pretty much because everything is sooo much better with a little nutella). We then headed out to the Cherry Creek Arts Festival which was huge and hot! No art for us this year though but there was a huge selection from artists all over the states. Then we headed back home for a little R&R of bocce, margaritas and baby back ribs. Super yummy margaritas thanks to Jeremy's recipe (3 parts tequila, 2 parts lime juice, 1 part simple syrup, and 1 part triple sec)...but beware....these are not your mommas margaritas!

As the pièce de résistance Leo got us tickets to the sold out MLS game of the Colorado Rapids versus the NY Red Bulls....both of our first MLS games to ever attend and an exciting Rapids win of 4-0 to boot. It was a lot of fun and after the game they let us come onto the field to watch the fireworks show! I think that all in all we did not do half bad for our first holiday:)

STP at Red Rocks

I found out something new about my husband a few months ago.... He is a huge STP fan... aka Stone Temple Pilots if you are like me and not hip to the lingo. So last night we headed out for the highly anticipated STP show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre for a rockin show at an equally awesome venue!

Scott Weiland, the STP lead singer, opened the show wearing aviators, an odd hat, jacket, vest, shirt and tie and ended the show wearing none of the above.... this was about half way through the STP strip tease;)

And for the STP fans that want a preview of the show check out the concert video footage.