Monday, November 29, 2010

Thanksgiving weekend

Well, we stayed home and went to Boulder to Levi and Sarah's celebration at their house! It was great fun and was sad when the night came to an end but what a wonderful night of fun and friends... too bad we forgot our camera. oops!

Friday morning we got up early and headed to A-Basin to get in some skiing (shocked, aren't you?). Thursday had been SEVEN degrees up there so we were thankful for 20 degrees! We skied the morning and then headed in for some lunch. A few more runs and I was tired and cold so I went inside to wait for Tucker.... Where I ran into Kathy - who used to work out with me at Bonza Bodies a.k.a Fitness by Atlas - AND Jody, an ex-coworker from Lockheed AND our friends Pat and Heather who we hadn't seen in more than a year! They ended up kicking us out of the bar at the end of the day as we had gotten carried away chatting with everyone and catching up!
We left and didn't even stop at the condo - we headed straight to Russ and Becky's ski house! Where we had a wonderful dinner and met Alex's girlfriend, Andy! It was soooo much fun!

Saturday held much of the same activities. Ski, lunch, friends, dinner at Russ and Becky's house.... I even played hearts for the first time (that I remember)... I still like Euchre more! :)

Sunday was skiing and then home early to start cleaning the house in anticipation of Book Club next Sunday afternoon! We are reading A Year of Living Bibilically. I'll let ya know how it turns out.

It was a good thing we were set to clean. The cats have a new habit of taking things from closed cupboards (off the bottom shelves) so we have moved most things up from that area. Apparently we didn't get the shredded coconut.... Not only this.... (recycled because all of them used to live in Boulder and want to help the planet)


but it has now stopped up our glorious, automatic litterbox twice in the 24hours that we have been home.

The cats then had to be punished and I think we did a great job there! What do you think?

Friday, November 19, 2010

San Francisco!!!

Last weekend we went to San Francisco - left early Friday morning and returned early Monday morning. Friday, we checked into our awesome hotel in DOWNTOWN - 4th and Market - which was a cute little place. And, by LITTLE, I MEAN LITTLE. But we had a beautiful view of the wall behind the building - hahaha. It was great though!
As you will see we had fantastic weather the WHOLE weekend! After we checked into our hotel my friend, and fellow future-Ironman/woman teammate, Kathleen picked us up for a little sightseeing! Whoo hooo! We all went down to the Golden Gate Bridge. This is where knowing a local came into play - she knew where to find FREE parking! She had warned me that we would walk between 8 and 12 miles and she DELIVERED!
We took LOTS of pics - but I'll limit it!

--The obligatory, self portrait --

Next it was back to the hotel - where Kathleen's friend, Al, had luggage awaiting him that had been lost on his travels to San Francisco the day before! We handed off the luggage and exchanged hugs - the next time I see Kathleen I suspect it won't be 'walking' for 8 miles but rather running or biking or swimming!

We met Drew and Liz for dinner! Drew was a neighbor of Tucker's in Michigan and I have fallen in love with them both. They recently got married and Liz was anticipating a big job interview on the Wed after we left so there was lots to talk about and the energy was HIGH!

Dinner was fantastic and so were the views off the roof of their building! Great to see all of our friends on Friday! But Saturday held more friends and a wedding! Saturday morning we got up early and headed for breakfast with no clue where we were going until we saw 'Chinatown' signs - so breakfast in Chinatown it was. It was not 'Chinese' but Chinatown, none-the-less. We then headed to the airport to pick up our rental car and went to the wedding!

Uy and Joanne got married! Don't worry about it but NONE of these women is the bride!


They released doves at the end of the ceremony.....

Which would have been awesome except Uy's dove wasn't very happy about it - note the mid-air flop on the right side of this photo.
We, again, did the self portrait -

And a timer shot of the two of us -

The view from the wedding site was great as well -

We left a little early from the wedding to return to some tight parking at the hotel

The next morning we went sight seeing - redwoods and San Francisco - it was great (and, again, the weather was PERFECT!)

Next we headed into town to see what we could see before returning the car -
LOTS of bridges

And some street with more turns... blah, blah, blah, I don't know but Tucker was driving and REALLY wanted to drive this one.
Trolleys and Alcatraz?!?!?! Awesome!
We got done early and returned the car, ate dinner at the hotel and flew home the next morning - where I brush SNOW off my car! I forgot, while enjoying the wonderful California weather, that it might even have the possibility of snowing in Colorado! Go figure!

Until the next one.....

Monday, November 8, 2010

Sperry, Laura, Agean and Cambria came to visit

Some pix from the Ventura-Browns visit:



Sunday, November 7, 2010

Another weekend of skiing - I know that you are not surprised




We headed up to Keystone Friday night and finally arrived about 8pm - an hour later than anticipated. We ate dinner with Bill, Marilyn, Sperry and Laura! Sperry and Laura (Tucker's brother and sister-in-law) are visiting from California for the week with their twins! I had never met Cambria and Agean before so this was exciting for me. Somehow in all the fun we never took a single photo....??? We'll get some and post soon.

We skied Arapahoe Basin on Saturday morning, then shopped at the outlet mall and then back to the condo to see and play with the kids and rest of the family! Then we were off to dinner at our friends' house. We arrived early. In fact, a little too early as they weren't even there. I quickly decided that a trip to the nearby Walmart would kill some time. I bought some essentials - like dental floss - and then we spotted some items that we wanted to take on our Christmas hut trip this year as well as a fashionable doggie sweater that was ONLY FIVE BUCKS!!!!

Oh, that's right, we don't have a dog. But we got home almost 6 hours ago and immediately put Handsome in the sweater.... he loves it, loves it, loves it. I can't even get over how ridiculous this is but also AWESOME!


This morning we skied A-basin and got some more time with the family before weather moved in and we moved out. Down to Denver so that I could run an hour before book club. This is the first time, EVER, that I have run 45 minutes continuously. No walk breaks, no water breaks, no bathroom breaks. no breaks! Maybe this off-season running program is just what I need to help me get across that finishline at Ironman Wisconsin in 2011?!?!

And for those of you paying attention - Sunday, 11/7/2010 - Day 4 of skiing for the 2010-11 season :) All at A-Basin so far.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Branson Photos

I found a few pix of Branson. I'll work on some video

Music City? Like Radio City?
Ducks Ducks Ducks!

Macaroni Grille

Bike Friday folding bike in Branson