Long Live Patrick & Jennie: Settling In

Well, we've lived in CO for 3 months now and it just gets better and better. We fall in love with it more every day. We've been up to a lot of fun things, but unfortunately we haven't been good at taking pictures. So, I'll just tell you about most of them instead.

We had a great Super Bowl party, with lots of snacks and a "crappy-beer blind taste test." The beers we tasted were Colt 45, Olympia, Milwaukie's Best and Keystone Ice. All pretty disgusting. We tasted the 4 beers without knowing which ones were which and then had to name them and decide which we liked best. Surprisingly, I won for getting all the beers correct. Apparently, I know my gross beers (funny, since I don't really even drink beer). And lucky us, we still have a ton left over in our garage!

We also have had quite a bit of snow and decided we needed to find a way to exercise when there was snow on the ground. So we bought some sleds. One night we walked across the street to the high school which has a giant hill that ends in a fenced off creek to go sledding. There was a lot of snow on the ground that covered up all the bumps, but as they kick you up in the air it becomes apparent that maybe you should scout out the run first! Patrick flew into the air and landed on his butt pretty hard and was sore for days. I kept being unable to stop and slamming into the fence. Oh, I know, sounds like fun... But for days after you could see our sled tracks in the hill, marking it as ours and bringing a smile to our faces every time we drove by.

Another fun day was when we drove up to Fort Collins to visit our college town. We walked old town, had lunch at our favorite restaurant, bought cookies at our favorite bakery, went for beer tasting at New Belgium (Oh, how things have changed there. We used to get 8 free tasters of beer and they would bring them out to you and tell you all about them. Now you get 3 and you have to go to the bar to order them and the tasting room is crowded with people. Boooo to becoming popular. You were so much cooler when only the locals knew about you, New Belgium.), then we went for beer tasting at Fort Collins Brewery (which reminded us of New Belgium back in the day, very small and friendly). We then drove over to campus and walked around to see what had changed and found they have a whole new building since the last time we had visited. We also bought new CSU shirts at the bookstore (we're now ready to cheer on our Rams come fall).

Also, on a recent warm Saturday afternoon, we decided to go for a hike in Boulder. Apparently, everyone else and their dog had the same idea. When we got to the trailhead, it was swarming with people. It's like they had been hibernating all winter and at the first sign of spring came out of their dens to play. So, Patrick and I decided to head up a trail that no one else seemed interested in. Of course, it crossed my mind that maybe they knew something we didn't... like it was covered in ice and snow. But we had a great time anyway. It was an adventure that had a great view at the top and stone chairs to sit in and enjoy your accomplishment. After making it back down we headed into town for lunch and then out to Twisted Pine Brewery for some beer tasting. I definitely have a new favorite brewery! Sorry New Belgium, you've been bumped off your pedestal! Patrick and I were both really impressed with Twisted Pine and will definitely be going back.

We've also been up to the mountains for skiing/snowboarding a few times and every time has been beautifully sunny. Definitely multiple-application-sunscreen-but-you-still-get-burned days. It's been really fun getting to ski again after 3 years of living in LA. Next year, we're determined to buy season passes and go up all the time. We've been reintroduced to how expensive it is to ski here, though. We paid $10 for a locker the first time we went up! $10!!! Someone could have stolen our stuff and we wouldn't have even been out $10! Anyway, we learned our lesson.

Here's a few photos and I'll try to be better about updating more often: