28 Years Old

Last month Patrick turned 28. Every year for his birthday I make him a different flavored tofu cheesecake (not because we're some weird hippies but because Patrick is deathly allergic to milk). I know, I know, it sounds disgusting. But I have witnesses to attest to the fact that you cannot taste the difference. I've made him mocha cheesecake, peanut butter cheesecake with butterfinger topping and this year was chocolate-mint oreo cheesecake. Patrick's favorite so far is the chocolate-mint oreo.

The day of Patrick's birthday I had some training for work and was unable to celebrate with him. So, a great friend took him to a indoor rock climbing gym and then out to dinner. I don't even think he knew I was gone. Then on the weekend, we went out to a bar that has hundreds of whiskies (one of Patrick's favorite things). He got to try some that he had been wanting to taste for a while. I'm pretty sure he was in heaven!

Patrick's alien cheesecake.

Celebrating out on the town.

Cheers to growing older!

The guys standing by the locked case of the really good stuff.

Red Sox in High Definition

For years Patrick talked about the day we would get high definition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no way I would agree to paying extra for this feature. I didn't understand it and it wasn't worth the extra money to me. When we got our new tv in December, though, Patrick was able to convince me that our new tv wouldn't be worth buying unless we signed up for HD.

We've been watching HD for 4 months now and at first it blew our minds. We figured it had mostly to do with the fact that we went from a 22" Daewoo that we bought in 2003 to a 46" Samsung. On opening day for the Red Sox, though, for the first time, we could truly appreciate our tv's high definition. We'd never noticed the sunflower seeds on the ground by the dugout before and you can actually look for people you may know in the stands. The strike zone and where every pitch goes is like a bulls-eye, it's so obvious. You can see the guy in the stands raising his middle finger to the Yankee's right fielder (I don't condone this kind of behavior, but it does make you feel like you're really there). You can see the booger hanging out of the pitchers nose... Ok, maybe this is a little too much high definition, but I am officially converted to an HD lover. Patrick, of course, knew all along about the power of HD.

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:

Hiking in Boulder with a view of the Flatirons.

View from the top of our trail, looking out at the plains.

All the stone chairs at the top of the trail. A great spot to enjoy the sunshine and outdoors.

Twisted Pine Brewery

View from Copper Mountain

Enjoying our day at the mountain.

Done strapping into his board and ready to have some fun.

Christmas 2009

This past holiday season was definitely fun-filled. We enjoyed the Christmas spirit by driving around Denver with our best friends looking at beautiful holiday lights, making gingerbread houses, and enjoying a white Christmas. Also, Patrick finally got the TV of his dreams (it's so big we had to get it with our moving truck before we returned the truck because it wouldn't fit in our car). He has been dreaming of this TV for years, but previously we had nowhere to put it. Now, though, we have the perfect spot for it right above our fireplace. Patrick even built a shelf for all the TV components. It might be his baby, but I've also gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the behemoth. Who's to say big TVs are a guy thing?

Denver Holiday Lights

Out on the town looking at the lights.

Our gingerbread house. It has a balcony! This was my first time making one, so I put the engineer in charge of the construction. I was in charge of candy quality control. I got rid of the ones that weren't good enough to go on our house.

White Christmas! We got about 8 inches of snow.

Patrick setting up our new TV. Look at the joy in his eyes!

Our Move

It's been a while and we have a lot to share on the blog, but I'll start with the biggest event in our lives right now. As I'm sure most everyone knows, we moved to Colorado this last month. It was the easiest move we've made to date.

We hired some movers to move all of our furniture and boxes out of our townhome and we are both convinced it was the best money we've ever spent. They moved our super heavy king size bed from the third floor like it was nothing. Patrick and I probably looked pretty stupid to them because we couldn't take our eyes off them. It was amazing... They moved what would have taken Patrick and I an entire day in an hour and fifteen minutes. Highly recommend movers, especially when you have moved 6 times in the last 5 years!

Once our truck was loaded, we were out of there. The first day we drove from Pasadena to Tucson, AZ. The drive was weather free, which was great since the route we had decided not to take was so bad with snow and ice that we heard they pulled 80 cars out of the ditch the same day we were driving in the sunshine. The next day we drove from Tucson to Las Vegas, New Mexico. On the way, we stopped in Deming, NM for lunch (best New Mexican food ever!) and in Hatch, the chile capital of the world.

As we approached Hatch on the country road, we could see dried chile peppers tumbling across the road in front of our truck. A sign we were headed in the right direction... Hatch is a tiny town, with nothing more than a gas station and roadside stands selling chile products. Dried chile wreaths, chile powder (red, green, chipotle), salsa, even chile powder chocolate... You can see people in their backyards with tarps on the ground picking the stems off the dried chiles. Giant semi trucks loaded with dried chiles pass you on the backroads leading out of Hatch. Though there's not a lot there, you leave feeling you've experienced something special. A small piece of American life that we all too often forget exists.

We continued our drive north and were soon in Caballo, where Patrick's paternal grandparents once lived and are now resting. We visited them in the local cemetery, cleaned up their site, and talked about his memories of his grandparents and Caballo from when he was a kid. I never met his paternal grandmother so it's always nice to hear stories about her, see where she lived and get a better understanding of the lifestyle that she loved.

After our brief stop, we headed north again. That night in Las Vegas, NM, we were driving around town to find a place for dinner, when Patrick got very excited upon spying an Allsups Gas Station. Of course, I had no idea why, but he explained to me that his Grandpa used to have a giant travel mug from Allsups that he never was without. So, of course, we had to stop to see if they still sold them. Lo and behold, they did and the first fill of the mug was free. So, 10PM at night, Patrick got 64oz of coke. Really! Who needs that much? There was no way we were going to drink all that at 10PM, but the next morning it was still good. There was still ice in the insulated mug. That mug is amazing!

Finally, it was the day we had been waiting for... It was the day we would move into our new place in CO! The day was fairly uneventful until we got to Colorado Springs, where we knew there were several Dunkin Donuts. If you were reading our blog a year ago, you may remember we tried to find a mythical DD in Salem, OR. These DDs, however, were the real deal. We were able to get our favorite coffee, a couple donuts and even sat next to some transplanted Bostonians. It was the closest we've been to Boston since we left 3 years ago!

After that stop, we were only about an hour away from our new home. Once we were on the north side of Denver we gave Pat and Lindsay a call so they could meet us at our place and help us unload the truck. Little did we know, they were already there when we called. When we pulled up to our place, they were on our front steps, welcome banner overhead and champagne bottle in hand. We couldn't ask for a better welcome or better friends!

Chile stand in Hatch.

Caballo Cemetery Entrance

Caballo Cemetery

It's bigger than his head!

Doing things is what I like to do. YES!

Welcome Committee.

Two Weeks in Colorado

A few days ago, Patrick and I returned to Pasadena from two weeks of fun in Colorado. We stayed with our great friends, Pat and Lindsay, who we always celebrate Thanksgiving with. In the weeks before Thanksgiving, we had a blast. We went to The Cheeky Monk, a great Belgian beer pub, for happy hour one afternoon. We also walked around downtown Denver and walked through the historic hotel, The Brown Palace. Pat and Lindsay showed us around their neighborhood and we got to hang out in the evenings after the guys got home from work.

This year, our Thanksgiving celebration was better than ever. On the day of, we went for a run in the morning, got coffee at a local cafe and watched some of the Macy's day parade on TV. It was such a warm, beautiful day in Denver that the guys decided to smoke the turkey in the backyard for an hour before putting it in the oven to cook. They sat outside, around the smoker, drinking beers in the sun. After transferring the turkey to the oven, we had snacks outside on the patio and then played a couple games of washers.

That evening, we sat around their dining table to give thanks and stuff ourselves on the wonderful meal Pat and Lindsay had made. It was our first Thanksgiving at a dining table since we started this tradition (we have always eaten Thanksgiving dinner at a coffee table before because neither of us has had room for an actual dining table in our apartments). Just one sign of moving up in the world! We had a lot to be thankful for this year, not the least of which was the fact that we have been able to continue this tradition for 8 years now. Wherever we have been, we have always made it a priority to be together on Thanksgiving. This year, however, it wasn't a sad farewell when it was time to leave since we will be returning for good in just a couple weeks. Here are a few photos of our time in Denver:

Pat and Linds enjoying happy hour at the Cheeky Monk

All the mugs/glasses were specific to the beer. This one was really weird but the beer was delicious!

Visiting The Brown Palace

Smoked turkey mission complete

Our traditional picture with the 4 of us and the turkey. One of the best photos and best turkeys yet.

Colorado

Well, we've been pretty quiet on the blog front and that's because things have been pretty crazy for us lately. Patrick has been working with his company to get them to send him to the Colorado office for a while now and it is OFFICIAL. Patrick will start his first day of work at the Boulder office on December 14th. We are so thrilled!

During all of these negotiations, we had a trip already planned to go to CO for Patrick's cousin's wedding and then stay with our friends in Denver through Thanksgiving. The original plan was to drive our car out to CO and then drive home after Thanksgiving, pack up all our stuff and either tow the car behind the moving truck or each drive a vehicle. However, we hit so much snow on our drive into Denver that we decided it would be best to leave our car here and fly back to Pasadena. That way we could drive together in the moving truck and not worry about towing the car in snow.

On our drive to CO, we stopped in Las Vegas for about 3 hours and walked the strip. We didn't gamble, eat or see any shows. Patrick is very proud of the fact that we didn't give that city a dime. To be honest, there is plenty to see as you walk the strip and since we were only going to be there a few hours we didn't want to be holed up in a casino. It was a very interesting experience and I'm not sure we will ever feel the need to return... Maybe if we are passing by again someday.

We drove to Colorado Springs for the wedding and got to see lots of Patrick's family. It was really nice to see everyone since we won't be able to go home for Christmas this year. Then we drove up to Denver to stay with our friends that we celebrate Thanksgiving with every year. We decided it would be a good time, over the first few days in town, to look for a place to live. We looked all day yesterday and think we may have found something (more details on that when it becomes official) that's about 20 minutes away from Patrick's work and 20 minutes away from Denver. We hope it goes through, so send good wishes our way.

Patrick is working from the Boulder office while we are here so he doesn't have to take a lot of vacation time. We are having a great time and feel right at home since we lived in CO for undergrad. Actually, on the drive into town, the closer we got the more we felt that we were coming home. We've never moved anywhere that we already had friends and knew the area. We feel so lucky and blessed to be able to move here. As we drive around town, I can't stop thinking how right it feels to be back in CO.

The Las Vegas Strip

New York New York

The Excalibur. I couldn't believe this thing. Maybe just a tad over the top?

Patrick's joining the Sigfreid and Roy show... I don't know that he fits in very well.

Outside the Bellagio with free water in hand. Not a dime spent!

Welcome to Colorado!!!