The not-so-newlyweds

Matt and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary this past weekend - so we are officially no longer newlyweds!  It was such a big year for us that sometimes it feels like it's flown by, and sometimes we look back and feel like it's been forever since we left DC.  I'm not sure which is better... though as I approach turning 30 this winter, I guess time could definitely slow down in 2010 :)

We were fortunate to use my parents' condo in Frisco this weekend for a little anniversary getaway, and we had an amazing time.  You can't really go wrong with time in the mountains - we ate at some delish restaurants (Bagalis in Frisco and Blue River Bistro in Breckenridge), got massages (thanks to my sister's Christmas gifts of Spafinder gift certificates - awesome idea!) at the Spa at Breckenridge, hot tubbed outside looking at the beautiful mountains, caught several (6 maybe?) episodes of Friday Night Lights (a fave in our house, though Matt's only on season 1), watched the Blind Side (one of my new fave movies that Matt bought me as a surprise!), cooked some breakfast, watched some basketball (though I had banned the NCAA tourney from our house after the Jayhawks lost, I guess I forgot to ban it from the condo), and just had a great time being together.  I can say I am definitely one lucky girl :)  We have so much fun together and I can't imagine laughing so much with anyone else (much of that laughter is directed at our dog, too).

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Bagalis on Main Street

My folks' condo

Gorgeous Saturday!

Our "big" anniversary dinner at Blue River Bistro in Breck

Walking around on Sunday morning

The backside of the condo

I fell in up to my thighs!

And then Matt did...

You can tell Lincoln loves pictures :)

Not much else is going on these days - we've been keeping busy enough that our Netflix subscription is not giving us our money's worth the past few months (a good way to gauge your busyness I think) - we've had a disc of Mad Men episodes for a few weeks now and I'm just not sure when we'll get around to finishing it! 

Matt is playing at church this weekend for the Easter services which means that I won't see him much on Easter day.  Thankfully our friends are having an Easter brunch at their house, so that will be a fun way to spend part of the day for sure (though I'll still miss the Easter brunches at Carly's house - I miss Big Blue!).  I'll be glad to see the Easter candy season over though - I think I've had enough candy eggs to last a lifetime.  Easter candy is the bane of my existance!

Yummmm....

We caught the Hurt Locker on Monday night at the Mayan Theater (our first time there crazily enough since it's only a few blocks from our house - an awesome theater!), and I have to say that it caused some friendly debate in our house.  I did not think it was as spectacular as everyone else seemed to think (i.e. the Oscars), but Matt definitely liked it.  I'm still curious as to exactly why, but I guess everyone has their own opinion! :)  We went with our friends Nick and Moe and had a great dinner at Karma on Broadway.  We officially decided that their spicy edamame is the best appetizer EVER.  I'm not even exaggerating.  You should definitely try it :)

It's been awhile since I posted last, so I can't remember what else we've been up to - our trip to NM got canceled sadly (my step-dad and Ethan came in first place in the cardboard box derby at the Sipapu Ski Resort and we missed it!), Matt and my dad played at the Empire again (on St. Patrick's Day), we said our first goodbye to the Hoins as they're back in Nebraska getting ready for their move to Africa (we'll get one more official goodbye in April), we checked out the Skylark Lounge/bar on Broadway with my sister to play some pool (well, the guys played pool) and I got a surprise visit from Julie which was nice,... and we're finally getting some spring weather!  After a couple freak snowstorms, it's finally hitting 78 this week.  A nice change from scraping your windshields in the morning.

Dinner with the Hoins on St. Patrick's Day at Old Louisville Inn

The other good news is that we head to the Bahamas in just a little over 2 weeks!  I can't believe it.  Oh, and baseball starts on Monday, so Matt could NOT be happier.  Here's my favorite part of baseball season:

Oh, and I finally got around to doing our taxes.  That is a chore that I do not enjoy - though we're SO happy about the tax credit, we have to file by paper this year because of it.  Not a fan. 

So... I think it's important to note some major current events in our country occasionally (since they often consume much of my conversations), so I'll point out that the health care reform bill was signed into law by President Obama last week.  It was a disappointing time for about half the country, myself included, though I won't ramble on about it here.  I will just say that I'm disappointed in our politicians who chose politics over common sense (though I suppose that's nothing new), and while I support reform of our health care system, I did not support the manner in which this bill got passed or many of the aspects within it.  I'm disappointed our President did not keep his promise to bring bipartisanship back to DC.  OK, and that is where I'll stop for now :) 

Cloudy with a chance of... In-N-Out

Matt and I headed out to California last weekend to visit his parents and aunt and uncle (Suzie and Steve) in Palm Desert.  Being the extremely frugal traveler that I am, we found the cheapest way to get out there was to fly into LAX and drive out to where they were staying.  Sounded great in theory!  Next time, I think I'll sacrifice the $$ to land anywhere but LA. :)

Thankfully, we landed after "rush hour" (though, I'm not really sure if that has a beginning or an end in LA) and met an old friend of mine at In-N-Out near the airport.  Heather and I go WAY back - I'm not exactly sure just how long, but long enough to remember that at some point we slid down my parents' basement stairs in a sleeping bag during a slumber party with another friend of ours, chatted and laughed at the bottom of the stairs for hours, and eventually slept at the bottom of those stairs all night.  Yes, we were definitely cool back then!  She moved to Europe after college with her husband, and I don't think I have seen her since our college days - it was great to catch up for a bit now that they're back in the States.  Oh, and while we chatted away, Matt chowed down on a 4x4 animal style at In-N-Out, his first visit ever. Needless to say (for those of you that have been), he LOVED it :)

We drove out to Palm Desert after dinner and got there in just less than 3 hours.  Yikes!  We were excited to get there and enjoy some fun in the sun with his family even though we had read about clouds and rain in the forecast (we were hoping the weathermen were wrong).  Saturday started off well with some blue skies (the resort was gorgeous - I always forget how amazing California is), and we tried to get in time at the pool while we could.  That night brought more clouds and unfortunately, Sunday saw almost a full day of rain.  We spent the day relaxing and catching up and were happy to see the sun come out on Monday (just in time for us to leave, of course!).  We were nervous about the drive back into LA (again, I don't understand how anyone could put up with their traffic!!), but we made it back for our evening flight just in time to see that it was delayed.  :)

Delicious dinner at Tommy Bahamas (with the "grey-haired crowd" as Matt pointed out):

Another amazing dinner at Castelli's, Suzie and Steve's favorite restaurant down there:

Oh, and we of course made one last stop at In-N-Out before we left once we made it to LA on time:

It was a great, albeit brief, trip out to California.  We're always happy to see family and spend time with them, no matter where it is!  I feel blessed to have gotten such a great set of in-laws who have really taken me in as their own  :)

As a sidenote, my folks watched Lincoln (the Stinker for those of you who know us well) while we were away (thankfully!) and Amber picked him up for us on Monday.  He was pretty depressed all weekend (he always knows exactly when we're going on a trip - the minute he sees anything that resembles packing he goes limp and despondent), and when she got him to our house, he immediately ran to our bedroom and hid under the bed.  Knowing how unpredictable our crazy pup is, Amber decided not to go after him, so we told her to just leave him out until we got home.  SO - for the next 7+ hours (thanks to our delayed flight), Matt and I ran through all of the possibilities of destruction that Lincoln could cause while alone in the house.  How many shoes did we leave out?  Were the bathroom doors open?  Did we leave remotes in reach (oh yes, he's chewed up a Comcast remote before)? Would he get bored enough to start taking books off shelves (and oh yes, one day I came home to find 3 paperback books on the floor, some with pages or covers missing...)?  Basically, we know that sometimes our little Stinker can turn into the Tazmanian Devil... so, what did we find when we got home late on Monday night??

Cute little Lincoln sleeping on the floor in front of the door waiting for us to come home.  Not a thing out of place in the house!  He's got serious emotional issues (he was clearly too depressed to even attempt to cause trouble), but can you solve/fix attachment issues in dogs??  Well, we love him regardless!  We keep seeing signs of improvement in him, and hope that doesn't end :)

Grub and stuff

In an effort to keep up with the blog (I'm only a few months in and I'm already starting to lag - which I suppose is relatively common for things I start up...), here's a quick run down of the last few weeks.  I say quick because I'm hoping to pack for our weekend in Palm Desert with Matt's folks and aunt and uncle.  We can't wait to get away - though the weather report unfortunately is predicting some rain.  Hopefully it's wrong :) 

The last few weeks have flown by - we (in no particular order):
Visited quite a few new restaurants (YAY Restaurant Week in Denver!!)
* Walnut Room opened up on Broadway near our house, a fun little pizzeria (we went there pre-Restaurant Week).  Tried it out with Amber and DJ and then visited the Irish Pub next door (Dougherty's) for a drink.  We've had a lot of fun exploring our neighborhood and are still SO happy with our location choice :)

* Strings in our old neck of the Woods (Uptown) - we went there with Joe and Keri for Restaurant Week and had an amazing dinner.  They did four courses and each one was awesome - particularly the extra large creme brulee that I got for dessert :)  All four of us loved the food, so we'll be back for sure.

* TAG - a friend of ours from supper group is a mixologist at this hip new-ish restaurant in Larimer Square.  We took Whit there along with my sister (for R.W. as well).  Food was pretty decent (Matt loved his mainly b/c he got all the crazy unique dishes involving fish and whatnot) - but I'm not sure if we'd eat there again (combination of price and value), though my steak was outstanding.  Drinks were definitely awesome (they use all fresh ingredients), and we had a great time regardless.  (Afterward we met Moe and Nick out at Vesta on Blake Street for a quick drink, which is the last pic.  That was a great place we'd like to go back to for dinner)

* Beau Jo's - a favorite after hitting the slopes here in CO.  After skiing at Keystone (more on that later), we stopped by Beau Jo's to also try and catch the end of the USA-Canada Hockey game (the traffic on I-70 on a Sunday afternoon was at its best, of course, so it took us only about 3 hours to get there from Dillon!).  The game did not end up well, but at least we got to show Whit the awesome crust that is Beau Jo's served with honey :)

Ok, enough on food.  The best part of the last few weeks was Bryan and Whit's visit to CO.  I picked them up on Friday and we went to dinner at D'Corozon and then headed to the Rio.  It was a great evening with several of our friends hanging out with us as well.  Julie and Jordan came down from Loveland and Casey and Zach met us at the Rio (and joined us at Maloneys as well).  We had such a blast that night.  Again, as I'll probably say several more times before they leave for Africa to do some awesome work, I will MISS those two so much!  

 

(that's the boys watching Apolo Ohno's last race)

The next morning (after an interesting moment resembling a certain popular movie - Bryan knows what I'm talking about) we grabbed brunch at our favorite local spot Sputnik (yummm). We then headed up to the mountains to meet up with Bryan's fam in Keystone (after getting uber-lost thanks to GPS and google maps while trying to find their rental home).  We had a blast hanging out with them, playing games, and eating an amazing dinner of smoked pulled pork that Lee and Ron made.  The next morning the guys hit the slopes of Keystone while I hung out with Lincoln and hit the Outlets (of course).  They had a great time, and then we headed back to Denver (sans Bryan of course).  That was when we hit the ridic traffic but stopped at Beau Jo's.  We took Whit to our church for the evening service so he could meet a few of our friends (our friend Nick was playing drums with the worship team).  Great service, per usual, and we hung out after at the Pub on Pearl to catch up with Nick and his buddy Noah.

We really loved getting to see Whit (he lives in Jakarta working for the State Dept now, so it's rare that we see him), and I wish we could hang out with him more often.  He's had a rough time in his new job, and I can't imagine how hard that must be being SO far away from home and friends.  We miss him already and can't wait to see him in another 1.5 years when he's back in the States (hopefully). 

Last night I served as photographer for a famous little jam band you may not have heard of whose members include both my dad and my husband :)  They've been jamming together regularly for awhile now (Matt's a late-comer to the group), and this week they got to bring their Wednesday afternoon jam to Empire in Louisville.  It was a blast - they sounded great, and I'm hoping they can do it again soon!  (if you're a friend of mine on Facebook, I posted a video from it too)

So, according to my camera, that's about it!  My brain is a little too full to remember what else went on, but I'm sure some other stuff did :)  Oh, we did book our trip to the Bahamas!  We'll be setting "sail" to Nassau on April 16th!

For now, we're off to Palm Desert tomorrow.  Can't wait!  See you soon :)