Visitor!

This past Thursday our good friend Bryan came into town for a quick visit.  And there's nothing like seeing old friends, right?  So much to catch up on, and even more to reminisce about over lots of laughs and wine.  I know I whine about missing DC (or most of my 20s!) a lot, but I miss it even more when I get to see someone like Bryan who lived through all that fun with me.  Time together these days is obviously quite a bit different!  No meeting up for happy hours at Finn MacCool's or any other number of awesome bars, no more flag football in front of the White House in our CU gear (or, rather, in front of the Anacostia River...), no more drinks on the Georgetown Waterfront, no more late nights dancing at the Guards or Town ;)  (KY - I'm looking at you re: the Guards!), no more Inaugural Balls dressed in only the finest threads, no more accidental Metro rides to the end of the line (that only happened twice)... life now consists of early dinners and drinks at the house.  We try to spice it up, but generally, that's life these days :)

At any rate, it was great remembering all the fun times we've had over the years.  And it was great enjoying a very tasty brunch at Sassafras (a new fave of ours!) and dinner with some other DC (now Denver) friends at Osteria Marco (reservation was at 5:30!!!  Seriously, who have we become!?)  :)  Life sure is different these days!

Dinner at our place Thursday night after Bryan flew in:

Brunch at Sassafras:

brunch is on me!

Checking out the views at Sloan's Lake:

Dinner in Larimer Square:

Hodge-Podge of Goings On

I've totally been a blog slacker lately, and while the blog doesn't really serve much of a purpose other than to document all the "adventures" in our lives, I thought I'd do a giant blog catch up of some random things that have gone on in the last month or so that I forgot to document in blogland :)

Yet another wonderful Bible Study Christmas evening with my Denver girls... I'm so thankful for them and their continued friendships - we've been through a lot together as a group, and I can't imagine life here without them.

(Meanwhile, the boys were at our house playing a game of some sort late into the night....)

December is a tricky month for us, not only is it super busy for everyone with holiday and family gatherings, it's also home to both Matt's and my birthdays.  Since people get to see enough of us with holiday functions (and now Benjamin's birthday just a few weeks later), we did a low-key happy hour with some buddies at Ace in Uptown for my birthday.  (These pics are courtesy of Keri as I seemed to forget to take any!)

Another fun tradition has been enjoying a Supper Group Christmas dinner every December, and this year's was hosted by Rachel, John, and Emme.  It was a great time, as usual!

We headed up to Longmont to catch the last regular season Bronco game with the Turrill crew and our old buddy Justin who was in town from California.  Benjamin loves getting to hang out with Mimi and Bode!

And alas, we were SO excited to watch the Broncos in the playoffs (whole-heartedly believing we'd be seeing them in the Superbowl!), so we caught the game with the Campbells and the Van Wylens.  It was fun hanging out, but not fun seeing the outcome of the game. :(

Matt's work does their annual holiday party in January, and this year's was at Sports Authority Field.  We had a great time and loved getting a tour of the stadium (even the visitors' locker room!).  And the band they had for the party was amazing - lots of dancing was being done!  (This band was seriously awesome - if anyone in Denver needs an incredible wedding/party band, we very highly recommend them!  I believe they were called Moses Jones...)

visitors' locker room

Another great thing about living in our new neighborhood is the great friends that live nearby and are so willing to trade child-watching duties every now and then.  We've loved having some of Benjamin's buddies over and we're grateful to have places he can go if we need a date night (or a moment to clear our heads).  Plus, it's SO fun getting to watch each other's kids grow up and know that they'll all be buddies!  And on the days that some moms are all at home at the same time, we've loved meeting for walks or trips to the park.  We feel very lucky!

But otherwise, Benjamin and I just hang out.  And run errands.  And play toy instruments :)

This past Monday Matt had off from work for MLK day, so my folks came over while Matt and my dad attempted to make some beer (IPA, of course).  They also put together Benjamin's SmarTrike they got him for Christmas - a sweet new ride for the neighborhood strolls!  (You can push it until they can steer on their own, then later on you can remove the "baby" stuff and turn it into a trike!)

Grampa, I don't think this is supposed to be a unicycle!  Something's not right!

the hops looked like rabbit pellets... 

staining the front deck

Let's go for a cruise, mom!