Snowshoeing in RMNP

Today Karla and I got up and headed out to Rocky Mountain National Park to go snowshoeing.  The weather looked good and the roads were clear all the way.  We found a place in Estes Park that rented shoes for $5, and we decided to get the annual pass to RMNP so we are good to go for a year.  We headed up to Bear lake to hike up to Emerald lake, via Nymph lake and Dream Lake.  we packed in our packs we're taking to Kilimanjaro in 3 weeks(yikes!) to test them out and our new insulated water packs.  In the sun we were really warm.  We made it up to dream lake(the 2nd of 3) with no problem, playing in the snow all the way up.  Once we hit dream lake we got off the main path somehow and ended up going about 30 minutes out of our way up and down some pretty steep sides of a mountain.  Once we found the main path again we were relieved to not have to go back the way we went, but had fun doing it in retrospect.  The weather was fantastic, and as you can see it was very beautiful.  We were able to walk on the ice as the lakes were frozen solid.  about 2 hours up and maybe 50 minutes back made it a very nice day in the mountains.  We came back to the Vikings knocking out the Bears by beating the Packers, so it could have ended a bit better for Matt...looking forward to snowshoeing again!

Day in the Mountains

Saturday was a very long, yet very, very fun day.  Matt had been itching to go skiing so we got up early and, after picking up Naomi, were on the road by 6am to head to Keystone.  Since he was only going to ski for a few hours, Naomi and Karla decided to try snowshoeing instead of skiing.  It was snowing in the mountains so it was slow going on the way out there, but when Matt was one of the first ones on the lifts and got fresh powder on the first run, it was definitely worth it!  After a morning of skiing and snowshoeing, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed back to the city for a quick nap.  Our evening was spent out in Parker at Jamie and Doug's playing with the twins and watching our two favorite Christmas movies - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Love Actually.  The snow and movies definitely helped us get more into the Christmas spirit!

Cousin Eddie and lots of twinkle lights

This last weekend we went to an ugly sweater party.  Matt took that to mean 'dress like cousin Eddie from Christmas vacation'.  So we went to a thrift store and purchased all necessary clothes, and Karla got a bad red sweater and decided to put lots of bows on it.  Extra hideous.  After cutting up a turtleneck to look like a Dickie and putting on a sweater about 2 sizes too small, the effect had been reached.  The party was lots of fun, and it started to snow during it, making it feel more like the holiday season. 

As if all that weren't enough to get in the holiday spirit, we decided to go with Ryan and Naomi to the lights at the Denver botanic garden on Sunday night.  It was especially cold, but some hot some hot cocoa and hot cider made it all worthwhile.  We drove around after looking at Christmas lights, capping off a fun weekend.

Weekend in Chicago

Our friends Jason and Kristen got married in Chicago this past weekend, so we were able to make our third trip back in 8 months!  Since I can work from anywhere, I was able to head out Wednesday night to spend some time with Kristin and see some friends.  On Thursday night, Kristin, JP, Menko, Jeanne, and I went to Bottles and Bottega by Kristin's place to paint "Starry Night" by Van Gogh.  Of course, we picked the hardest picture, but we still had a blast!

Friday was a sister night of ordering in pizza, watching a really bad movie, and picking up Matt late at night.  Saturday morning I went to book club with Kristin while Matt walked around Michigan Avenue and had lunch at his favorite spot (XOCO).  Then it was wedding time!

While we were in Vegas with our soccer friends, we had a great idea of the guys wearing bow ties to the wedding.  It became a recurring theme for the night.  If a guy was asked a question, the response, no matter what, was "Bow tie!"  The wedding was beautiful and the reception was in a gorgeous ballroom at the InterContinental Hotel on Michigan Ave.  Our group had a blast!

Sunday morning we swung by Kristin's to crash her Bear's tailgate party and ate some of the delicious tater tot breakfast casserole.  We had a lot of fun Saturday night, so we didn't partake in the bloody marys.  :)

Thanksgiving in Iowa

We both had the entire week of Thanksgiving off - yay!  We weren't flying out for Iowa until Tuesday so on Monday we had Denver Fun Day.  We played in the park and went to the Botanic Gardens.  The Gardens were setting up for their holiday light display so we're definitely going to check that out in December.  On Tuesday morning we had brunch at our favorite brunch place down the street - Snooze.  Yum!

Kathy and Jordan invited Kristin, Matt, and I to guest teach their classes on Wednesday.  In the classes, we gave mock interviews, talked about our upcoming Kilimanjaro trip, compared living in the country vs living in the city, and taught them how to poach an egg.  It was fun - and allowed Matt to briefly live out his dream of being a professor.

Thursday morning started out with the first (only?) Schleswig Turkey Trot that Kristin and I organized.  We had about 15 people (family and friends) run/walk a 5ishK route.  It was a great day to start the day!  The rest of the day was filled with eating, watching football, and hanging out with family.

Friday was the ill-fated Iowa/Nebraska game, but we'll just skip over that part of the day.  In the evening Mom hosted the entire Lee family for our annual Christmas.  Everyone had a good time eating, drinking, talking, trading presents, and playing the Lee traditional game of Up and Down the River.

Kathy and I played in an alumni volleyball tournament on Saturday.  Our team (made up of girls who graduated between 1995 and 2001) was definitely the oldest team there.  However, we ended up 2-2 in pool play and ended up placing 3rd!  Of 5 teams, but whatever.  :)  After volleyball, Mom hosted our immediate family Christmas.  She was the hostess with the mostest this weekend!  I think Liv and Henry were quite excited to get some early Christmas gifts.  It was a great night being able to hang out with my sisters, parents, niece, and nephew.

Overall, it was a great, busy weekend that went by way too fast.  Hooray for kicking off the holiday season Iowa style!

Cutting our Christmas Tree

One of the major benefits of living in Denver is the ability to drive into the mountains and cut down your own Christmas tree.  The weekend before Thanksgiving Naomi, Ryan, Matt, and I drove out to Winter Park to cut down our trees.  We were all going to be out of town the next two weekends, so it was either that weekend or just have the tree for 10 days.  All you have to do is go to the visitor center at Winter Park, get a $10 permit, a map of where to cut, and you're ready to go!

We had a lot of fun walking through the woods and scouting trees.  Matt and I found ours first so Matt and Ryan proceeded to cut down the tree, under the close supervision of Junior.

While Matt and I worked on getting our tree to our car, Naomi and Ryan found their tree.

We managed to fit both trees on top of Ryan and Naomi's car.  Thanks for hauling it back for us guys!

Skip ahead a week...we decorated it when we got back from Thanksgiving in Iowa.

Weekend in Vegas!

At our going away party in Chicago back in January our good drunk friend Gil got the idea that our close Chicago friends and us should get back together in Vegas.  Being slightly inebriated at the time we thought it was a good idea.  The next day we get an email from Gil saying the hotels were booked thanks to his timeshare points.

Fast forward 9 months.

Gil and his wife Leigh Anne, our friends Jeanne and Patrick, and us went to Vegas for the weekend.  Matt was sick when we landed, but quickly started feeling better.  The main idea was for the guys to bet on watch a lot of sports, specifically college football.  On Friday we hung out on the strip and lost money on craps.  In the evening we all went to the Rio and watched a Michael Jackson tribute with a very good MJ impersonator.  He had the moves and the voice down very well.

On Saturday the guys hung out at the sportsbook at the Las Vegas Hotel and watching an insane amount of college football on an insane amount of TV's.  The girls drank mimosas and laid by the pool.  Matt's games did not go his way, except for Baylor covering the spread, so that was a silver lining.  That evening the guys went to downtown Las Vegas to go to the older casinos.  The girls went to watch Chippendales.  The guys did pretty good at craps, but the real winner was Karla who took what money Matt won and tripled it. The next morning was some detoxing and a flight back to Denver.  A very fun weekend with some very fun friends!

Our Texas visitors

Ken and Nancy visited from Texas last weekend, extending Matt's birthday another week.  After a fantastic dinner at home of filets and sea scallops, we got up on Saturday and went to Breckenridge for the day.  A really nice town, and the weather was great.

Lunch at the Breckenridge brewery, window shopping and some actual shopping.  We stopped at our favorite cookie shop and for fun looked at multiple real estate flyers along the way.  Oh to have a Colorado mountain retreat!

A relaxing dinner at home and watching a brutal loss by my Baylor bears.  Sunday brought some nice hiking up chief mountain, photo below.  The view was clearer than usual, and it wasn't too bad at the top, with some snow on the route along the way.  We stopped by echo lake n the way back, and the lake already had ice on it!  Some afternoon shopping at REI, grilled chicken for dinner, which brought a fun weekend to a close.  Looking forward to seeing them again around Christmas!

Matt's birthday weekend in Chicago

Last weekend karla surprised me with a birthday weekend in Chicago.  All she originally told me was "take the afternoon on Friday off, you don't get to know why".  So when we landed at midway, I had some ideas of what karla had planned, but was totally surprised when all our great Chicago friends were waiting at Kristins to party!  Karla arranged for personal chefs(the chef Monica has recently been on the food network show 'Chopped') and had a tapas themed fiesta.  My favorite tapas were in order along with a crap load of wine.  It was great to hang with friends we haven't seen in awhile, and some friends that we will see in Vegas soon.  After the party had died down, I got the great idea to go to the local bar.  Adam and patrick agreed to continue the party, and we ended up closing down the bar around 2pm. 

A hangover was in order the next day.  Fortunately it was raining the rest of the weekend, since I moved from the couch only to go to brunch.  Karla and I did make it out to dinner at one of our favorite Chicago restaraunts, Bistro Campagne, a french restaraunt in our old neighborhood.  After a nice walk after and a quick drive past Wrigley field, we got some much needed sleep.  My good friend Amy drove up from Peoria to party, and it was nice to go to brunch with her and her boyfriend  before a flight back to denver on Sunday.  A great birthday weekend!!

Hiking in Snow

We had a semi-busy weekend.  Friday night was happy hour with our volleyball team.  Since we got 2nd in the last tournament, we had a gift certificate to use.  So we treated ourselves to beer, wine, appetizers, and pizza.  When we were finished there, most of us decided to go to Naomi's house for a post-happy hour drink and ended up staying until 11pm.  Quite the happy hour!  Luckily, thanks to the great deals at the restaurant, we still have some money left on the gift certificate, so we get to have another happy hour soon.

Saturday was a chilly, rain/sleet day so we decided to stay in and watch some football.  We did run some errands - including one to REI to get Matt some hiking boots!  So, of course we had to plan to go hiking a bit on Sunday...

Sunday was a nice day - high in the 60's.  We decided to go to Mt. Falcon park (near Morrison, CO) to do a few miles of hiking to break in Matt's boots.  We hiked for about 90 minutes.  They had gotten some heavy frost and a little bit of snow Saturday and Saturday night, so the hike was beautiful with the snow covered trees.  However, it felt a bit like hiking in the rain since the sunshine was melting all of the snow.

Matt had Columbus Day off.  You have to love banking holidays, right?  So he went up to Chautauqua Park in Boulder.  We went there a lot this spring, but haven't been in a while.  He hiked the Royal Arch trail and got some more miles in his new boots!

Camping and Football

This past weekend involved camping and a lot of football.  Our friend Jamie wanted to take her twins camping one more time before the end of the season.  Karla wanted to try out her new sleeping bag.  So a girls' camping trip happened Saturday night.  Doug and Matt decided to stay back in the Denver area, run a few errands, drink some beer, and watch some football.

Jamie and Karla headed out to the foothills for the camping.  It ended up being quite fun!  There's nothing like roasting a marshmallow over a campfire.  The twins got a little chilly at night - it was colder than Jamie expected - but overall, it was quite fun!  Can't wait to camp with them again next year, although that will be more challenging since the twins will both be mobile.

Jason Mraz and the Cubs

We had some mid-week fun this week.  First up was a Jason Mraz concert at Red Rocks on Tuesday night.  It is a great place to see a concert!  We got there early and sat in the car eating a sandwich for dinner hoping that the rain would go away.  Unfortunately, it didn't stop, but concerts at Red Rocks are rain or shine so we put on our rain coats and headed to the amphitheater.  Christina Perri was the opening act, and she did a good job, but we were really there for Jason Mraz.  He ended up putting on a great show - played for 2 hours in the rain!  It never poured, but was always at least drizzling.  Here are some pics from the show...we were in Row 31 so had pretty good seats.

Next up on Wednesday was what we've been waiting all baseball season for - the Cubs playing in Denver!  Unfortunately, both teams are horrible, but we still went to support our beloved Cubbies.  We actually did something we never do...leave early.  However, in our defense, we got done singing the 7th inning stretch and then were told we needed to evacuate to a lower level of the stadium due to lightning in the area.  Since the Cubs were losing 6-0, we decided to take that as a sign to go home.  The Cubs are in town for a weekend series next year (yes, we've already looked it up), so hopefully we'll see a better game in 2013!

Fall Colors with Lowell and Judy

Lowell and Judy were in for a visit this weekend.  They flew in on Thursday morning and went on a U.S. Mint tour with Karla in the afternoon.  While the tour was interesting, there wasn't enough time to read everything so we might have to go again!  Karla and Matt had to work on Friday, so Lowell and Judy had the day to themselves and explored downtown on their own.  Friday night we all went to LoDo's (a bar down the street) to cheer on Baylor with the Denver Baylor alumni club.  After the big Baylor win, we went on the rooftop to watch the fireworks being shot off from Coors Field.

On Saturday we went for a drive in the mountains.  First heading up Squaw Pass heading toward Chief Mountain and Mt. Evans.  The trees were just turning colors, so we got treated some great views, even if it was a bit hazy.

After driving over the pass, we walked around Echo Lake which is the trailhead for Mt. Evans.  Matt and I will hike Mt. Evans eventually...maybe next summer?

We then did a little more driving in the mountains and ended up in Idaho Springs for lunch.  Tommyknockers in Idaho Springs is quickly becoming a favorite lunch spot - nothing like a craft brew after hanging in the mountains!!  We headed to Golden to go to the Coors brewery, but it was an hour wait, so we decided to make that a to-do on Lowell and Judy's next visit.  Saturday night was dinner out with some friends and then sitting outside, enjoying the nice weather and making s'mores in Naomi and Ryan's back yard.

A fun, relaxing weekend for all.  We'll probably do some hiking next weekend since Karla got some inserts for her hiking boots she needs to try out.  The boots randomly gave her blisters last weekend and that's not good, so am trying to solve the problem without having to buy and break-in new boots.

Chicago lakes, Kili training and power camping

Kristin and Jeff came in town to get some training for Kilimanjaro in January.  24 hours after they flew in from Chicago at an elevation of about 600 ft, they had made it to the summit of their first 14er, Grays.  Both were quite tired but decided to meet us out for camping at Guanella pass, in hopes to climb Bierstadt on Saturday.  We got the tents set up and the fire going, but Jeff's headache that he had since the Grays climb got a lot worse, and he ended up sleeping in the car for a few hours.  After determining that he wasn't going to get better, the other 3 made the decision to head back to Denver.  This meant that we were breaking down camp in the dark.  But not before we cooked over the campfire, made smores and looked at the stars and Milky Way under the new moon.  After our speed camping activities, it was back to Denver for a good night's sleep in real beds.

Saturday morning we decided to hike to Chicago lakes, about a 9.5 mile round trip hike that only had 1,500 feet of elevation change, which was a nice low key hike after a 14er.  This was a gorgeous hike that started at Echo Lake, the trail head to hike Mt Evans.  The fall leaves changing and first signs of snow on the peaks made it a really nice hike.

We made it back to denver to watch Baylor and have a nice evening in the hot tub.  Brunch at Snooze Sunday morning and we then saw our fellow Kilo adventurers off.  Now its a lazy football Sunday afternoon.  The end of another great weekend!

Labor Day in Angel Fire

We met up with Matt's parents in Angel Fire for the weekend.  After being able to leave Denver at 4pm on Friday, we hoped to miss at least some of the crazy weekend traffic.  We didn't and it took us 2.5 hours just to get to Colorado Springs.  Ugh.  We made it to Angel Fire around 11pm - a 6 hour trip.

On Saturday, we hiked Mt Wheeler with Matt's dad, Ken.  Wheeler is the highest point in New Mexico at around 13,100 feet.  Matt and Ken had been to the summit years before, but couldn't remember which way they went so we picked a trailhead at Red River and went with it.  Matt thought that it'd be a 12-ish mile hike...boy, was he wrong.

About 5 miles into our hike, we came upon Lost Lake.  We were going to do some fishing, but decided to summit first.

We kept walking and after 2-ish miles hit an aptly named Horseshoe Lake.

From here, we could see the top of Wheeler so we took a short break and kept hiking.  Instead of going along the ridge, the trail went along the backside of the peak to the other side and then up to the summit.  After about 5 hours of hiking, we finally made it to the summit!  Matt had his GPS tracking on his phone and informed us that we had just hiked about 10 miles...and still had to go all the way back

Matt was a little off on his estimate of length of the hike.  About 9 hours and around 20 miles, we completed the hike.  Ken and Karla were a little tired.  Okay, Karla might have complained the last mile.  But it ended up being a great story!

Saturday night we hung out at the house with Ken, Nancy and two of their friends who were spending the night on the way to Colorado.  On Sunday morning, all eight of us took the ski lift up to the top of the mountain to do a little walking, take in the views and watch the crazy mountain bikers tackle the first downhill of a hard trail.  Ken, Matt and Karla didn't have a lot of energy that day, so there was a lot of lounging around and Carbles games.  We went fishing for a bit in the evening.  Ken and Matt had to duck every time Karla cast out; she's still working on that technique.

Overall, it was a great, relaxing weekend in New Mexico!  We do love being closer to the house - a five (or six) hour drive is a lot better than having to fly in from Chicago and then drive.

Volleyball tourney and Guanella Pass Camping

Our volleyball team had their end of season tournament on Saturday, and after our first tourney where we didn't advance out of our bracket we weren't sure what to expect.  The week prior Ryan, Karla and Matt had the great idea to go camping after the tournament to Guanella Pass.  Naomi wasn't on board, but she came around.

Our team 'Set it and forget it' did very well, finishing in 2nd out of 21 teams.  It took alot longer than we thought, and we didn't leave the park until a little afer 4pm.  Exhausted and sunburned, we decided to hurry home and still pack up and head out to camp.  Fortunately we made good time and got out to the pass around 6:15 or so.  A few miles from the campground we encountered a herd of bighorn sheep, maybe 15 or so.  We had originally planned on going to the official Guanella Pass campground, but it was full and we got lucky and found a site off the side of the road that noone had gotten to yet.  It was fantastic!  groves of aspen trees, and basically the suite of camping; 3-4 sites side by side but not being used.  We didn't have neighbors, and it was great.  The best part, the fire ban was lifted a few weeks ago, so we got a campfire!  Karla was in her happy place, and we just relaxed with Naomi and Ryan for the evening.  A little chilly at night, but we were able to sleep decently.  Got up this morning, Ryan had a campfire already going, and we relaxed for a few hours before packing up and heading back to the city.  Now relaxing after a long day of volleyball and some mountain time...great weekend.

Weekend of Menko

We were very excited to have our BFF from Chicago to visit...the one and only Menko (aka Kristen Klimenko).  She flew in Thursday night and we grilled out at our house while drinking a few bottles of wine.  On Friday, Matt unfortunately had to work, so it was girls' day.  We slept in a bit and then went to Red Rocks to do some hiking and explore the amphitheater.  For the first day at altitude, Menko did great on a 4 mile hike!!

After Red Rocks, we headed to have lunch and explore Golden.  We didn't go to the Coors brewery, but did have a Coors product at lunch (which we felt obligated to do since we were in Golden).  The sign welcoming you to Golden looks very old west, which adds to the charm.

Friday night was a happy hour with volleyball friends and then dinner at Ignite with  Naomi and Ryan.  On Saturday, you could tell Matt had something to do with what time we left because we were out of the house by 8:30am...no sleeping in this morning!  We met up with Naomi and Ryan and hiked up Chief Mountain.  Menko was a little nervous about the altitude (started at ~10,600), but she rocked it.  The views from there are amazing.

After Chief Mountain, Naomi and Ryan headed home while the three of us went to Idaho Springs for lunch.  We ended up at Tommyknockers where Matt and Menko enjoyed the craft beers.  From there we drove through Golden canyon and decided to go alpine sledding (Menko and Karla spotting it on Friday and decided it was a "must do".).  Matt was a little hesitant at the idea, but it ended up being really fun.

After a quick trip to Colorado Cider Company for some tastings (and for Karla and Matt to replenish their stock), it was home for a quick nap.  For dinner we hit up downtown for dinner and then LoDo's for drinks.  We met up with two friends of Menko's that lived in Fort Collins...she met them while on her 6-week Europe trip.  Her friends were aghast that we hadn't been to Rio for margaritas after living in Denver for 5 months.  So, we ended up at Rio for margaritas, which were really good and quite strong!  Of course, we had the munchies on the way home and ended up at Biker Jim's for some gourmet hot dogs at 1am.

Sunday morning was brunch at Snooze where our waiter could tell we had a late night.  He asked Karla if she wanted a small or large orange juice and all she could do was stare blankly at him.  He ended up taking pity on us and giving us a free pancake for breakfast dessert, which was awesome.  There's a reason we love that place - they have great service!!

It was a fun-filled weekend...we can't wait for her to visit again.

Mt. Democrat

Friday night we headed to Kite Lake - the trail head for Mt. Democrat.  We arrived there around 8pm (after hitting a little traffic in I-70).  It was dusk, but still enough light to set up our tent.  It was a gorgeous night.  The full moon made it easy to see around and made the mountains look beautiful.

Sleep was a little hard to come by, particularly because our air mattress didn't have any air in it.  Our battery operated blower decided to give out after blowing for about 10 seconds.  Luckily, the ground wasn't too bad and we were semi-comfortable with a sleeping bag and a few blankets.

Our goal was to hit Democrat, Lincoln, Cameron, and Bross, which are all accessible from the same trailhead, but Karla was having a tough hiking day so Democrat was the sole 14er of the day (which is still an excellent day)!  Here we are at the summit:

At the summit, we ran into someone who told us about a Which Wich promotion.  If you take a picture of you and a Which Wich bag at the top of the 14er, print out the picture, and bring it to Which Wich, you get a free sandwich!  We, of course, had to take advantage of this because we love Which Wich and even love a free sandwich more.  :)

On our way down, we saw a mountain goat.  Just one, but it seemed as though he was keeping track of all of the people trekking up and down his mountain!

And finally, a view of Kite Lake from Mt. Democrat.