Iowa for Christmas

Twas the Saturday before Christmas, and a mid morning flight,
brought lines for southwest out the door, quite a horrible sight!
We stood for the skycap, not a moment to spare,
as we debated if we just leave our bag, we didn't care!

A delay of the plane left us some time to rest, as our holiday travel was put to the test!
The flight was uneventful, in Omaha we land,
as Lowell and Judy and Kristin were there, Dr. Pepper in hand.

The weather was cold, and I can't stress it enough
-26 with the windchill was really tough!
Now Henry!  Now Liv!  Now Sadie the dog!
In Iowa there is no shortage of food from the hog.

At Kathy's, we made cookies galore,
And ate them until our stomachs said "No more!"
Christmas Eve was presents, steak dinner, and church with candlelight,
Then a viewing of "Christmas Vacation" that had us laughing with delight.

Plenty of card games and the lack of TV
made for a calming trip inside for the family Lee.

It was a nice trip with the family, good for the soul,
But we will see the parents in Arizona for the BU FIESTA BOWL!!

Holiday tidings and parties

This was pretty much our only holiday weekend before Christmas, so we tried to make the most of it.  On Saturday we went to a performance by the DYAO(Denver Young Artists Orchestra), which Matt sits on the board of.  It was their holiday performance, so they played the Nutcracker Suite, one of our favorite holiday compilations.  It was a very enjoyable concert and a good turnout.

After the concert we drove south to our friend Leah's house for her ugly sweater party.  Since we had just come from a show we didn't have ugly sweaters, but it was nice to see some friends and have some yuletide cheer.

Sunday was a lazy day, as we got ready for our last week of work before we left for Iowa.

Fiesta Bowl Bound!

This past weekend included a lot of football watching...but came with a (sort of) surprising result! With Oklahoma State losing in the morning, which we didn't think would happen, Baylor's game against Texas ended up being a de facto Big 12 championship game. Baylor's win got them a Big 12 title and a trip to a BCS bowl game - the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. Woo hoo!! We were wondering what we'd get each other for Christmas so we booked our flights, bought our tickets to the game, and say "Merry Christmas" to each other. :) We're staying with Karla's parents in AZ and Lowell is going to the game with us...so our next task is to convince him to wear green and gold!

On Sunday, Karla co-hosted a baby shower for her friend Naomi. It was really fun! Matt went with Ryan to the bar - they wanted to stay as far away as possible from all the shower activities. :)

November Catch-Up

We've been delinquent in writing in our blog during November! So here's our November catch-up entry...

Karla was able to make it to the Hyman Christmas this year, which was awesome because we didn't make it last year. It was a blast! She played cards with Grandma Hyman, had some amazing meat that John brought, got an awesome Iowa Hawkeyes cap in the gift exchange, and got to spend time with some cousins she hasn't seen in a few years. She snapped a picture of Grandma and her to post on Facebook since Grandma is on there now!

After Christmas, Karla rode back to Chicago with Kristin where they made dinner at the Ronald McDonald House with friends. It was Karla's first time making dinner at the new House so she was pretty excited about that!

She stayed in Chicago for 4 days since she had a work meeting there, then headed back to Denver to put an end to Matt's week of bachelordom.

We went to see Book of Morman with Naomi and Ryan. It was hilarious and quite inappropriate at the same time. After the show, we kept our tradition of post-show hot chocolates from Starbucks.

We were in Texas with Matt's family for Thanksgiving. Apparently our nephew Caleb really, really wanted to go fishing with Uncle Matt and Aunt Karla, so we had to do that as soon as we got there. We didn't catch anything (as per usual), but we had a blast.

We went to the Parade of Lights in Fort Worth the day after Thanksgiving (after watching Iowa put down a beating on Nebraska). It was almost more fun to watch Caleb and Avery than it was watching the parade. Caleb was really into it and loved the lights, firetrucks, and horses.

Matt's highlight (over than seeing family and stuffing himself on Thanksgiving) was probably going to the Baylor vs. TCU game. We met up with some college friends of his before the game and he got to see some people he hadn't seen in years. The game was probably a little more stressful than we would have liked, but Baylor pulled it out in the end.

Pumpkin carving and Broncos football

This weekend started like any other. A party with friends!  Our friends Brandon and Ashley were having their annual pumpkin carving party, and they also had just brewed some pumpkin ale that we were to drink.  Costumes were optional, but Matt decided to dress up like a banana thanks to a friends costume they weren't using.  He should have won for best costume, but there wasn't a contest.  

The Pumpkin Ale was not very pumpkin-y, so it was actually really good.  Pumpkin carving was successful, and Matt was proud of his Chicago Bears logo pumpkin, especially in light of the fact that Brandon and Ashley are staunch Packers fans.  It was left on their front doorstep, likely never to be seen or heard from again.  Karla made a really cool ghost pumpkin, but given it was a party with alot of architects, our design skills didn't match up.

Saturday we went down to Parker to watch the Iowa - Northwestern game with Doug & Jamie.  They appreciated the company, and we had some good tailgating food.  Plus Iowa won!  one more and they are bowl eligible, which Karla didn't think would happen early in the season.  Since our friends Clint and Stacy moved down to Parker recently, we decided to stop and see them on the way home.  Granted they moved halfway to Mexico, so just getting home took 50 minutes.  Don't envy that commute during rush hour!

Since Baylor played Kansas, Matt watched the game at the bar for a bit but it wasn't a game.  Go Bears!

Sunday was funday as Matt and Karla got to go to their first Broncos game!  tickets provided by Matt's parent's for his birthday, and since we didn't own any Broncos gear, a stop by sports authority to get some shirts was in order.  We biked to REI and then walked to the stadium.  It was gorgeous weather, if anything on the warm side at close to 70 degrees.  We got to the stadium in time to walk around.  If there's one thing you can say about denver sports stadiums, its that they have really good beer.

Matt had a conundrum this game, since the  Broncos were playing the Washington Redskins & RGIII, who while is a Baylor alum, is also on Matt's fantasy team, along with Washington's running back.  So basically he was rooting for both offenses.  

Our seats were facing west, so we got great views of the field and the mountains.  Very cool.  RG3 didn't have his best game, but the Broncos won and so did Matt's fantasy team.  Karla's favorite was when the opposing team missed a pass, the whole stadium yells "IN-COM-PLETE!"

A great day!

Beer, fishing and football

After the insanity that was Chicago, we thought the best way to get over alot of beer and booze was to go to a happy hour with our volleyball peeps!  Since we won the mid season tournament, we got a $200 gift card to a cool bar called Bull & Bush, an english style pub that makes its own beer(probably redundant in Denver to say that, but still...).  We had our PDD(pregnant designated driver) thanks to Naomi, but we really only wanted to go for a few beers.  Our friend Kristina showed up a bit late, and she wanted to catch up by doing tequila shots.  There went that plan.  Also our friend Garrett decided to end the night with Jaeger bombs.  Or was it that the Jaeger bombs ended our night...?  either way, Matt was cursing Garrett's name all day Saturday.  Still a good time with good friends.

Saturday Matt was a bit sluggish, but we did manage to go to Red Rocks for an hour hike.  Karla was impressed Matt could even get in the car.  The rest of the day was watching college football, and feeling bad for Iowa State as Baylor beat them pretty good(sorry Lowell!)

Sunday Matt & Clint got up early to go fishing in Deckers.  It was a chilly morning, and we only fished till noonish, but it was a good time.  We tried a new spot on Cheesman Canyon, which you had to hike to, but was a bit more secluded and we saw lots more fish.  Saw, not caught.  The trout of colorado still elude our keen trapping devices.  Next time its dynamite.  A house party at Naomi & Ryan's wrapped up our nice semi relaxing weekend.

Weekend in Chicago

On a bit of a whim, we decided to go to Chicago for the weekend to take advantage of Matt's bank holiday on Columbus Day.  The Bears were playing Thursday night football, so Karla flew in Wednesday night and went to the game sans Matt.  He was delighted that Karla was able to watch the Bears without him.  Matt flew in Thursday night and took Friday off.  Since Karla was working, Matt went on a tourists day.  A 4 mile run along the lakefront, lunch at costello's with Scott Kalmus, frozen custard at Scooters, and a walk through the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Karla was delighted that Matt played while she worked all day.

Friday night Matt, Kristin, Kristen and Karla went out for tapas, which was delicious.  Saturday we were able to get to the farmers market for Wisconsin cheese curds, a staple that Matt has been missing in his diet since moving.  We were able to see some old friends, and then it was off to Lockport to stay with Jeannie and Patrick and watch the Baylor game against K-State.  It was closer than usual, but the Bears pulled it out in the end.

That night our old soccer crew went out to eat and it was officially Bowtie Night!  The guys donned their bowties and looked dapper as always.  Hilarity ensued at the restaurant, and the night ended with the guys going to the casino in Joliet, and making a few dollars of dinner back.  Yay for Craps!

Sunday was pretty chill, the marathon was happening in Chicago, so we watched a bit of that.  Matt had dinner with his cousin Adam at Bad Apple in Lincoln Square, one of our all time favorites.  What was supposed to be a casual dinner turned into a night of bar hopping and karaoke with Adam, Matt and Raf.  Closing down a bar on a Sunday night is always fun!

A casual Monday with old friends and Karla's work friends and we hopped an afternoon flight back to Denver.  Quite the fun 4 day weekend!

Trip to Belize

Karla and I decided back in June to go on a beach vacation sometime in September.  It was between Costa Rica and Belize, and since it was going to be a short trip, and relaxation was the goal, Belize won out.  Ambergris Caye is an island that we had to take a puddle jumper to from Belize City, but we had heard good things about the place.  Karla found the hotel we stayed at on trip advsior, called X'tan Ha.  It was a great deal, and right on the beach.

We left early Saturday, and got to the town of San Pedro around 4pm, which was odd since Belize was on mountain time as well, although it is pretty much due south of alabama.  We stopped in town to get some provisions such as eggs, bread, peanut butter...and rum.

The next day we got up early, kayaked to Mexico Rocks, and snorkeled.  We saw mostly small colorful fish, stingrays, and a nurse shark.  The rest of the day was relaxing, but we did try paddle boarding, which Karla
did very well at.  We met some fun other couples as well, from mostly the states, but also one from Canada, although Gerad was from Ireland, and a Liverpool fan to boot, so I got along swimmingly with him.

On Monday we had a "chill day". Nothing huge planned. We slept in, read for a while, and then took some bikes for a 3 mile bike ride down the beach to visit some friends of my parents who have a house in Belize. After visiting for a few hours, we decided to head back to the resort before it got dark. The ride back was an adventure because it was raining, Karla's chain kept slipping off her bike (so we'd stop and put it back on every 10 minutes), and it was rush hour on the beach. Lots of workers on bikes heading home! We went with another couple to a neighboring resort, Portofino, for dinner. It was pretty snazzy as they send a boat to pick you up and bring you home. Of course, we had seafood and all agreed it was the best meal we'd had so far.

For our last full day in Belize, we decided to take a snorkeling tour. It was small tour - two couples from our resort, our driver Kevin, and our guide Mario. Our first stop was Hol Chan Marine reserve. We spent a good hour snorkeling seeing lots of fish, some beautiful reefs, a crab or two, and, my favorite part, some sea turtles!

Next on the tour was Shark/Ray alley. And it lived up to its name! As soon as Kevin attached the boat to the buoy, Mario threw out some food and up came the nurse sharks and a ton of fish. We all jumped in so we could get a close look at all of the animals (although I think Karla pushed me in before her to make sure it was safe). Once the animals ate all the food, then it was just us snorkeling around looking at them. Mario caught a shark and a sting ray for us to touch.

After we got enough of swimming with the sharks and rays, we headed to Coral Gardens. On the way, Mario had us stop at a few lobster traps he had set so we could bring lobster back with us and have lobster ceviche when we got back to the resort. When we got to Coral Gardens, we all jumped in and quickly determined that the current was too strong that day. We were snorkeling for about a minute and the current had already taken us 30 yards from the boat! So we all quickly swam back to the boat.

We were supposed to also go to Caye Caulker, which was about a 30 minute boat ride further from the resort, for relaxing and lunch, but it had been raining for a while so the 6 of us voted to head back to the resort. We stopped at a bar on the way back for a drink and lunch. Mario and Kevin also took us to Mexico Rocks to get more snorkeling in since we skipped Caye Caulker. After getting back to the resort, we all took 30 minutes to shower and warm up (it was a little chilly on the way back in the rain), and then went to the bar to eat our fresh lobster ceviche, which was amazing.

That night was just hanging out at the bar, having a dinner on-site, and drinking with everyone. We had bought a bottle of rum when we landed, so we had to make sure we drank most of it! We gave the rest (maybe 1/4 of the bottle) to the newlyweds staying next to us since they were there for another few days. Can't let rum go to waste!

Our trip home was pretty uneventful. Our flight from Belize City was delayed a bit, but luckily so was our flight from Miami to Denver. Overall, we had a great trip and would definitely go back to both Belize and to X'Tan Ha!

Football & Mt Evans

Football is here!  After watching Payton Manning throw his 7 touchdowns on Thursday, We thought it would be fun to watch the Iowa game at 10:30am on saturday and then the Baylor game at 1:30. Except we told Ryan we would climb Mt Evans with him.  So instead we got up early on Saturday and drove to Summit Lake on the Mt Evans Road to start to summit.

This was a fairly short hike, since Summit Lake is already around 12,800 feet.  We took the long way up and the short way down.  On our way up we could see Chicago Lakes, which we hiked to the summer before, and realized we weren't too far away from the summit last year.  We also saw a mountain goat and their kid, which couldn't have been more than a few months old.  Pretty cool.

We could also see Bierstadt and the sawtooth from the other side, which was a unique perspective.  It took us about 2.5 hours to hike to the summit.  It was probably the clearest we've seen at the top of a 14er.  We could see Grays/Torreys, Bierstad, and even Long's Peak off in the distance.  I'm sure we could also see Quandary, but couldn't quite pick it out.

The way down was much shorter.  We went straight down the side of the mountain, on rocks and scree most of the way.  It was about 40 minutes back to the car!

We did make it back for the Baylor game, another thumping of Buffalo.  Sic em!

Sunday we watched the first NFL Sunday, as the Bears and Packers were both televised here.  And most importantly, Matt's fantasy team beat Karla's...no big deal.  ;)

Labor day weekend

This last weekend Karla and I spent the 3 day weekend in the city.  I can't remember the last time that happened.

We had a few goals:  get Karla skis, and go on a nice local hike.  We Also were dog sitting Junior, so we had to take that into account.

SNIAGRAB(bargains spelled backwards) is Sports Authority's ski blitz sale every year.  Basically you get last years models at crazy prices.  We got in line at 6:30am on Saturday and with that we got each a $25 gift card.  Karla's boots, skis, poles & helmet were about $550 out the door, and we got a $125 gift card to use later(retail was probably around $1400).  Very much worth getting up early!

After that we made our way to LODOs to watch Baylor destroy Wofford, and enjoyed some Shiner.  Taking it easy saturday night, we decided to hike at White Ranch Open Space on Sunday.  Its in Golden, and we've never been there.  It was a nice 6 mile hike, which before moving to Colorado we wouldn't have thought 6 miles was a nice chill hike!

A grill out at some friends on Monday and that was pretty much thee weekend.  Very relaxing time.

Volleyball Tournament

This past weekend was pretty low key. We went to Marzyck's on Friday night for wine tasting and ended up with a wine tasting inspired dinner. Our dinner was wine (a bottle of one that we tasted), Serrano ham (which Matt was psyched about since we can rarely find it at a reasonable price), candied walnuts, apple slices, and 3 types of cheese. Yum!

Saturday was our year-end volleyball tournament. We were in a pool of 5 teams, with 2 teams making it out of pool play into the tournament. Unfortunately, we didn't make it out of pool play - we were 6-6 on the day. However, we had a blast playing and grilling out! It's always a sad day because that means no volleyball until spring. Boo.

After volleyball, we headed to a pool party Matt's co-worker was having at her house. Matt cooled himself by jumping in the pool while I re-fueled with the awesome food spread. :)

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key - watching some baseball, running errands, etc. I have my first book club meeting tonight. I've been missing book club since leaving Chicago so decided to form a club - hopefully everyone else is as excited as I am!

Weekend in Estes Park

Karla was a day late for this vacation. Her Uncle Dewey passed away the week before so she made a last minute trip to Iowa to say goodbye to a great man. He'll be missed and always loved.

This last weekend we were in Estes park with the Texas clan (Ken, Nancy, Jared, Jess, Avery & Caleb).  Ken & Nancy drove up Thursday with Caleb and the others flew in Friday.  We headed out friday, stopping at Beau Jo's pizza in Boulder, a favorite from Jared's childhood.

We all stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies, a place that Matt & Jess hadn't been to in probably 20+ years.  With the kids' feeding and nap schedule, we did things in 2-3 hour increments.  We were able to go fishing(not catching, just fishing), and we did take Avery on her first hike.  She loved her baby bjorn and could have stayed in there a long time.  We went up to Nymph lake, which is one of our favorites.  It was a quick hike but got Jess out and Avery was a happy baby.

The only real activity we did as a group at the camp was taking a mini archery lesson.  It took a few rounds for us to even hit the target, much less get a bullseye.  I think we only lost 2 arrows!  Matt did get a bullseye on the last round, and everyone definitely improved!  Relaxing in Moraine park and playing carbles and taking it easy was the goal of the weekend, so mission accomplished.

On Sunday before we had to head back to Denver we made sure to get ice cream.  With loads of food from the weekend and the worlds largest ice cream scoop, I don't think we ate again until Tuesday!

Quandary and Breckenridge

In July one of Matt's co workers mentioned that he was getting a group together to climb Quandary for MS.  We didn't have anything planned that weekend, and even though we've already hiked Quandary, we decided to partake.  Also we were able to take advantage of some friends of ours renting a condo in Breckenridge at the time.  We got to Breck in time for dinner on Friday, and our friend Jen and her daughter Katie decided they wanted to hike with us.  Plus they were bringing their golden doodle Sophie.  It was Jen's first 14er and Katie's.  And btw Katie is 9 years old.  Karla and I pegged odds of her to summit at 50%.

We got started pretty early on saturday.  Karla, Jen and Katie started before Matt, since he was waiting for his co-workers.  20 minutes or so later Matt got on the trail.  He caught up about 30 minutes later.  We all finally made it to the top, Karla going a bit slower with Katie to make sure she made it to the top.  She was tired but did make it.  On the way down we actually were slower than when we came up, mostly due to Katie's tired legs.  Fortunately for us, it gave us the chance to see some mountain goats along the trail.  It was really cool, plus one of the goats looked at Sophie and wasn't sure if she was a goat or not.  The goat came up pretty close, due to curiosity.  As soon as it realized Sophie was indeed a dog, it bolted back down the mountain.

7+hours after starting we made it down to the cars.  Karla and Matt had a quick bite to eat with his co-workers then headed back to Denver.  Dinner with Naomi & Ryan,a sit in the hot tub upstairs,  and a very relaxing sunday.

Campfires, 14er and golf

This weekend Karla and I decided to climb Mt. Sherman with our volleyball friend Leah.  Mt. Sherman is out by Fairplay, CO, and we knew there was camping out by the trailhead.  Fortunately for us Leah was able to leave work early on friday and get out there to reserve a campsite for us.  Karla and I left after work and got out there around 7:15 or so.  The campsite was nice and the best part:  we were able to have a campfire!  Karla was in her happy place with toasting marshmallows and making Smores.  We got to bed early since it was going to be an early morning.

We met some of Leah's friends at the trailhead and started off around 6:45.  We knew this was one of the shorter and easier 14ers, so we weren't too worried about getting back before storms, etc.  In fact, Matt and Leah were bold enough to bring a beer to the top and toast the summit!

It was a nice hike up, passing old mines and having great views throughout, since it was a nice clear morning.
We made it back to Denver at a normal time, and decided to go out for sushi at Blue, a place downtown.  As soon as we sat down a nice thunderstorm came in and stuck around throughout

dinner.  Food was good, but we decided to go home and crash, mostly because on our way out to camping on friday we got a bug to go golfing, so we got a 7:20am tee time for Sunday morning.  What were we thinking!?  actually it was really nice, since we played 9 holes at Willis Case golf course.  Matt shot a 43, which for 9 holes was pretty good!  It was around 9am when we finished so we had the whole day ahead of us for errands and stuff.  We napped instead.  It was a good weekend!

Week Apart

I made my annual trip to Iowa this past week/weekend. It was a week spent going to swimming lessons, hanging at the pool, watching Despicable Me 2, boating and tubing in Lake View, visiting family, celebrating Kristin's birthday by watching Pitch Perfect, and hanging out on a pontoon for an afternoon. The highlight was being in a rock band with Henry and Liv and performing Baa Baa Black Sheep for Kathy.  :) When we were at the farm, we drove around Kristin's 3020. I couldn't reach the pedals, so Dad tried to adjust the seat and we ended up having to do some minor maintenance on the seat to get it back to normal. Oops! Once it was fixed, my sisters and I took it on a 2 mile drive. It was really fun!
       

While I was playing around in Iowa, Matt lived the bachelor life in Denver. He played softball and volleyball, drank some beer, had dinner with Naomi and Ryan, played Dance Revolution over at Brandon and Ashley's, hiked a bit, and found a soccer bar to watch the USMNT win the Gold Cup!

Frontier Days Rodeo in Cheyenne

One of the things Ken has always wanted to do was go to the rodeo at Frontier Days up in Cheyenne - the "Grandaddy of 'Em All". Since we live so close, Karla and I were game. Mom and Dad drove up on Thursday in time for dinner.

On Friday, while we worked, Mom and Dad went golfing. In the evening, we all went to the Cubs vs Rockies game...and were lucky enough to see a Cubs win! It was the only game of the series the Cubs won so we picked the right game to go to.

We headed up to Cheyenne on Saturday morning and got to Frontier Days in time to walk around a bit. After grabbing lunch and a huge bag of kettle corn, we got in our seats for the rodeo. There were all kinds of events - bull riding, bareback bronco riding, saddle bronco riding, calf roping, calf wrestling, team calf roping, barrel racing, etc. It was really fun! We saw over 20 cowboys ride bulls and only 1 made it 8 seconds (Karla was excited the 1 that made it was from Iowa). We just grilled out on Saturday night - a low key dinner after a busy day.

On Sunday we all headed out to Mt. Falcon park to do a little bit of hiking. On the way back, we stopped at Colorado Cider Company so Mom could pick up some cider to bring back to Texas. We also stopped at Prost on the way home to do some beer tasting. The evening was just hanging out and doing laundry since Karla was leaving for Iowa the next day.

We really liked Frontier Days and might have to make it a yearly event!

First 14er of the season

Ken has been talking about doing a 14er since we moved to Colorado, so when he found out we were doing one the weekend of the 13th, he found a plane ticket and flew up to join us on our Bierstadt hike!

We headed up to Guanella Pass after work on Friday to camp. We were hoping to get into the campground so we could have a campfire (there was a fire ban on open fires, but you could have on if you were in the campground). Unfortunately, they were all taken, so we ended up at our favorite pull-over-to-the-side of the road spot instead. We had our grill so we were still able to grill dinner, but it was an early night since there wasn't a campfire to sit by.



We got up around 5:15am on Saturday and were up at the trailhead around 6am. Slow and steady was the name of the game. We got to the summit in just under 3 hours, with a few stops along the way to rest, get some water, and chat with other hikers. Unlike the first time we were at the summit of Bierstadt (in a cloud), the view from the top was amazing. we made sure to get a picture of Dad at the summit of his first 14er. On our trip down, the fields of wildflowers were blooming and we got some great pics of the flowers and the trailhead.




After breaking camp, we had lunch at Idaho Springs and decided to to some tasting on the way home with stops at Colorado Cider Company, Wits End brewery, and Great Divide brewery. Saturday night was dinner at Jonesy's and an early bedtime since we were up so early.

Karla had to work on Sunday, so Dad and Matt went to Golden to do some hiking, checked out Wild Bill's grave at Lookout Mountain, and then did some drinking at the Coors Brewery. We took advantage of the express pass to the tasting room Karla and I discovered the previous weekend! Dad flew out last Sunday night so the rest of the day was just hanging out and a quick dinner over and Naomi and Ryan's.

Karla and I were happy to hear that Dad enjoyed the 14er and his first one won't be he last one!

Josh Groban & RMNP

Lowell and Judy were in town the weekend after the 4th of July. On Friday night, we all went to Marczyk's for wine tasting and got some good meat to grill. They were adventurous enough to try grilled scallops - Dad wasn't a huge fan, but Mom liked them!

On Saturday, we took the Coors Brewery tour. Matt and I discovered that there's an express pass where you can go straight to the tasting room without having to stand in line to go on the tour. Unfortunately, we discovered this as we were leaving, but would take advantage of it in the future. After lunch, we hit up a deli in Golden to soak up all the beer. For dinner, we went out to Parker to have homemade pizzas with Jamie and Doug...and to tell old RAGRBRAI stories.
Sunday morning was a drive out to Rocky Mountain National Park, which included a walk around Sprague Lake. On the way back from RMNP, we stopped at a diner in Lyons. The diner was quite a find - good food and great homemade ice cream. Dad had a banana shake and Matt had a Dr. Pepper float. We'll definitely hit that up again!

Sunday night was the big event - Josh Groban and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at Red Rocks. We tailgated beforehand and someone took a picture of us tailgating (apparently they'd never seen it before). The concert was excellent. The orchestra warmed up the crowd with some movie theme songs. Then Josh Groban took the stage and entertained us for two hours. He was actually quite funny - although I'm not sure Mom and Dad's generation got all of the jokes. :) The concert was a great ending to a fun weekend!