Cali Trip

Last month I spent a week in California promoting Colorado to journalists, as well as attending the Sea Otter Classic - the largest biking festival in the country.  I had never been to Los Angeles so I had a great time just walking around Hollywood!

I imagined Lindsey Lohan was causing trouble at the Chateau Marmont

San Fran - always gorgeous

The Sea Otter Classic was a trip.  I never knew biking was so popular!  I was definitely inspired to hop on my bike a lot more.  I was also introduced to Cyclocross, a fairly new sport that is a bike race/obstacle course.  But while the top three go all out, the guys in the back have a great time!  All the spectators hold out beers, drinks, dollar bills and such for them to chug, grab and otherwise make fools of themselves.  It was hilarious and I'm going to try to make a few races this fall.

Also my first time in Monterrey, which also was beautiful -- need to go back one of these days!

Random/stpatty's/easter

Just of photo dump of spring:

 Celebrating John's 26th birthday at the Cruise Room!

 Celebratory shots with Stu and Brittani after a nail-biting Final Four victory

Attempt at homemade pierogies - tasted much better than they looked!

Biking in City Park

A quick visit home - Grandpa Dean's front yard

St. Patrick's Day in LoDo

Sunset at Webster Lake

Sunday afternoon park picnic

Southwest

In April our staff went to the Southwest for a conference, and also had the chance to experience a part of the state far from Denver.  It was my first time to Durango and I loved it!  We started in Ignacio, where we visited the Sky Ute Cultural Center.  It was a wonderful facility that told the story of the Sky Ute Native American tribe in such a graceful and modern way.  I love that it incorporated the voices of the elders, and described many of the mystical and cultural aspects of the people.  We then had a wine tasted at Foxfire Farms Vineyard, woo!

Next up was Mesa Verde, which are the original ruins of the Ancient Puebloan people - they built their communities into the sides of canyons.  Truly unbelievable how in tact they are - it made me feel very connected to the people of the past.

We then spent time at the conference and Durango, which is such a cute mountain city.  It is also home to the Durango & Silverton Railroad (for the history buffs).

I'm really falling in love with Southwest Colorado and hope to get back soon!

In March I was the lone "client" on our winter TV shoot in Silverton, Ouray and Crested Butte. It was a really amazing experience to see a full shoot come together. We were up on the mountain at 5am every day into late in the night, stayed at a creepy, haunted hotel in Silverton (which itself was like a ghost town), and just tromped all over to get a great shot.

Sunrise in the San Juan's

Taking snowcats to the top (almost tipped over a few times!)

Representing the Jayhawks from 14,000 ft in the Sweet 16! We had to wear avalanche beacons at all times, as well as carry shovels and picks in case of avalanches.

One of the best parts was hanging out with dudes like this, who are really passionate about they do, love the outdoors and having fun. And I'll say it, not too hard on the eyes either :)

This was one of our guides. When the other group was off getting shots, we hiked to the peak with two of the guides - one started climbing a rock face in his ski boots and the other jumped off the peak in this! I also got to watch the KU/North Carolina with a Tar Heel (man it was good to win), meet some very cool people and guides -- and make movie magic. I'm very excited to see the final ads this winter!

Steamboat

One of the best ski weekends of the year (okay, THE best) was when Molly, Luke, Ty, Cameron and Lee came from Kansas City to spend the weekend in Steamboat Springs. The house Ty won at his school's auction couldn't have been more perfect, and it was awesome catching up with this girl:

Who would have thought a few weeks later she would be asked to become "Mrs."??

Of course Ty orders bloody marys for the table. Another fun "small world" moment was when I found out Lee is from Logan!

It was one of the biggest dumps of snow in Colorado the whole season, so it was so cool to be there and remember what GOOD snow is like! Not so fun driving back the next day through it, but worth it.


Steamboat is now one of my favorites and can't wait to go back next winter. Or Molly and Luke's wedding in December!

A new day...

...to keep this up! It's been a long winter, but I think it's safe to say it's officially summertime in Denver! I have been terrible keeping up, but now that I have all of my Mac product ducks in a row, things should be much easier.

To start the catch up where I left off, Grant came to visit in February, here we are at Arapaho Basin:

I live here and he's still a better skier than me.

That same month I spent a few days near Trinidad, CO on a wayfinding mission for the department of transportation. I caught something while there and was incredibly sick the next week - maybe I need to go back so I don't have such a bad memory!

Most dinners in February and March revolved around KU basketball games:

More to come!

Laundry helper...

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I just realized that I have been blogging for over a year - incredible! So what has been going on since the new year?

new toy, coffee, cribbage and wine

Love that face, ha

Sunday at A Basin

Last weekend Grant came to visit for a few days, which was so fun! We skied, went to the Nuggets v. Heat game, went to every neighborhood that I'm familiar with in the city, watched movies and drank and ate ourselves silly. It was so great to spend time with him!

No cheering for Mario Chalmers this time

J has been gone for two weeks and will be for another week and a half - you would think I would be very productive, but nope! This has by far been the most relaxed and uneventful weekend I have had in months - and have enjoyed every minute :)

Welcome 2012!

Well, so long 2011! A little catch up:

Thanksgiving was a fun whirlwind - 4 states in as many days. We made a stop through in Stockton, then on to Coffeyville on Thanksgiving day. Friday we ran down to Tulsa to see old friends, which was really fun. Saturday we went with J's family to Kansas City for the KU/MU football game (potentially the last ever with the conference changes). Though it was a sad loss for the Jayhawks, we also got the chance to see Molly and Luke, which was great. Sunday we got up early and drove the 8 hours home to Denver, whew!

December was full of holiday gathering between work party, happy hours, and weekend trip to Aspen (Char's blog perfectly captured the weekend!) and work trip to Telluride.

Shot ski in Silverthorne

Beautiful Telluride

Christmas was also wonderful. J and I went back to Stockton and saw friends, family (the Chilton's where back, yay!), went to Christmas Eve at the Congregational Church and ate and ate and ate. J went on to Coffeyville for a few days while I went back to Denver to get back to work and prep for Mom and Dad and Pam and Ed to come visit over New Years.

Will and Santa

My first Dicken's Village

New Years was the icing on the cake. We went to The Palm for dinner (amazing), Green Russell for drinks, shopping and lunches. New Years Eve we went to Colorado Springs to stay at The Broadmoor for the night. It was beautiful as always, and Verl and Ruth joined. A wonderful dinner, drinks and champagne in the room finished off a pretty awesome 2011.

It was quite a year - getting to know and making great friends in Tulsa, fun trips, and moving to Colorado were huge changes in life, and I'm ready for 2012 to be a little more settled. I'm excited to plan some big trips, keep exploring Colorado and start some fun projects. Life is going so fast and I want to do everything I can to hang on to every second! Here's to 2012!