Happy 2nd Anniversary!

Alex and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary in Breckenridge a few weeks ago and I'm just now getting up to posting pictures... oops. Thankfully, we celebrated early so I'm really only 5 days behind on our anniversary!

The pictures aren't the best but it was gorgeous, snowed a ton, we ate an amazing dinner at this restaurant called Hearthstone in town, explored all the cute shops/cafes, and had an incredible view of the mountains from where we stayed.

I love being married to my best friend :)

Cookie Exchange

Last night, my friend Elli and I hosted a cookie exchange at my house! We had a great turnout and TONS of sweets! (and it inspired me to decorate like crazy for Christmas-which is always a good thing!)

with my lovely husband and our tree!

the 2 hosts with abbey

next door neighbors and some Watermark guys

the Greers

alex with the almost-newlyweds

now I think I need to go for a run....

Janet and Rick take Denver

Well, seeing as my parents had a dog named Denver as newlyweds because they were SET on moving up here at some point, we've decided to slowly try and convince them it's not too late! They came up to visit and celebrate my mom's birthday almost 2 weeks ago and we had so much fun!

I forgot to take my camera with us for most of the adventures but we had a blast watching football at BWW and shopping at Park Meadows, taking the light rail downtown for H Burger and drinks, taking them to our church, heading to Idaho Springs with the Herndons to explore/eat Beaujo's Colorado pizza/try some rootbeers and beers at Tommknocker's brewery, and best of all, celebrating my mom's 55th birthday with Buca di Beppo and Gigis' cupcakes!

Here are a few pictures I stole from my mom' s iPhone from her birthday! The first few are of the walk we took near our house and then of my parents at dinner. Enjoy!

Thanks, Uncle Warren!

So for the past week and some change, I've been in the bustling metropolis of Milwaukee, Wisconsin embarking on an 8-week training program for work. Thankfully, it's only 2 weeks in the Midwest, 4 weeks at home and 2 weeks back here. I'm slightly concerned about the snowy conditions during my return trip in December... prayers would be appreciated!

This is my first experience traveling more than 48 hours for work and I must say it's been an experience. I've loved expensing nice meals out downtown (The founder of my company's name is Warren Johnson... hence the saying "Thanks Uncle Warren" was born!), being in a "walking city" during the times we actually escape the hotel, and I must say having a gym directly below me has somehow inspired me to run most mornings before work. Now, that is a FEAT! I've met alot of great people too which has been the key to bypassing home-sickness.

One particular "thanks Uncle Warren" moment occurred this weekend when the company paid for Alex to fly out to visit! We made the most of our time by traveling to Chicago! Neither of us had been and we loved it! We came home with quite a few blisters from walking around for 6+ hours but it was well worth it.

With some other JCI folks on the train

Union Station
Sears Tower

I must say I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, just eating a sandwich instead of fancy/expensive meals, doing boring household chores like laundry and just life getting back to normal. But for now, I'm enjoying the life of a traveling woman :)

These are a few of my favorite things

Fall in the Mountains

My mother-in-law's pumpkin patch

Exploring downtown Denver

...making new Colorado friends, introducing the "natives" to Yogurtland, Alex playing the piano quite a bit (stay tuned for more details!), gearing up for visitors, and starting to rack up frequent flier miles for work so we can visit our faraway friends!

We love our local farmers

After watching Food Inc. and reading In Defense of Food (both of which I highly recommend), I knew I wanted to change how I grocery shop. Thankfully, Colorado is the perfect place to do that! I have recently fallen in love with fresh, local and/or organic produce and Alex and I both have noticed how good we feel when we're eating less processed food. Now don't think we've gone too far off the granola deep end, I'm still stocking up on coupons for Annie's organic boxed mac-n-cheese. :)

The first Wednesday we were here, we headed over to this cute shopping center nearby and realized there's a farmer's market there every week. This place is the highlight of my Wednesdays!

We also had a farmer's market success story here the other day. You see, my husband has never been a fan of cantaloupe. I really like it but never buy it because it's hard to make it through a whole one by myself. We tried samples of fresh, local cantaloupe here and Alex absolutely loved it. We brought one home and were both obsessed with it. Goes to show fresh fruit is just that much better, huh?

Last but not least, my loot for today. We were pretty well stocked up already on some deals at Whole Foods and Sunflower so I just got peaches, pears, apples, green beans and homemade kettle corn. Yum!

Getting to know you... getting to know all about you.

Well, I'm about a week and a half behind on blogging about this but felt that I absolutely HAD to document the outdoors-y-ness that occurred... Our second weekend as Coloradans was spent camping! Mind you this was only the second time in my life to sleep outdoors so it was a pretty big event. :)

Our church hosted a married couples retreat in the middle of gorgeous Golden Gate State Park and we had such a great time getting to know other couples, telling funny stories around the campfire and watching out for the bear that was recently spotted on the grounds.

Thankfully, the campgrounds had restrooms, Alex didn't make fun of me too much for wanting to sleep on an air mattress, and I brought (and wore) about 3 times as many layers as all the locals to sleep in. Baby steps.

Thanks, Heather, for the pics!