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!

Day Trip to Boulder

Well, for a couple of months now, we've been taking turns planning weekly date nights and it has been so fun! This week was Alex's turn and he went all out by planning a date day in Boulder. We went on a morning hike in Chautauqua Park, headed over to Pearl Street for falafels/gyros and a little window shopping, checked out the Boulder farmers market (which was amazing btw), went to the Avery taproom, then finished off the day with Larkburger for dinner. It was a busy but very fun (and yummy!) day!

Boulder in the distance

I must say my favorite thing about today was strolling down memory lane. Four summers ago, when Alex and I had been dating just a few months, he took me up to Boulder to hike the Royal Arch (same park as today, just a little harder hike) and eat falafels on Pearl Street. Here's a little throwback pic for you :)

Hope y'all had a fantastic weekend!

What a GREAT "read"!

Well, we're officially Colorado residents! We left Dallas last Sunday morning, stopped in Canyon for the night with my sister's in-laws, and got here Monday afternoon. We have been working hard all week to get the new place together and it's really starting to feel like home!

Back to the lovely 14 hour drive we did to get here, to say I was worried about getting bored is a HUGE understatement. :) Being in the Jeep by myself didn't sound appealing in the least, though I was excited about the roadtrip w/ Alex and my dad. So we decided to download an audio version of a book I'd heard about and Alex and I listened to it in separate cars and compared notes. We're cool, I know.

Please do me a favor and buy this book right now. I absolutely loved it! Besides the wonderful fact that it made the drive fly by, it completely challenged the way I live out my faith. It's so easy to look through what the Bible says through the lens of the "American dream" and not stop to notice how the Lord really calls us to live.


If you want a little more info about just how life changing this book is, check out this post from a blog I stalk (she led a bible study I was in my senior year of college so I guess it's not REALLY stalking :) )
or just read the book and see for yourself.