February and March Visitors

Doesn't this new design feel like Spring? I love it. 

I have told my husband that I couldn't get up from the couch until I finish this blog post so I figure I'd better stick to it. I have had "Blog" on my to-do list for longer than I would like to admit.

 I have four lovely visitors to report on from February and March and then maybe by May I will catch you up to everything since then.

Dave and Teresa came for a long weekend the week of Valentines Day. I have said and I will say for the rest of my life that I have 4 of the greatest people I know as my parents. They are all so fun!
Anyways, having Dave and Teresa around is always delightful and entertaining.

We picked them up Wednesday afternoon and I cooked a home so we could watch the premier of (Matt Elrod's) Survivor together. On Thursday, we ate at Snooze (surprise, surprise) during Ryan's break for class. My friend Lindsay was able to come and join us so she could meet two of the people I talk about all the time.

This is the wonderful Lindsay if you were wondering.

During the weekend, Ryan got some skiing in while the parents and I walked around Vail. David was really just wanting to find himself somewhere to read his book.

I know this picture is sideways. The formatting gods hate me and I tried to fix it several times and then got over it. It is a funny picture anyways so it makes sense for it to be sideways.

Teresa and I got to run around to some stores on Saturday that she actually found  on a previous trip and introduced me to. They were so cute and fun and I actually took Caroline to them a couple weeks later (see below). It was a beautiful sunny day and we really enjoyed getting out and walking around.

It was so fun and comforting to have our wonderful Simmons parents in Denver spending time in our everyday space. It was a very blessed visit!

 

Now for Caroline and Baker...
This was such a beautiful fluke that this trip even happened so it was that much more special to pick these two up at the airport.
The 3 of us drove straight to Ryan's school to pick him up for lunch at Cherry Cricket. It had been rumored to have the best burger in town and I can see why. It was very delicious and we finally got to eat there after 2 or 3 failed attempts. After Cherry Cricket we headed straight over to Bonnie Brae. Hello, Mocha Oreo, you might be my new favorite. Yum. In my eyes, Bonnie Brae ice cream can do no wrong. It is so stinking good. Ryan got the Orange Creamsicle kind the other day and I was skeptical until I tried it...incredible. Ok, enough of my ice cream talk...for now.

This is one of the best ones we got of the boys. Not quite cooperative.

This cobbler brought us much joy.

Myself and my lovely assistant Caroline cooked a meal of Mexican Chicken, grilled asparagus, caramelized butternut squash, and mac-n-cheese (via Carol's request). Oh, and if you haven't heard, we topped it off with a blackberry cobbler. Yum. I love having a lot of color on my plate so I tend to take pictures of colorful meals. This wasn't one of my healther meals, but I did love how it looked on my plate.


Friday morning we headed out to Vail with Cinnamon Streusel muffins in hand (also so delicious). The boys were ready to ski and Caroline and I were ready to be our own version of "ski bunnies". When we got through the traffic to Vail, the boys set out to ski and Caroline and I wandered around for a little bit, grabbed a snack and then found a giant fireplace and couches in a lobby. We lounged on the couch by the fire and people watched and talked about life and the book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist and almost fell asleep several times. It was pretty wonderful, I must say!
Then tragedy struck...

I got a text from Ryan saying that we needed to go get Baker's shoes from the car and meet them at the Emergency Center. Baker had "hurt" his ankle was all I knew at that point, but it ended up being a little more than just hurt. Once we got to the Emergency Center and got the word, we were under the impression that it was a broken fibula (tibia and fibula - words we had trouble with...).  We took Baker home in a boot, but after lots of icing, his ankle still looked like this...eek.
This picture acutally does it very little justice.
He was a champ about everything though. He kept his head up and tried to stay positive about it all. I can't imagine it would be easy to be out of town when something like that happens, especially when your hosts happen to live on the 3rd floor of an handicap unfriendly building.
We made the best of it starting with a delicious and fun dinner at the Arapahoe Cafe before heading back to Denver.
On Saturday, Caroline and I set out to work out in the workout room of our complex. Working out is exponentially more fun with Caroline (really everything is) and I wish I had her with me all the time to make me work out! All of his working out was just a segeway to our trip to Chick-fil-a for lunch and a banana milkshake. Unbelievable. I have made a U-turn to go back for one already since then. It's that good. We visited the outlets briefly then took the boys home. Carol and I were able to sneak out while the boys were watching sports to visit some of the same fun boutiques. I feel like I could walk in these fun stores everyday and see new things! They are so fun. We also got to share our first Sweet Action experience. I have walked by it several times when it wasn't opened so it was very fun to finally get to try it. They had so many interesting ice cream flavors like biscuits and jam for example. They had like 6 different oreo mix flavors, but we settled on cinnamon oreo and it was pretty amazing.  
And what is a Denver visit without going to Snooze?!

This is actually us checking each others teeth for the following picture.

We had so much fun with our February and March visitors. We feel so blessed to have so many visitors since we have been here. Thank you for bearing with my long post!