Friday, December 4, 2015

Back in Denver

I made it through the quick week without Jackson or MacKenzie home. One night I took myself out to eat and to the grocery store- desperate times- before baking some treats for my co-workers. Wednesday night I had a date night with Amber at Chuy's. I also made time to get in some Christmas shopping that evening so my lonely week was not a complete loss. Thursday evening could not come soon enough, though, as I was ready to be back with Jackson.

I worked until 4 then was bound for Indianapolis International (aka our second home these days). I made it with plenty of time and my flight went off without a hitch. The most handsome, bearded man was waiting for me at baggage claim, too. Reunited! This sweet man even had Chinese takeout for me from my favorite restaurant because he knew I would land too late for dinner there but would likely be hungry. He's a keeper!

We stayed the night in Parker which is where we first lived when we moved out this way in 2008. It was crazy to see how much things had changed. The hotel had the most comfortable bed ever and we slept like babies. It was amazing.

We took advantage of the 2 hour time difference and went out to breakfast at a popular place here called "Snooze." We could have skipped it, honestly. It was nowhere near as good as Skillets in Naples was last week. Tear. The company was lovely, though. :)
Breakfast and a beard
After breakfast we went back to one of our favorite places: The Bluffs Regional Park. It is seriously right next to a super Target but one of the best places for mountain views in all of the city. It also has a great 2.5 mile trail that we enjoyed with MacKenzie in the past. Today, though, it was a snowy, muddy mess. We still enjoyed the hike- but boy were we dirty!
The mountains!
Quite the view
Petefish.
Mocking Jackson's pointing to the mountains
My gorgeous hiking partner

We finished up our hike and then took a little memory tour of our place in Centennial before heading down to the University of Denver. I wanted to stop in at the bookstore and just check things out. The campus looked great and it felt so good to be back!
I spent a lot of time in that building!
Yeah, DU!
We wanted to spend time in the mountains this trip so we left town and headed for Winter Park. Tomorrow we will go snowmobiling and the such but today we just kind of soaked in the views.
Christmas village from our new hotel room
The hotel clerk highly recommended a local pizza place called, "Hernando's Pizza Pub" which turned out to be amazing. We were seated by a wood-burning fireplace and were nice and toasty for dinner. The food was really great as was the service. This is not always the case in ski towns so we were pleased.

Yum!
Note: Jackson was not stoned- it just isn't a good photo!
We'd only been to Winter Park once before when we lived here and brought Heidi and Andrew up snow tubing. We decided it would be fun to tube again so we headed on out after dinner into the 11 degree night. Brilliant! ;)
Ready to go!
Less than ready...




I went down twice before deciding that I was too cold and too smart for that mess. I had a good time watching Jackson take his turns from the warmth of the clubhouse. A group of 18 people celebrating a birthday came in near the end of Jackson's hour and I had such a good time talking and laughing with them that I wasn't even upset about paying $20 to go down the hill twice. HA! 
Hilarious group of fellow tubers
We are looking forward to the warmth of our bed tonight and a fun day of snowmobiling tomorrow. It was a busy day and we are beat! It has been lovely to be back in the Denver area, though.

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