There is a new juice bar in Carmel that we wanted to try out. Their smoothies are amazing.
An amazing smoothie
Jackson got a wild hair and decided to sign us up for a juice cleanse for 3 days. WHAT?! The juice is good, but it is not that good. We'll see how this goes.
Friday morning we headed to Louisville with Jason and Kortnee Mauck.
Jason and Jackson played golf in Southern Indiana and Kortnee and I continued on to Louisville to do a little shopping and to catch the Bridget Jones's Baby. It was terrible. The movie, not the company. ;)
Catching a movie with Kort in recliners
We had to make Kortnee a booster to get tickets to the game. This meant we got to hit up booster events. SCORE!
POP-A-SHOT
BOOSTERS
We didn't get to stay at the Booster party for long because everyone was hungry. We hit Sidebar at Whiskey Row for really good food.
My dinner was amazing
Jackson enjoyed his dinner, too!
We stayed at a new Holiday Inn Express in downtown that was actually nice. We woke up Saturday to storms. Boo. We had planned to be out at College Gameday, but it was just too rainy. We're old(er) now and didn't want to spend a whole day soaking wet with bad hair.
Kort pretending to listen to Jackson ;)
On the Gameday set!!!!
SO COOL
It finally quit raining and we got to see the ESPN set. The anchors were gone so that was sad, but it was still cool to see it!
Our seats were close...NOT
Let's go FSU!
The band!
Cool views
The game didn't go as planned...
The game was a blowout. It was awful. The team forgot to show up. In good news, Kort and I got to rock our new sunglass purchases. ;) It was a fun weekend, let's hope the FSU team turns things around!
Our hotel had a ping pong table in its lobby area and we really enjoyed playing some games together. I'm actually really terrible, but it was a good time.
Serious Ping Pong games going on here
Monday morning Jackson had to go to the office for a bit so I logged in to work, too. My "office" had an excellent mountain view.
Morning view
Too tired to focus! ;)
Jackson wasn't feeling much like taking photos when we grabbed breakfast.
Mr. Business found me out soaking up the sun!
I logged in for a bit and then couldn't resist the sunny day and headed outside to catch some rays. Jackson caught me and looked unimpressed again. ;)
We did a little shopping and then went to dinner with our dear friend Meg. I'm obsessed with a Chinese restaurant in Parker, the city where we used to live. Meg lives next door so she can eat there whenever she wants, but was kind enough to join us!
MacK and Emmie
MacK didn't love that Emmie, a puppy, was bigger than her but still raucous. I enjoyed Mom keeping MacKenzie because we got more photos of her than normal.
Tuesday was a quick day of training for Jackson and work for me, too. I did sneak to have Chinese food again for lunch before we headed to the airport. I gained like 5 pounds during this trip despite the hiking and walking we did. Whoops!
We got up early (a theme of the past couple weeks!) and headed for the mountains. We stopped at Starbucks for a quick breakfast and coffee (fine, I cheated. I needed the caffeine for the altitude headaches) and then charged on westward! It was a gorgeous morning and we were excited to hike!
The sun still coming up and we're already on the trail!
Full steam ahead!
This way!!
Me: It is still early. 2 more miles?!
Views. They made up for it.
You guys, this was NOT a tough hike. The trail was pretty awesome, really. The climb was steady and the footing was clear. The altitude, though, was insane. We started at over 11,000 and we felt it with every step. I kept asking how I was supposed to breathe with no air. Jackson got lightheaded. We both laughed at stuff that wasn't funny. Ohhhh man. The human body never ceases to amaze me. It just adapts. You just keep going. You don't think you can, but you do. I didn't know if my knee would hold up on this one because I could not tape it beforehand (still recovering from being overtaped in Canada). It pretty much did. I took 2 ibuprofen and just kept moving. I cannot explain the gratitude that I feel when I am hiking. I'm so glad that I can walk. I'm so glad that I'm still here to live out this awesome life with Jackson. Sure, I feel quite a bit of pain at the end of the day. I wake up feeling a lot older than my years, but I'm still going. I'm still here. And that is what makes it all worth it!
Summit!!
Amazing.
Views for days
Jackson scrambling down the summit
Taking a break to plan how to get down safely
So happy that we did it!
Ok, not a pro at the GoPro yet! HA!
There we go: Petefish!
A gorgeous trail
We left Chief Mountain and went to Juniper Pass. It was a gorgeous little picnic site that actually had restrooms. Score! Jackson can use the great outdoors. It is a little trickier for me! There was a little hike to be done at the pass so we did it and loved the views.
The Rockies
Pano.
I love this guy!!!
We stopped at Echo Lake on the way down the mountain. It was nothing compared to the lakes in Banff National Park, but it was still quite lovely.
Echo
The sky was the most brilliant blue
The clouds make Mt. Evans look like a volcano!
I'm obsessed with the trees here and everywhere
We spent quite a few hours in the mountains before deciding that we wanted some lunch. We headed to the Cherry Creek area to have late lunch at one of our favorites: Cherry Cricket.
Jackson said this cold beer was amazing after the hike. I'll never understand pee (aka beer) tasting good. ;)
His giant burrito and my tacos
The Cherry Cricket did not disappoint. After shopping for a bit we headed back for the hotel to SHOWER! We were pretty excited for the NFL to be on again so we watched my teams win (Giants, Seahawks) and Jackson's team lose (Colts). We got an update that MacKenzie was doing just fine and helping Mom babysit some of her friend's kids. MacKenzie isn't normally a big fan of kids (she prefers all eyes to be on her, imagine that), but we were glad to see she was behaving.
MacKenzie helping to babysit
We took a long walk around our old neighborhood and shared a burrito bowl at Chipotle for dinner. They've been my favorite recently and there are about 67 locations in Denver so that's nice. We went for an evening drive and got lost, but it was just nice to be out and about in the lovely weather. The memories that Denver holds for us are many. We just love it here.
