Birthday Week Extravaganza

From Kelly:
Well, this past week was a good one—lots of birthday fun for Mike and very little work for me! On Sunday we kicked off the week (after a nice hike near Estes) with dinner with my dad, Crystal and Lorene. We went to Outback Steakhouse and had a wonderful dinner.

Monday, I had the day off for comp time so I did a bunch of fun stuff—went to lunch with Katey, met with Allegra, and met Bryan for some shopping! Bryan and I went to Guitar Center and picked out an acoustic guitar for Mike’s birthday present. Bryan came home with me and we surprised Mike (who was working from home) with his gift. He was really excited and immediately started playing. Bryan taught him a new song and he’s been downloading songs off the internet since then—so much that his fingers are raw from too much playing!

On Tuesday I had another comp day and this one I spent relaxing a bit more—I slept late. But then I had to go to the dentist. I wanted him to look at this tooth I have that occasionally causes shooting pain. After looking at it and doing some tests he was totally perplexed because the tooth isn’t feeling sensation and yet there is no reason for the nerve to be dying or indication on the x-ray that that’s fading away. Hmmm. He basically said to ignore it and we’d check it again in a couple of months. All I can say is I sure hope I don’t need a root canal!! But it hasn’t been hurting since then, so I’m hopeful. When I got home I made Mike a “birthday eve” dinner of a delicious bean soup and we had Beth over to play Settlers of Catan, which we are all now slightly obsessed with.

Wednesday was Mike’s birthday!! We both stayed home from work (I was still on comp time) and tried to enjoy the day, although it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. . .It all started when we woke up that morning. I had made Mike a birthday breakfast in the crockpot and was really looking forward to it being all ready to go when we woke up. Unfortunately all we woke up to was a half-cooked soggy egg mess. The crockpot had turned off for some reason and had totally ruined breakfast! Yuck! Then we decided to go hit some golf balls because the weather seemed pretty nice. Well, by the time we got out to the driving range the wind had picked up and it was freezing. After hitting balls, we went to lunch, which was so-so and then went home to watch a movie—only to find that the playstation wasn’t working! Luckily the playstation eventually kicked in and agreed to play the movies so we were able to relax for a bit. That night, we went to dinner with the family and had to wait for 45 minutes for a table I had already called ahead for. We got home and cut Mike’s cake that we had ordered from Dairy Queen only to cut into a big hair that was in the cake—gross!! The final straw was that during the cake celebration, Floyd noticed some water leaking from under our sink—a pipe was loose and there was a big soggy mess warping the wood. Argh!!

Thursday I was all prepared to go back to the grind, only to get a special treat—SNOW DAY!! Mike and I relaxed and watched movies all day and were generally very lazy. It was great!

On Friday I really did have to go back to work, but it turned out okay because my boss took us out to an extended celebration lunch of filet minon, sushi, and mojitos! After lunch, she let us go home a few hours early. Not a bad day!

Saturday we finished off the birthday celebration with a couple of different parties. First, we went bowling with some friends at Splitz lanes in Westminster. Even though I am a horrible bowler, it was a great group of people and a really fun time. After bowling, we met up with over 20 people who had driven from all over to meet us at the Rio in Boulder. We had a very yummy dinner and some fabulous margaritas. Yum!! After the Rio, we met up with another group of friends and two of them were having birthdays too, so it was an extended celebration.

So, last week was fabulous but, unfortunately, this week it’s back to the grind. Oh well, I guess not every week can be birthday week!

A Green Beer Substitute

From Mike:

It seems like the month of March is flying by! I hope you’re all enjoying the unseasonably warm weather…we definitely haven’t gotten outside as much as we had hoped this month, but I did get to go snowboarding a couple of times, which was great.

Earlier this month we drove to Wheatridge to attend an anniversary celebration for Kelly’s old youth pastor, Tom Coffan. By the grace of God, he has been working with youth for 40 years! Having worked with youth for a number of years myself, I have no idea how he has the patience, willpower, or stamina required to work in youth ministry for so long. God bless him!

Last week we went to see a Rocky Mountain Rage hockey game with some good friends of ours, and while we weren’t that interested in the game itself, it was a great time to catch up and enjoy each other’s company. A few fights broke out too, (among the hockey players) which made the evening that much more enjoyable.

On Sunday, we drove downtown to join in on the St. Patrick’s Day festivities for the Running of the Green. We met up with some friends who ran the race earlier that morning and had a few free beers while watching the masses dance to an Irish band playing a few cultural favorites. Although we wanted to keep with the spirit of the holiday, we couldn’t find any restaurant serving corned beef and hash, so we ate Mexican food instead. 

Last week I went to the doctor with kidney stone-esque symptoms, but luckily was not feeling any pain. The urologist said it was probably a kidney stone, since I have had them in the past, but I was confused why I couldn’t feel it. So I went in for a CT scan on Monday and will find out what it is/was next week. In the meantime, the symptoms I had last week are gone, and if it was a stone, I definitely passed it. So that’s exciting. It’s times like these when I’m reminded to drink lots of water!

Much to Kelly’s excitement, Tuesday brought our last dodgeball game. Unfortunately, we played against the one team who hates our guts. This team, whom we had played twice already, just couldn’t seem to get along with our scrappy little team of neophytes, and once again, we spent the entire game arguing with them about the rules, who was out, and who was cheating. It was not very much fun, and we lost, but we made ourselves feel better by going to a nearby bar in search of a green beer. This bar, however, was seriously lacking in the St. Patrick’s Day spirit, because nary a green beer was found! When we got home that evening, Kelly treated herself to a tall glass of green milk instead.

On Wednesday, my parents invited us over for a home-cooked meal and we spent the evening chatting and devouring corned beef, potatoes, fruit salad, cornbread and cookies and ice cream…it was delightful!

So that’s pretty much it. I hope you’re all well and drinking plenty of water. Until next time!

It's Been Awhile

From Kelly:
Well the fact that this blog is the first since February 2nd should teach you something: I am much better about nagging Mike to do something than I am about doing it when it's my turn (this phenomenon also applies when it's my turn to empty the litter box).

I will try to sum up the past few weeks fairly briefly, though, so that our loyal readers (aka parents) don't start reading only Mike's posts. . .

I guess I can start by telling you what I've been doing lately and that is, in a word: Working. A lot. All the time. It's really very un-fun. Especially since I thought I was getting paid for overtime and found out last week that in fact I am not. So, all this extra time (60-70 hour weeks) is just volunteer work. Yay. Somehow that's not at all motivating, especially on a gorgeous Saturday where you are forced to be cooped up in an office with no access to even a window. Yuck!! Okay, I am going to try to make that all the complaining I do about work in this blog.

We celebrated Valentine's Day by taking a very nice trip down to Colorado Springs. I had a free hotel room that I had to use by the end of February, so we decided to use it for a weekend away in the Garden of the Gods. While we were there, we walked around Manitou Springs, walked around the Garden of the Gods, and had a wonderful dinner at The Sunbird Restaurant. The restaurant was up on the side of the mountain and overlooked the city of CS, so it was a wonderful place to enjoy the evening. The food was amazing as well. The next day we met up with my good friend Julie in Colorado City and had lunch, which was so great. I love spending time with Julie and Mike was really glad to get some time to get to know her in a smaller setting than when he'd met her before.

Last weekend was our anniversary (thank you all for the anniversary wishes/cards!) Mike spoiled me rotten with the valentine's day/anniversary gifts. He gave me a chocolate rose on valentine's day and then every day until our anniversary he gave me a present that was bigger and/or better than the day before. It was AWESOME!! My gifts included gift cards, a wallet, a massage, a mani/pedi, flowers at work, a book he made me, a magazine, a book, etc. On the last day he got me a wonderful Coach purse that I'd had my eye on. I LOVE it! For someone whos love language is gifts, this was a wonderful idea :)

The day before our anniversary we went snowshoeing with some friends up near Ward, CO. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded, so it was a great trip. It was our first time snowshoeing and we both loved it. I am really looking forward to the next time we'll be able to get up there.

On our anniversary we went to Boulder and painted pottery. We decided to each paint something that reminded us of a favorite memory of our first year. Of course we both painted travel scenes-- Mike's mug had Costa Rica on it and my bowl had scenes from NYC, DC, Costa Rica, and Oregon. After pottery painting we had some sushi and then came home and relaxed. For dinner that night we went to Elway's in Cherry Creek and they brought us a special "anniversary ding dong" that had "Happy Anniversary" written in chocolate on a homemade ding dong. It was really cool.

Ok, well I guess that's enough to get you caught up with what's been going on with us. I hope things are going well for you and that you'll send us an update when you can!!