Fuzzy Cabbages!!!

Jon and I took advantage of the great weather yesterday to head over to South Valley Park for some hiking. (For those of you regular readers, this is close to the park where Jon's brother Joe went running last weekend.) We had a great time and walked about 3 miles on the trails. We saw many dogs (including a Dauschund!) but no elk, despite the name of one of the trails. The landscape is striking and serves as a reminder that Colorado is in fact a very arid climate (why did I always picture it as verdant and lush??). It's still pretty, just so different from Dallas. One of the plants that is prevalent in the landscape is what I call the fuzzy cabbage. I have no idea what it really is - question of the week! Does anyone know the actual name?

After the hike we headed back towards home and grabbed a slice of pizza at a local place we like. Then it was off to Home Depot with everyone else to purchase gardening supplies. We bough a rake, fertilizer, potting soil, 3 herbs (chives, mint, and hot & spicy oregano - Jon's choice!), plus a small purple primrose. We planted our new plants in small pots on the deck so that they can come inside in case of freezes. It's hard to know what and when to plant here - it's been in the 60's for a couple of weeks now but everyone says March usually gets quite a bit of snow. We're just learning as we go along I guess. I do love this time of year though - new plants and new plans for the garden. I hope everyone else is having fun planning their garden too!

trip to dallas

I took 2 days off of work to fly to Dallas for a bridal shower. My mom was hosting it for a really close family friend (womb to tomb family friends!) and I'm a bridesmaid so I really wanted to be there. Friday was spent flying in and then shopping and cooking for the shower. We made super-yummy chocolate mouse, among other things. Saturday morning was more prep work and cleaning, and the shower was Saturday afternoon. We had a great time, and Julia was surprised that I was there (the rest of her family knew, but she had asked for surprises!). The shower was fun - Taylor had a game where we had to take a quiz about Jeremy and Julia. Who knew that chili dogs played such a prominent roll in their relationship?? (Apparantly it was a stipulation that Julia had to like them before Jeremy would agree to date her.)

Taylor and Julia and their family stayed at our house that evening for snacks and Mexican Train Dominoes. That game is totally addicting and has become a tradition at holidays and other gatherings between our two families.

Sunday Mom, Dad and I drove to the Arboretum for Dallas Blooms. It was gorgeous! Thousands of tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, and other spring bulbs were blooming. We saw 3 or 4 different brides having their portraits done - one was by the waterfall where I had some of my pics done! That evening we vaccinated 4 of the 5 of Mom's cats. It actually went well - except we couldn't catch Bobo. She knows what the towel means and is not afraid to bite back. Luckily, Mom grabbed her Monday morning so she is now fully vaccinated too.

Monday I slept late and then flew back to Denver. After about a month of being vegetarian, I ended up eating some chicken salad from the shower. It had celery and almonds in it and was really good! The vegetarian thing is hard sometimes!

Joe comes to visit!

I was so happy to see Joe when he came up to visit us before his annual work convention. Unfortunately, Jen had left the Denver airport about 15 minutes before Joe arrived. I had to work all day, so Joe made use of the free time and went over to Deer Creek Canyon and ran about 16 miles! He said he didn't expect to see snow on the ground, and actually had some battle wounds from when he slipped into the snow (knee deep!).

When he got to the house, we went out walking the neighborhood trails... maybe a mile and a half. Our neighborhood has a great view of the foothills and state park, and I wanted to make sure he got to see the views (even though he had ran enough!).

I cooked up some asparagus, potatoes, and crab-stuffed sole for dinner, and then Joe and I enjoyed a beer and a cigar on the patio. Its kind of been a tradition with us to smoke a cigar whenever we get together.

The next morning, Joe and I took the scenic route (only stopping for directions twice) up to Rocky Mountain National Park. Once there, we went to a shoe store to get Joe some decent shoes, then to a sporting shop to rent some show shoes. After a quick lunch, we headed up to the Estes Park entrance to the Rockies and began snow shoeing. It was so much fun. We did a short hike to Beak Lake, then backtracked and hiked 1.5 miles to Nymph and Dream lake. We enjoyed the views at Dream Lake for a while, then headed back down... and didn't take the path we originally took. Its hard to stay on the trails when the trails are covered in snow! We ended up hiking down some really nice snow hills towards Bear Lake. Once back, we drove around the park and hiked another mile or two on dry land.

On the way back home, we ate dinner at the Hungry Toad in Boulder.

Once back home, we called it an early night and went to bed. Joe woke up early to attend Mass and then head on to the conference. It was great to see him. Wish Jen had been here for the visit! Unfortunately, she was at a work conference of her own!

The furniture hunt continues

It's warm here! Open the windows and wear flip-flops warm! Everyone has told us that March is the month that averages the most snow, so we certainly weren't expecting to have a week of 60's weather. Jon and I took a long walk yesterday out on the trails around our neighborhood. The weather was gorgeous and we found a new trail that we haven't done yet.
Afterwards we headed out to continue our search for a china cabinet and dining set. On the way we stopped at a Mediterranean restaurant that looked interesting. It's definitely one of our new faves. Jon had lamb gyros with rice and salad and I had the veggie plate (hummus, baba ganoush, tabouleh, rice, falafel, a stuffed grape leaf, and salad). We also split some spinach samosas (?) for an appetizer. It was my first experience with falafel and I loved it. In fact, everything was super-yummers!
Our next stop was Moosely Seconds - a furniture consignment store. Most of the stuff they have is brand-new, just being discontinued. We found a dining set with china cabinet that we like, so now we just have to make a final decision. This will be the first major furniture purchase that we have done together - crazy! The good thing is that we tend to like the same styles of furniture. =)

Portland

The past week I spent in Portland at a continuing education symposium that my company puts on for us. There were some nice refresher courses in medicine plus we had other sessions on finance, communications, and stress management. The conference was good, but with everything being in the hotel (our rooms, all the conference sessions, all our meals), I felt a little cooped up. Luckily our hotel was right on the river by the river walk so I tried to get out to walk along the river a couple of times a day. For most of the week we had great weather - apparantly very un-Portlandy. Also the tulips and daffodils were blooming so everything felt very springy and made me want to start thinking about garden plans for our new yard. =)