Weekend Extravaganza(s)

I have two absolutely fantastic weekends in a row! Let me briefly recap them for you.

Last weekend, Labor Day weekend. Dylan's friend came out to visit. He was in town Thursday through Tuesday, so the weekend felt even longer than the three day weekend.
Thursday started out great since I left work early to do a golf tournament for work. So when I got home I was already a couple drinks in and Dylan's friend had brought 17 bottles of wine with him. We broke into quite of few of them before, during and after dinner on Thursday. We also went to the gelato place by our house where they also have alcohol, so I had my first grasshopper--creme de menthe, white creme de cacao and ice cream. AMAZING. Ice cream AND mint AND alcohol?! How could my life get any better? And how had I made it so long without having one? Delicious.
Then Friday night we went out downtown to Sing Sings, which is a dueling piano bar. We always have a blast when we go there :) They have Buzz Buckets which is essentially a giant bucket of alcohol and juice and sprite. Delicious and dangerous.

Saturday we hung out a bit watching football. I had initially put on my CU gear, but Dylan and his friend convinced to put on red to cheer on the Huskers. I have decided that since we are now in different conferences and now that Dylan and I married, I can be a Huskers fan. It is a definite work in progress and the Buffs will always be #1 in my heart.

That night Dylan and I went out with two of my cousins and one cousin's girlfriend and her friend. We tried to go to the other piano bar downtown, but it turned out that it was closed. It must have just happened because their website didn't mention anything and when I last drove by it was still open. Ah well. So we headed to the Tavern and celebrated one of my cousin's recent 21st birthday! She just got back from Semester at Sea and had her birthday while she was gone, so we finally got a chance to celebrate with her. Let's just say we all had a lot of fun (even me and I was the DD!). We had to make a Wendy's run on the way home to counteract all the libations (and because I love french fries).
Sunday we went to the Taste of Colorado, which I have never been to. It is in downtown every year on Labor Day weekend. Delicious. How it works is that you buy tickets, this year it was $10 for 15 tickets and then those tickets get you food. Some places have little tasters or you can get a full sized meal. I mostly went the dessert route. I had a berry kabob (strawberries and bananas with white and milk chocolate drizzled on top) and two kinds of gelato--lemon and birthday cake, and then I also got some dark chocolate fondue.

I also had book club with my girls. We read Brave New World. Overall a different book. I think we liked it overall, but it was a bit on the disturbing side. Reminded me a lot of 1984 with the whole distopia concept.

Sunday night Dylan and I were pretty low key and then Monday we hung out with Dylan's friend and my friend and played games (Guesstures, Continental, etc.) most of the day and then went to dinner at the Chinese place by our house that we didn't know was a Chinese place.

Then onto this weekend. I had taken off Friday, Monday (yesterday) and this coming Friday in order to have some options to go visit Goose at school. She has one weekend field trip this semester and I didn't want to limit my time to visit her. Turns out her trip isn't until October... So this Friday I drove up to go visit her for the weekend.

We had a blast, as per always. I got in around 2:30 and we hung out and I saw her dorm (she is an RA) and then we hit up 5 B's, an amazing BBQ restaurant in town that inspired/provided one of Dylan and my favorite meals-the tatonator. Baked potato, bbq sauce, pulled pork, sour cream, cheese. Amazing. Then we went for a walk up to the Gunnison River. We bought some peaches at the farmer's market on our way. Then we just hung out and put our feet in the freezing water and chatted and laughed. After that we headed back to her room and watched Anna and the King, which neither of us had ever seen. Super good. We both really enjoyed it. After that it was my bedtime (10pm... I am so cool!).

Saturday I slept in until 10. 10! I usually get up around 8am on the weekends and I am lucky if I make it to 9 (and this was before the puppy started waking us up). We grabbed some breakfast at the dining hall and then headed up to Crested Butte. We went hiking on a trail across from Crested Butte. Overall it was a nice easy and beautiful hike. We had a lot of fun. Then we headed into the town and Goose got her Chai Tea Shake. I got chocolate and we split a basket of curly fries.

Then we headed back to Gunnison. We kept getting delayed in leaving to go to the Blue Mesa Reservior (in part because I was watching the end of regulation of the CU v. Cal game). We finally left and then Goosie, who was driving, got lost. Not just left or right lost, which had been going on a lot that weekend (really, she just doesn't know her right and left... :-P, Love you Goose!), but she forgot how to get where she wanted to go. So we did two U-turns and kept driving. We found the Bay of Chickens she was looking for, but it wasn't really where she wanted to go, but we could at least see the right beach. Back in the car and we finally made it. This whole time I was nervous it was going to pour rain and thunder, but the storm moved north, so we lucked out. We had brought our swim suits, but since it was already 6pm and kind of chilly, we just waded around and took silly pictures for an hour or two.

Then we read on the beach for a bit before we heading back to change into warmer clothes for dinner. Delicious Mexican food :) Then we hung out and laughed about our pictures from Blue Mesa and turned on EverAfter, to which I promptly fell asleep. Not because it is boring, I love the movie, but because it was 11:30pm and we had run around all day.

Then we grabbed breakfast at the Firebrand. Delicious waffle with bananas, whipped cream and syrup. Then I head back home to make it to puppy class and my friend's dad's 60th birthday.

Quite a lot of stuff going on these last two weekends! I keep trying to take time off to have some time at home (you know, to clean our house...which just is not happening right now, or to start thinking about some new projects and spend time with my adorable puppies), but that is not in the cards with everything else going on in my life. Ah well! At least I am living it up :)