Category: Denver Passport

4th of July Weekend Things

Lauren5 Comments

So here’s the thing.  I am ALL FOR a three-day holiday weekend and seeing as it’s days before my birthday, I should be all about the 4th of July but year after year, I just find it kind of disappointing (and why does it always seem to be rainy??).  Plus how can you possibly beat last year’s festivities?  This is all to say that this year I set my expectations much lower and it ended up being a perfect, albeit low key, holiday weekend.  I didn’t want it to end!

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We kicked things off on Thursday night, by grabbing beer and dinner with my family at a new-to-us brewery in Westminster.  We had time to enjoy our drinks and super sloppy burgers in the sunshine before a rainstorm swept in and started doing fun things like overturning tables on the patio.  We scooted out of there pretty quick!

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Friday’s day off started with a lazy morning run and breakfast on the front porch and ended with us throwing another BBQ!  The first BBQ is a lot of work but the second BBQ is such a breeze.  The house is already clean, the supplies are already stocked and you’ve realized that drinking a pitcher of sangria is a bad idea.  Joey was all excited that he had a festive shirt to wear till I pointed out we were matching again.

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Oh right and the BBQ occasion was July birthdays!  I turn 26 on Thursday and Tyler, the other July birthday-er was in town so I didn’t have to throw a party for just myself.  Clearly, we have both perfected the stand-awkwardly-while-people-sing-“Happy Birthday”-to-you stance.  There was double cobbler and ice cream with CHUNKS OF PEANUT BUTTER AND CHOCOLATE.  I was all “oh that’s a lot of ice cream, I’ll share with Joey” then ate it all.

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4th of July celebratory breakfast!  I felt weird going to Illegal Pete’s when I have pledged lifelong allegiance to Chipotle but I also really wanted a breakfast burrito and a Bloody Mary on the patio sooooo.  The burrito was ♥♥♥ but the Bloody was way meh.  I was also like “this burrito is big, I’ll never finish it” then ate the whole thing.  I guess that was the theme of the weekend.  Anyway, I’d totally go back to Illegal Pete’s for a dinner burrito and probably a margarita.  Full bar, for the win!

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As we finished breakfast, we realized “uhh we have NOTHING to do today.”  Weird!  Once home and lounging in the hammock, we devised a plan to bike to Littleton and go putt putt golfing.  So we sunscreened up, packed our backpack with snacks and water and headed out.  I mean it was hot, we got lost and never made it to putt putt and I saw three cars submerged IN THE Platte River but I had so much fun.  I’m not sure it counts as going on a bike ride together because I was always half a mile behind Joey but whatever.  And just like that, another Summer Bucket List item checked off!

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Evening plans included that grilled vegan pizza — you should’ve seen my face when Joey asked me if it had cheese — and an outdoor movie!!!!  Oh sorry, just a little excited.  I put the idea in Joey’s mind that we should set our guest room TV up outside and watch a movie from the hammock.  Ask and you shall receive!  So while I got our pizza all grilled up, Joey got the TV and DVD player all set up.  We brought out the blankets, pillows and pajamas and watched 500 Days of Summer.  Um could that movie be any more perfect?!  Oh and the neighbor kids were setting off fireworks so I’m pretending we had a private show.  BEST NIGHT EVER!

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Can I be honest?  I am SO BAD at taking Sunday pictures.  Unless I do something out of the ordinary, Sunday is usually comprised of laundry and me watching TV with the lights off, to avoid creating extra heat.  So really, you probably don’t want to see any pictures.  I did take this super sunny picture of the toast I had for breakfast which is totally on different bread that’s too thick to even constitute as toast and it’s a total downgrade for my favorite coffee shop.  Who do I speak to about this??

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Also, I decided restocking myself on granola (because I was getting sick of crumbling frosted wheat cereal over things and pretending it was granola) was worth turning on the oven.  A little sweat mustache in the middle of the day never hurt anyone, right?  Then I ordered myself a magnetic knife holder online, finished my book (it was kind of depressing), watched more TV and decided drinking coffee on a Sunday was a terrible idea.

What did you do this 4th of July weekend?

Denver Passport Part I

Lauren1 Comment

I’ve mentioned this before, but I take these little work break walks a couple of times a day (weather-permitting*).  Most of my co-workers give me this look when they see me leave the office to take those walks.  This look is the same look they give me when they see me eating a salad for lunch.  Like “how dare you invest in your own health, you deranged maniac.”  Or possibly I’m just projecting.  Because I’m a deranged maniac.  So off topic right now.

Anyway, the other day, Joey offered to join me on one such walk (the perks of working with your spouse!) and I forced him into a serious discussion of how I should go about writing about our Denver Passport experiences.  Do I do one post per restaurant/brewery/bar?  Do I do a whole months worth at once?  Do I just do one long recap at the end of the summer?  This is serious!  We settled on five per post, so here’s the first installment!

* This is the new way we end every single sentence here in Second Seattle** where it rains EVERY SINGLE DAY

** Second Seattle is the new way we refer to Colorado

Humboldt :: Farm Fish Wine

Humboldt

We’d been here before for Valentine’s Day but never for Happy Hour and it turns out their HH is AWESOME.  Which is great because their regular dinner menu is way too expensive to justify coming for anything other than a special occasion.  They have this famous burger and it happens to be on the HH menu + fries for $9.  We ordered it and they brought half of it out and we thought “oh, so that’s the catch” then they brought out the other half and our brains exploded.  Add smoked trout dip in a tiny mason jar, mussels accompanied by the most amazing thick-cut garlic bread for dipping in all that extra broth and a peppery cucumber cocktail and I’m dead.  Joey put it best when he exclaimed “I wanna double high five you!”

Jezebel’s Southern Bistro + Bar

Jezebel's

I already talked about this one in a “Weekend Things” post, plus this is already wordy enough so I’ll just say more of their shrimp and grits, please!

Wurstküche Sausage Bar

WurstkucheWe walked here last Monday for a pre-Rockies game dinner and I totally felt like I was cheating on Biker Jim’s.  The good news is, after eating and drinking at Wurstküche, BJ’s remains my favorite dog house (<– see what I did there?).  I had a jalapeño mango sausage and the flavor was on point!  Plus they have something like ten different mustards to choose from and thick cut French fries that was turning me into that hearts-for-eyes emoji.  But our bartender was also super awkward so that was weird.

Park & Co.

Park & Co.

This place can do no wrong, if you ask me.  Little and I got matching Strawberry Rhubarb Mules for our sister date last week and all was right in the world.  Then we had deep philosophical conversations that I sometimes try to have with Joey and he just gives me this look like “go have this weird conversation with your sister, please.”

Cart-Driver

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Ugh, it’s a toss up between this and Humboldt for best passport experience so far.  Another Monday, another pre-Rockies walk to dinner.  This place is teeny tiny so it worked out to go early on a Monday when it wasn’t jam-packed.  We got bellinis, bar nuts and a clam pizza and OH MY GOD, that pizza was life-changingly good.  Decadent white sauce, crispy salty prosciutto and fresh herbs galore.  Plus the staff was so dang nice and genuine.  They have a “Four Seasons” pizza that I cannot wait to go back and try.

Dying to go to next:

Colt & Gray // Two words: TIKI. DRINKS.

Gozo // Been there, wanna go back!

Goldspot Brewing // How have we not been to one of the breweries yet??

Lou’s // But only if we can sit on the patio and only if “hot chicken” means fried chicken.

Freshcraft // Their drink offering is called “Afternoon Delight”…