Sunshine & Weekend Things

Literally, as I wrote that post title, the sun disappeared behind a giant cloud.

I’m sorry if you live anywhere on the East Coast (North or South), but aside from the aforementioned cloud, we’ve got sunshine and 65 degree weather here in Colorado.  I planned to take full advantage by going on a outdoor run, but I came down with a cold (that’s #2 of the year for those of you keeping track), so I’m taking advantage by writing this post out on the back patio.

How was everyone’s Valentine’s Day?  I kicked mine off early by sneaking into my parents’ office with my sister on Thursday night and putting balloons, flowers, chocolate and a card in my mom’s office.  Word on the street is that she was totally surprised and we made her cry.

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Joey and I celebrated by having an early dinner at a new-to-us restaurant called Humboldt where I learned that Merlot can also be white and that while fried broccoli drizzled in a cheese sauce might defeat the purpose of broccoli, it is also 100% worth it.  In all seriousness, I was blown away by the service, ambiance and food!

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Afterwards, we headed to the movie theater, watched 40 minutes of Her then evacuated when the fire alarms started going off.  We ended up waiting outside for half an hour while the fire department checked everything out then got to watch the rest of the movie, which I loved.  It was realistically futuristic, funny, sweet, sad and thought provoking all at once.

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Guess what we did on Saturday morning!  Cake Tasting #3.  Last one, I promise.  This one was in Park Hill, a Denver neighborhood I’d never really been to but thought was so cute!  Definitely a family-friendly type of place.  And the bakery was packed!  We took that as a good sign, but after tasting the cake, we decided it wasn’t our favorite.  Then I pawned all this off on my mom 😛

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Later that afternoon, we headed into Boulder for the Boulder International Film Fest, or as I like to call it, “BIFF.”  I definitely did not expect to have to wait in a giant line outside the Boulder Theater but it turned out that we did.  We saw The Face of Life, which is about a woman who starts a relationship with a man who is identical to her deceased husband.  I liked it but I think (after only two years of attending) I’m over BIFF.  I could watch a non-mainstream movie at home and I wouldn’t be in the second to last row of a crowded theater that I paid $13 to get into.

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By this time Cold #2 had me feeling pretty wiped out, so I was in bed by 5 PM and basically didn’t get back up for the rest of the night.  We tried to catch up on the Olympics (oh my god Jeremy Abbott!) and watched one of the documentaries that’s up for an Oscar this year.  And then I ate like 3 meals in bed.  Because the age old adage of “Feed a cold, starve a fever” is the only good thing about being sick, right?

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Today started with me feeling like crap (morning and nights with a cold are the worst!), but I felt better once I got up, showered and ate breakfast.  I even rallied and opted to walk instead of drive over to a coffee shop to do some Save the Date addressing.  Although, I made us leave once I’d reached shaky hand levels of caffeination, which was making it difficult to write.

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Once we got home, we dined alfresco for lunch then hung out with this cat, which I think belongs to our next door neighbor.  Fact: I am a total cat person.  Fact: Joey is allergic and therefore hates cats.  I spent most of lunch trying to convince Joey that it’s eyes were normal cat eyes, it wasn’t going to attack him and the sound it was making was purring, not hissing.

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So now that I’m finishing up this post, the sun is finally setting, so I’m moving… to my bed — I swear I’d be sitting on the couch if it wasn’t still in the middle of our kitchen, up against a super dusty plastic divider — and taking it easy, while Joey continues his rampage of productivity.  True Story: He doesn’t handle caffeine well and can’t seem to sit still.  I’m fine with it because it means our yard is raked, the laundry is done and he just headed out to the grocery(?!?!).

Happy Sunday!

Super Bowl Weekend Things

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Hi there.  It’s Lauren, reporting from the super sad state of Colorado and that has nothing to do with the fact that it pretty much snowed all weekend.  I joked yesterday that my life would be completely unchanged by the outcome of the Super Bowl, but it turns out that even I feel depressed today.  I imagine every Super Bowl party in Colorado was as equally tense and quiet as the one I was at yesterday.  I think I’d like to go back to watching a Super Bowl between two teams I don’t care about at all.  In happier news, Bruno Mars?!  Amazing!

Much less depressing things took place during the rest of the weekend.  Like Friday night at… the movie theater!  I know, you probably didn’t even see that coming because my winter weekends are not predictable at all, right?

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Remember when I said we saw 12 Years a Slave at a super funky and tiny theater in Denver?  This is their other theater.  It’s much bigger and much funkier.  We saw all five of the Live Action Shorts that are nominated for Oscars this year.  It was by far, one of the coolest things I’ve seen at a movie theater!

Saturday called for a hot breakfast — in addition to being on a green smoothie kick, I’m also back on an oatmeal kick after being kind of sick of it for basically the past year and a half — and um, Harry Potter?  I planned on re-reading the entire series but I’m halfway through the third book and kind of don’t care anymore.

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But the highlight of Saturday — and that’s really saying something because I also got a facial, had lunch with my dad and saw a fun live band with Hannah, Josh and Fletcher that night — was our first cake tasting!  Any Food Network Challenge fans out there?  You know Keegan Gerhard, the host?  He owns a restaurant/bakery in Denver called D Bar Desserts, so we obviously had to taste their cake.

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For the record, Keegan was not there, but I didn’t even care because I had all this!  A team of two adorable cake bakers put together three mini sample cakes, then supplied us each with a slice of three different cake flavors and a plate of all their fillings so we could mix and match as we pleased.  Joey went into a sugar coma midway through but recovered in time to eat a few more bites of cake.  We have two more cake tastings to do so I plan of being 5 pounds heavier by the end of this month 🙂

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Let’s see, we already discussed the worst parts of Sunday so let’s keep to happier topics of conversation.  Like this Super Bowl Saison we picked up for the festivities.  I may have dropped this growler in the car during the drive and it started fizzing everywhere.  I attempted to tighten the cap and that just made things worse.  Oopsie!

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I can always count on Josh’s family to provide good food.  If you’ve never eaten a Mexican eggroll, you haven’t lived.  Then I filled out this proposition bet sheet.  Turns out it’s a lot easier to do if you don’t know what half of the football terms are.  One of the questions was what kind of hat Bruno Mars would be wearing, so when he came out at half time, someone pointed out that he wasn’t wearing one, to which Hannah’s dad responded, “That’s not a hat??”  Best moment of the game!

Did you watch the Super Bowl?