Memorial Day Weekend Things

Gosh, I love Memorial Day Weekend.  Because A) 3-day weekend, duh B) I consider it the unofficial kick off to summer and C) the annual running of the Bolder Boulder!  What isn’t there to love about any of those things?  Despite the scary thunderstorm we had every.single.afternoon. all weekend, it just felt so damn summery and my happiness was at an all time high as a result.

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Confession: I’m obsessed with Yelp.  I don’t visit a restaurant without first consulting my fellow Yelpers’ reviews and I don’t go to a restaurant without adding my own review afterwards.  I was recently granted Elite status on Yelp, which turns out, means I get invited to a ton of cool events, including shows at the Buell.

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We got two tickets to American Idiot in the orchestra section (right up front!!) and it was AMAZING!  I should preface by saying I thought this show looked so stupid and I’m not a Green Day fan, but my opinion on something has never done a complete 180 quite a quickly as it did after seeing this!  I seriously loved it and now I have 5 Green Day CDs on my iPod.  Send help.

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So in other words, I was wrong about American Idiot, I was wrong about Green Day but I was right about thinking drinking mixed drinks from a cup with a lid and a straw would be fun.  It is!  Also, Yelp is even better than I thought it was.  I just don’t think I can ever go to the Buell again and not sit in the orchestra section.  I’ve been ruined forever! 🙂

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Saturday morning started like this.  This is the third pair of running shoes I’ve purchased this month.  I started with a size 6 1/2 and by the third pair I was at a 7 1/2.  I was bad and brought my debit card, you know, just in case we decided to stop our run short and grab coffee.  Or maybe I planned to do it that way?…

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The afternoon was filled with a facial, an amazing fajita salad and our invitation design meeting.  We should be seeing proofs by the end of this week and I’m so incredibly excited!  I felt like we were ahead of time on the invitation stuff but our stationary gal made me feel like we were in a rush to get these printed, ahh!

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We planned on heading downtown to hit up a food truck for dinner, but we were driving right into this cloud and it was making me seriously nervous.  It was looking a little tornado-y for my liking so we promptly turned around and headed home.

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Sunday was all about yard work.  I mowed the lawn!  Confession #2: I’d seriously never used a lawn mower before Sunday.  I know… Now you know the spoiled childhood I lived.  But I fully intend on acting like an adult and helping with the mowing at our own house from now on.  After that and some weed pulling our yard looked 100x better.

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Rounded out Sunday night with homemade chicken nuggets, compliments of Chef Joey.  Ketchup for me, BBQ sauce for him.  He used this recipe, which is actually for fish nuggets (that we’ve also made and loved), but used chicken instead and they turned out fabulously.  The chef and that recipe are the best!  Dinner always tastes better when someone else cooks for you 🙂

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Doesn’t the drive into Boulder look fake?!  Those happy little cows, those flatirons, that snow way back there in the background.  It’s breathtaking.  And it was also perfect weather for the Bolder Boulder, aka my favorite race ever.  Not going to lie, this was the most unprepared I’d ever felt for the race, but I ended up running the whole thing pretty easily.  Extremely slowly, but still pretty easily.  And in a pair of shoes that I’d only run in once before.  That’s a serious racing no-no but I like to live dangerously.

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Much lounging was required afterwards.  Also, seriously can’t get over how blue the sky is in Colorado.  I may or may not have just stared up at it for half an hour while Joey was hard at work cleaning off our grill.  Couldn’t help it, I was mesmerized.

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Oh, and I bought this “Salad Bowl” at Whole Foods after the race and am so excited to cut me some fresh greens for big summer salads.  Let’s not discuss the price of the doormat that was the real reason I even went to Whole Foods.  Needless to say, I did not end up buying one.

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We ended Memorial Day with a little family BBQ at our place!  My mom not only supplied, but made all the food — except that apple pie 🙂 — which I think means she’s either a saint or Super Woman.  Possibly both.  Joey manned the grill, I frantically washed dishes, when I realized we had zero paper plates or plastic silverware and half our dishes were dirty, and my niece and nephew got into any and everything, as kids do 😛  I think it was an overall success.

Weekend Events that Went Uncaptured: our second go at kegging (my hefeweizen is on its way and thank god because we just ran out of Joey’s IPA!), Joey chasing a moth around our kitchen while I hysterically ran from the moth, booking an officiant (!!) and a billion episodes of Mad Men.

And now, let summer commence!

Thanksgiving x2

I like to laugh to myself when I read everyone’s Facebook/Twitter updates about being “SO FULL” after one Thanksgiving meal because Joey and I eat two every year.  We give new meaning to the word full, but I’m not complaining. I’m totally happy to enjoy Thanksgiving food twice in one day.  Until next year, that is, when we (and our house) are hopefully ready to host our first Thanksgiving!

Yesterday, our day started like it does every year… with a Turkey Trot!  But first, green smoothie fuel.  I’ll assume that face means Joey loved it.

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The first Turkey Trot we ever did (in 2010) was so cold so I always compare every year to that one.  Luckily, it has never been that cold again and this year, although chilly at the beginning, turned out to be pretty nice.  We’ve done a different race every year and I thought this one was really well organized.  Also, the teenage volunteers standing along the course looking tired and cold and expressionless were a really nice touch!

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I may or may not have run past the finish line instead of through it and several people had to yell at me to stop.  Only slightly embarrassing.  They gave us all frozen egg noodles at the end.  I’m sure they’re just normal noodles but that just sounds kind of gross, doesn’t it?

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Thanksgiving #1 with Joey’s mom.  I should probably just stop trying to bring vegetables as I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who ends up eating them.  Lori is always so prepared by the time we get there at noon.  I don’t think I want to know what time she gets up to get the turkey so perfect.

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Then of course, the annual Cowboys Thanksgiving game.  My life would be so much easier if I was into football and I swear I’ve tried, but my eyes look at the screen and my brain immediately wanders off.  I think it might be an incurable disease.  The Cowboys did win at least.  I find myself hoping they win more and more often as it means I don’t have to hear complaints about how they lost 😛

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Later that night, we headed over to my parents’, where I think we had just enough wine.  I brought these (without the lemon butter) and these (with 3x as much mustard…we like mustard) and they both turned out awesome!  Plus my mom went all out as usual and everything was phenomenal.  We deemed it her best stuffing yet.

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This is a picture of my sister putting a band-aid on my niece’s stomach because “it hurt,” aka she ate too much and was really full.  So adorable!  Also, my nephew obviously stripped down to his underwear within 5 minutes of being in the house and broke a wine glass halfway through dinner.  He’s a handful that one.

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Even Bunny was exhausted at the end of the night.  Joey and I actually ended up going home and catching part of the James Bond marathon playing on the SyFy channel.  I was having a real Bond hankering and was so excited to see Goldfinger starting just as we sat down on the couch.  How cool is Sean Connery as Bond?  And that “Goldfinger” song is the coolest.

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Black Friday has involved breakfast (because two Thanksgiving meals don’t ruin these appetites) and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  We always record and watch it the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s the perfect holiday hangover activity.  And because Joey and I are mean, we watched the whole show hoping one of the performers would fall when their float suddenly started moving.  No one did!

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Followed by more housework.  Now we’re back on the couch watching The World is Not Enough.  Is Pierce debonair or what?  I’m hoping we can get our floors finished tomorrow so we can have some holiday weekend fun but even with all the work we have to do, I’m still feeling pretty thankful 🙂