Weekend Things: Studio C, Holiday Flea and Our First Real Tree

If Michael Jackson’s Free Willy song comes on while your driving home on Friday, it just has to be a good weekend.  And just knowing I had a bestie dinner date, the KBCO Studio C Vol. 27 release, breakfast with my mom, the Denver Holiday Flea and Christmas tree decorating to look forward to made it very difficult to make it through an entire day of work on Friday!

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We met Hannah and Josh at Fat Sully’s newest location on Tennyson for Friday night dinner.  We had to introduce them to the 26″ pizza, obviously.  Those slices are SO HUGE and I swear it took me two hours just to eat one.  Also, we all reminisced about when we used to live together.  Ah, those were the good old days!

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Saturday started at 5:45 AM (NO!) when we picked my mom and Wayne up for the annual KBCO Studio C CD release.  Standing in line and making friends (or enemies if someone tries to cut you in line…) is half the fun of this tradition, but this year we decided to get breakfast first, THEN get in line.  Less waiting, less hangry Lauren.  Win, win.  Joey snapped this lovely photo of my mom and I.

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This was Wayne’s first time experiencing the tradition and it was so fun to have a first-timer to tell all our past Studio C stories to.  “And then there was the year it so cold and a kid was tunneling himself into the snow?!”  For the record, Vol. 27 is so so good and even has Kaleo on it!  Also, I put both my hands out to receive my CDs at the register and the Whole Foods employee exclaimed “AWW, your hands are so cute!”  I can’t stop laughing about that.

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Afterwards, we roped my mom and Wayne into picking out a Christmas tree with us.  We’ve always had a fake one because we thought Joey was really allergic but we threw it away last year, so we figured it was a good opportunity to test the allergy theory.  Joey was so excited to find “the perfect tree!” that he couldn’t even keep his eyes open.  That or I’m a bad picture-taker…  Mom picked one out too and it turned out to be just her height!  Meant to be, obviously.

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I felt like I really needed to capture Joey’s first tree memories, including that part where he was on the floor underneath it trying to get the stand to work correctly.  We only ever had a real tree when I was younger and I forgot just how good they smell.  I get excited every time I walk into our house!  And considering Joey was all up in this tree without any allergy issues, I think we’re good to go!

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A few hours and some napping (early wake up call, remember?!) later, we cleaned up and took ourselves to the Holiday Flea!  I had been looking forward to it for a month but go figure that when the time came to actually go I wasn’t feeling that into it.  I think it probably had something to do with being tired and having to get out of my sweats, but you know what?  We LOVED it!!!  Picture every Denver artisan in one big warehouse + music, booze and food trucks!

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I wasn’t sure we were actually going to buy anything, but we ended up with so much fun stuff and were totally shocked that it was all reasonably priced.  I think Joey was most excited about this Ginger Beer concentrate that was so delicious and it going to make for the most excellent Moscow Mules and I’m most excited about this $2 magnet that just gets me, ya know?  Plus we got lots of Christmas shopping done and I’m like “I have to wait 18 more days to give these presents?!”  So fleaking fun!

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Sunday was all about coffee (I picked up some more Huckleberry coffee beans, had them in my car for about 2 minutes and now it smells sooo good in there!), breakfast that included homemade coconut butter (serious yum), “Christmas at Bobby’s” on Food Network, outdoor running, finishing up our “exterior illumination,” broccoli cheddar soup and decorating the Christmas tree.  We played Christmas Vacation in the background and drank Brandy Milk Punch and my heart was happy.

How was your weekend??

Weekend Things

Guys, I was this close to getting tickets to see Jimmy Fallon at the Buell on Friday night.  Sadly, they were already sold and it was probably for the best considering I was fully asleep by 9:30.  I was not kidding about feeling exhausted on Friday.  So instead of Jimmy, I spent Friday at our favorite place… Home Depot (kill me), then snuggling up on the couch with the Sound of Music Live.  Cold winter nights are the best excuse to be a total homebody, amiright?

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As for the Sound of Music, it definitely fell flat.  I get that it was formatted like the stage version not the Julie Andrews version, but I felt angry every time a song was “in the wrong place” and Carrie Underwood did a terrible job acting.  Her singing was phenomenal but the acting… just no.  Also, Rolf’s jorts.

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Anyways, it was probably also good that I went to bed at 9:30 because we woke up at 5:30 the next morning to 1) Take our fabrication shop workers some donuts and 2) Head to Boulder for the annual KBCO Studio C CD release.  They start selling the CD at 8 AM so we are usually in line by 6 AM, but it was below zero this year so we opted to go to breakfast then get in line once the doors were already open.  It made for a much shorter wait.

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Plus I didn’t have to sit around for 2 hours feeling crabby and hungry 🙂  No joke, my mom managed my breakfast order from across the table with some subtle suggestions and facial expressions to execute her plan of having us share a short stack of sourdough pancakes (the best!) and a California omelette.  She’s sneaky, that one.  Plus a soy latte the size of my head.  Much needed after a 5:30 AM wake up call.

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Check out the temperature on Joey’s phone in this picture!

I can tell I’m getting older by how many songs I recognize on the CD.  I think I’m up to about 80% this year.  I can’t decide if that’s depressing or relieving.  I would say KBCO plays the more “mature” hit songs, rather than anything that’s performed at the MTV Music Awards.

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Afterwards we did some Christmas shopping for my niece and nephew.  My niece is now Barbie age which is really fun for me (I get to re-live my childhood!) but also terrifying.  Like Barbie just always has to wear a skirt or short dress?!  I searched high and low for CEO Barbie in a smart pant suit to no avail.  But I did locate Mid Life Crisis Ken.  Dude is way too old to be dressing like that.

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Back at home, I put up our one and only outdoor Christmas decoration (so far anyways) then promptly hid in our room so as not to be a part of any soldering (<— who knew that’s how you spelled that!) that was going on to fix the leaks in both our kitchen sink and our main water line.  A problem that we definitely did not have in our budget. Ooh, I just had a brilliant idea to add a “not in our budget” tag.  I bet it jumps to the most tagged item by the end of all our house renovating.

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Anyways, all the leaks are now fixed so I’m happy.  The rest of Saturday included a lot of me reading in bed, then we tackled some more painting and got our hallway done before calling it quits to eat dinner, put up our Christmas tree and watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Serious question: what happens to Whoville when that snowflake they live on melts?!  I was hellbent on staying up to watch SNL.  When did it get so hard to stay up till 10:30?  We pretty much laughed through the entire thing.  Paul Rudd is the best!

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Today has been a very relaxed day.  As in I have no idea what I’ve even done today besides sleep in till 9:30, work out and watch the end of John Mayer’s 2007 concert at the Nokia Theater (seriously the best!).  Oh and we did just have “linner” at a little marketplace on Larimer (which is always so pretty during the holiday season), and I made a giant mess with this portobello mushroom reuben.

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Happy Sunday!