Weekend Things

It’s July!!!  But before we jump into my favorite, birthday-filled, peak summer month, let’s give some recognition to the end of June because it was truly a perfect end of the month weekend ♥

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A Friday night Rockies game that starts with Biker Jim’s and ends with a Dodgers defeat?!  Yes please!  I’m still making my way through the BJ’s menu and ordered the Southwest Buffalo this time around.  Also, they no longer carry my favorite Alaskan Reindeer and I felt personally to blame when they told me it was because it’s on the endangered species list… We maybe skipped out of the game early (I swear it’s always Joey who wants to leave lately!) because it was raining but we got to watch the Rox officially win back at home and YAY!

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Saturday!  And what a good day it was!  We started with a quick bike tune-up (thanks, Joey!) while our pup took in some morning sunshine and then we made our way to the Farmer’s Market ♥  We maybe didn’t even discuss our breakfast plan (which is VERY unlike me) but realized we were starving when we got there so after grabbing two iced coffees we split up to find food.  Joey got a burrito and reported that it was not good but I got a bagel from Woodgrain Bagels (a new fixture at the Union Station FM) and loved it!  I still need to look up what a Montreal-style bagel is though.  Back at home, I harvested a bunch of heads of lettuce (that I made a lunch salad with later on!) and Joey gave Andi a lil haircut (I completed his beauty routine later on by giving him a bath).  Then we hit up the cheese shop for picnic supplies!

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We had tickets to the Shakespeare Festival that night!  We checked and Joey and I hadn’t been together since 2013!  Thankfully, we had perfect pre-show picnic weather and the cheeses we got were really good!  I think my favorite combo is just cheese and dates?  We were maybe already full but pulled out the macarons for dessert.  Joey’s face when he bit into the salted caramel one though!

As for the show — Twelfth Night — we loved it!!!  Yeah yeah with the main characters, but the supporting characters, namely a drunken uncle named Sir Toby Belch and his companion in debauchery, Sir Andrew Aguecheek were a true riot.  Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Shakespeare Fest??  Gosh, SO much!

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We started Sunday at Thump Coffee with toasts (Joey gave me a bite of his avo-cream cheese-dill toast and whoa, I need to recreate that at home!), talk of July and maybe some Italian vacation plans?  We’re pretty serious about it, I think!  Back at home, we knocked out salads for the week in something like half an hour then Joey headed outside for yard work and I made a pie!!!  I’d been wanting to make this strawberry pie for MONTHS but was waiting for real strawberry season and it looked pretty good, if I do say so myself!

I also read for like an hour and a half outside and it felt too good to be true.  Followed it up with Sunday yoga and between that and this little arm workout Joey and I have been doing, my shoulders are actually dead today…

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Guys, we started watching Deadwood and even though I’m so into this Wild West stuff, we had to pause like 10 times and say “wait, what just happened?” so hopefully we become less dumb in the very near future and can understand the plot.  We also made one of our favorite dinners (with radishes from our garden, no less!) and followed it all up with Big Brother and two slices of pie!  Not going to lie, the structural integrity of this pie is extremely questionable.  As in, I cut a piece and basically all the strawberries slid off but no matter, it still tasted good!

July is already off to a good start because we’re headed to Film on the Rocks to watch Top Gun with the family tonight and I could not be more excited!  Hope your July is the best!

Weekend Things: SPOILER ALERT

WHAT A WEEKEND!!!  In short, we rode the G Line, saw Avengers: Endgame, had an incredible dinner, attended a performance of Cats, ran outside and watched the much anticipated third episode of Game of Thrones.  But, not in short, I have SO MUCH more to say about all of those things.  Stick around for it or don’t, but you’ve been warned 🙂

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The light rail station a mere two blocks from our house has been built for something like two years and they’ve just been testing this whole time.  I get it because safety first, but dang!  That’s a long time.  The G Line FINALLY opened Friday, it ran free all weekend AND we were headed right where it runs, so obviously we had to ride it.  We grabbed a quick casual dinner at Illegal Pete’s first, then walked (WALKED!) to the train.  As luck would have it, the wind kicked up right before our walk, so what should have been a pleasant stroll turned into an assault by tiny bits of dirt and sand.

SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!

BUT SERIOUSLY, SPOILER WARNING!

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Guys, I love love LOVED Avengers: Endgame!  If you’re going, please do yourself a favor and see it in a theater packed with other MCU fans, who will cheer, laugh and cry along with you.  Okay, I did not actually cry (or go to the bathroom!!!) but I don’t know the last time I felt as electrified as I did during that battle scene.  Cap wields Thor’s hammer!!!! Oh my god, I died!  And then Captain Marvel had the infinity gauntlet and all the lady warriors assembled around her and I died again.  And then for real, Iron Man died.  I maybe would have felt more sad about if I hadn’t been distracted by someone in the theater moaning “Nooo!  Nooo!  Nooo!”

In all honesty, the thing I’m most sad about is that I just got into all these films and only just discovered how fun it is to anticipate and watch these movies with everyone else and now… it’s over.  It happened too fast!  Also, shout out to how funny this movie is.  I laughed A LOT.

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I got up Saturday morning and ran 5 miles!  I try to ramp up the mileage around this time every year so I can make it through the Bolder Boulder but also because running the Cherry Creek Trail while it’s still cool (a bit too cool, if I’m being honest) and quiet in Denver gives me such joy.  And when I got back, Joey had coffee and waffles and dishes washed and now “joy” doesn’t seem strong enough a word ♥

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The rest of the day was spent doing a little bit (for me, but a lot for Joey!) of yard work, a trip to the grocery, walking our pup and then cleaning ourselves up for date night.  First, we hit up Spuntino for dinner and oh my god, why had we not been there before?!  We grabbed two seats at the bar and two VERY GOOD happy hour drinks, then feasted on warm focaccia with ricotta, fettuccine and the most beautifully striped ravioli.  I felt like we’d discovered a Denver dining secret and I can’t wait to go back!

Cats was… um, well, it was cats.  Throwing a cat ball.  In which a gumbie cat, a railway cat, a broken woman cat (???) were in attendance.  Look, the dancing is fabulous and the performance of “Memory” in the second act was PHENOMENAL — we immediately went home and listened to other versions of it and thought the one we’d heard live was by far the best — but WHAT IS THIS SHOW??  There’s basically no action, the songs are just okay and it was incredibly difficult to understand any of the words in the songs.  Which means I still have NO CLUE what a “jellical cat” is.

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Joey got up Sunday morning and ran 9 miles, so I stayed in bed to cuddle our dog and read, then when he got back, we took ourselves to Port Side for breakfast and May planning.  How is it already so booked??  I’m sort of sad April is almost over already, but I’m thinking May will be a good month 🙂  After, I made lunch salads while Joey started building us some flower boxes and then we made a trip to Mike’s Camera to order a picture we’re going to hang over our bed.  It felt so good to finally get that done!  I bottled a new batch of kombucha (Mango Cayenne!) before heading out to yoga.

GAME OF THRONES SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!

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Back at home, we made Buffalo Chicken Tenders for dinner — they were good and spicy but not quite crunchy enough for me — then watched Game of Thrones and I’m sorry to be a total bummer, but I did not like that episode.  For starters, I had a REALLY hard time seeing any of the action.  I think those dragons fighting in the air was cool, but I don’t know because I could barely see!  Narratively, it was a miss for me as well.  I was excited to see a Dothraki Horde fight and then I didn’t get to.  I have no idea where Bran warged to.  I just did not care about Beric dying and felt literally zero emotion about his connection to Arya.  I did not understand how Jorah was just right there to save Dany.  I wanted so much more from Jon, who I usually love to watch fight and I felt the Night King’s demise was so anticlimactic.  I’m still working out my thoughts on Arya being the one to kill him, because yes, Arya is badass, but for some reason, this just didn’t really feel like her fight to win.  I don’t know.  I really didn’t care for the scene ending on old Melisandre.  Please tell me your thoughts and arguments, because I’d honestly love to be talked into liking this episode.  I’d prefer it to the disappointment I currently feel.

All I’m saying is, I saw two epic battles this weekend.  One was utterly thrilling and one was not.  All GOT letdown aside, this weekend was amazing!  More please!