Running at Red Rocks

The first time we went to Red Rocks it was on a Sunday morning. It is so beautiful there. And we were surprised to see so many people working out! Running the stairs, all kinds of excercise. So we made a promise to ourselves to go back and do it too. And today we did. It was wonderful! Running zigzags across all the benchs from the bottom to the top is a 5K. We probably ran about half then did some other workouts, but it was definetly one of the funnest workouts I have ever had. Being out in nature, surrounded by such beauty, you forget you are working out (besides the insane swamp ass). One of the coolest parts was there was some guy playing that Ricola horn (no idea what the real name is). It just added to the entire astetics. I think we are going to try and go back there as much as possible. It's a bit of a drive, but totally worth it. It definetly beats the gym ANY day.

Side note, we went to Red Rocks on the 4th of July to see Collective Soul, Live, and Blue's Travelers. The first two were great....ahhh, the 90's were such a great time. So many memories!! We only stayed for about 40 minutes of Blue's Travlers though, they came on late, and by that time the cloud of MJ smoke (coming surprising from the 40+ crowd) surrounding us had gotten to me. Still, it was such an awesome venue! Look at the website to see the pics. For some reason I can't find the ones we took in June.

Diets Suck

So I saw this book on sale at Target, and it looked like a do-able diet. Losing those stubborn last pounds.....something I've been needing to do. So I started this week. It's only a 30 day diet and I've only been doing it since last Tuesday, and it SUCKS! The workouts are challenging and I enjoy them, but the DIEt part....miserable. First of all most of the receipes take a lot more time than I am willing to give. Second of all, they don't taste that great. And third, most important, NO CHIPS AND SALSA on this DIEt!! What??? Chips and Salsa is a mainstay....it has been part of my life forver!! Almost every single day I have it. I can live for a while without sugar, and it's a struggle, but I can give up coke for a bit....but no chips and salsa and NO ENCHILADAS either! Oh, and no booze. I am not pregnant, so giving up the wine is really not clicking. This DIEt has no 'off' days or 'off' meals. You are supposed to follow it religously for 30 days...yep, I lasted a whole 4 1/2 days....I gave in. I couldn't take it. I had to go to Little Anitas for a plate of Green Chile Cheese enchiladas and some chips and salsa. It was AMAZING! Everything I've dreamed it would be all week. And I feel SOOOO much better. A bit guilty, but mentally I feel better. I've been bitching all week, part of it hormones fault, but I really think the big part is the dumb diet. I have a Catholic guilt complex, so of course I feel bad even thinking about deviating from this diet. So I don't think that at the end of these 30 days I'm going to feel comfortable "running on the beach in a bikini" as Jillian says. But even if I lose a few pounds I'd be happy. Still, my money is that is Little Anita's is going to come out the winner.

Welcome to this World Evan!

Renata, my really good friend from Maryland, and her husband Jason welcomed a sweet little blessing into the world this morning!! Weighing in at 7pds and 8 ounces. WOW! This really makes me miss Maryland.....I can't wait to meet Evan!! I am so happy for them!! I have been anxious since last week, thinking Renata was going go into labor last Friday!!! But Evan must have been super comfy in there.
Renata - much love and happiness being sent your way from Colorado!!!

New Cars Lead to Dispise of Salespeople

So I thought it was time to get a replacement car. My Avenger had seen me through a lot, and her time had come. So we did my least favorite thing, went car shopping. And seriously, how skeezy are car salesmen? Geezzz.
This guy was completely no pressure - at first. Everything went fine and I thought that the buying, although it would be painful, wouldn't be that bad. Man was I naive.
It was one of the worse experiences of my life! They get you to the 'negotiation' table, and suddenly it's a completely different person selling you the car. It's some creep, looking at you with dollar signs in his eyes. I had a sinking feeling the entire time....I should have walked away. I KNEW we were getting screwed, yet I sat there and took it like a good girl. WTF?
We bought the car on Thursday night. I cried a lot of Friday....I felt so taken advantage of...I feel so taken advantage of. I am SO mad at the dealership. They get off on people who don't REALLY fight back. People who are honest and expect honesty in return. I'm pretty sure that when we left Thursday night they high fived each other yelling 'suckers'.
But it's a done deal now. And the car is really nice. It's a four door, something I've been wanting a long time, and it's new and reliable. And hopefully it will last me 10-12 years. Then I'll have to go through this whole process again. Until then, I'm going to try and enjoy my beautiful new car, and get over the regret of over paying.

Backpacking - hazardous for my Health

Destination: Upper Turquoise Lake; elevation 11,500 feet
Via: Beaver Creek Trail
Stats: 7+ miles, climbing from 8,000 ft. to 11,500 ft.
Me: First attempt at backpacking in to go camping. Carrying 60+ pounds on my back. NOT A PRETTY SITE!

I went into this overestimating myself...and underestimating the trail. I have hiked before, but never carrying the necessities to camp for a night. I thought I was completely prepared, right down to my plush hiking socks. Boy was I wrong. At one point I told Tony and Justin that if they would just push me over a cliff everyone would know it was a mercy kill. I've never done ANYTHING that physically hard in my life. EVER! My hips were the most painful. Every step....searing pain, so of course poor Tony had to hear me bitch the ENTIRE 6 1/2 hours of our journey up. He was so sweet and just kept encouraging me. Anyone else would have jumped at the chance to push me over into the creek. Part of it was probably the fatigue at being at such a high altitude.
I'm hoping this trip hasn't ruined me forever with backpacking....but I'm not making any promises at this point, a mere 3 days after returning.
The lake was BEAUTIFUL! I still would have appreciated it just as much had the journey not been as hard though. There was still ice in the lake! And snow patches everywhere. The lake is only accessible on foot (or by horse), so in that way it is pretty special. Very serene. And I do love camping. It was just me and 5 other guys though. 3 of them were Tony's friends from Minnesota, and they were great to hang out with! We also got to see a ginormous porcupine and some marmots.
I really can't believe I made it. I can't believe I didn't give into the urge to break down and cry and demand someone get the forest service to perform a rescue for me. I made it to the top, and it was gratifying.

COMPUTER ON THE BRINKS

Our laptop is sick and is in the geek squad hospital. We are hoping for a full recovery in 2 weeks.....will post back log of blogs then.

O Fair New Mexico

Tomorrow I am going home for the weekend. Tony can't come because he can't take off work yet. :(
I'm so excited to see my grandparents and aunts and uncles...it will be great. I haven't been back to NM since last October.
I'm sure I will have lots of pics and stuff to talk about.

Also, Craig and Cheri came to Denver!! So we got to hang out with them a few days. It was so nice to see friends! I'll try to post the pics of our time together later.

Beautiful Song to share

I've loved this song for a long time. Then I was you tubin' Sufjan Stevens (another one thanks to Sean), and saw that he had done a version of it. And it's beautiful....just beautiful. The video is cool too.
Hope you have a minute to listen to it.
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Storms a brewin'

I'm sitting out on our balcony watching the most beautiful storm brewing. The clouds are changing by the seconds, rolling towards us. Every once in a while you can see the lightning and hear the thunder.
I had forgotten how much I loved a good thunderstorm. In New Mexico they were always amazing. And you could see the storms so far away, in a whole other town. Sometimes all you could see what the lightning. It is so romantic.
One of our first nights in Colorado we got to see a great storm off in the distance. The roll of thunder took me back to all those storms of my childhood. I remember the feel of electricity in the air. It was always so exciting, especially after a warm summer day.
I could sit here and watch this all night. Unfortunately Kirby had breathing problems last night, so no one in Casa de Richards slept well, and the closer it gets to 9pm, the heavier my eyelids get.
Here's some pics of what I'm looking at right now.



Kirby the asthmatic wonder dog

A day of Hiking

So this morning we decided to go on a little hike. We went to El Dorado Canyon, outside of Boulder. We both thought the hike was 3.5 miles.....no, it was 7, it was 3.5 one way!! We were kind of unprepared as far as water goes, and I am so out of shape!! I wasn't sure if I was going to make it at some points. But it was still great. Being up there was just beautiful. The creek is really flowing now, as the snow is rapidy melting. There were a lot of people rock climbing too, we could see someone really high up on one of the cliffs, and driving up to the park, there were quite a few people climbing as well. It gave us both the itch to get back into climbing/bouldering.

A touch of Politics

While on this blog today, I linked to one of Fish's favorite blog's, which led me to this article.

I don't read Ari's blog often, actually I've only read it a couple of times, but I really liked her opinion blog regarding this article. The article was short, read it for yourself, what do you think?

Feels like Home

This is what our apartment looked like for the first weekend we were here. Very comfy!


And this is what it looked like after the movers left.....




So needless to say, we've been busy. And I think we are finally done! Many many trips to Goodwill and still renting a storage unit, and our apt. now looks decent. It was good for us to be forced to go through what we had and really decide what was important.

Yesterday we went up to Estes Park. We just walked around and got something to eat. It was really crowded, but it has tons of cool little shops. We are hoping to go up there for our anniversary in November and stay at The Stanley. It's the hotel from The Shining. Yeahhhh!!!

We are really happy to be here. It is just beautiful, and I can't wait for people to start visiting us!! (hint hint hint)

We are home.....

We made it and are so happy to be here. Everything is great with the apt., and the movers are scheduled to be here Monday with all our stuff. And I know we are going to have to get rid of even more, the 1 bdrm is just too small. The apt. does stink really bad like curry, although today it is not as potent as yesterday, but I don't think Tony or I are going to be eating Indian food anytime soon. I'll take some pics and put them up so you know what the apt. looks like!

A day away!!

Here's a pic of Tony and our nephew Connor and Daniel.

We are in Kearney, NE tonight, tomorrow we will be in Denver. We can get our keys and move in tomorrow, and our drive there shouldn't be too bad.
Everything has been going good, although we did have one passenger drop out. Amy got really sick in Indiana and had to fly home out of Chicago. I'm sad that she hasn't been with us, but I wouldn't want to be sick away from home either. And at least I got to be with her for a few days.

Road Trippin', Melissa Flippin'

We made it to South Bend, Indiana. We left about 2 hours later than we had wanted...but that is no surprise. The drive was good, weather wasn't bad and neither was the traffic. The hotel was only 5 miles off of the interstate, didn't seem too far last night when i was trying to plan and find a dog friendly hotel....but it is kind of in the ghetto, we had to turn around twice, and this was all at 10:30 at night. I just try so hard to plan everything, then it turns out crappy. But God is watching over us, and we got the LAST hotel room at the hotel I had planned for us to stay at, and she gave me the Govt. rate even though it's a suite. But i feel bad b/c i was totally bugging and i took it out on Amy. She is doing us a HUGE favor by driving out with us. We really needed her, and now I'm being a raging psyco. I just get nervous and worked up. Hopefully a nights sleep will do us all good.

Tomorrow - Duluth.....

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!!!

Music & Lyrics

So the new Millencolin CD - Machine 15 is coming to America on May 6th!! I've loved Millencolin since the first time I heard No Cigar. I've heard a few of the songs from the new album....amazing. I'm going to have to get this CD for the Road Trip!

These lyrics to Turnkey Paradise kind of fit my current situation, with leaving the city and moving to the burbs...

You saw it all on TV
You read it all in magazines
No doubt that you could go on

You found a way to be free
This is what freedom really means
You found a place where that you belong

So welcome to suburban home
Welcome to a life only in chrome
For those who can't afford the market price
This is your paradise

Waiting to be found
Safe from the, far from the city
Your life when everything is pretty wack
And you're never looking back

Faraway from problems and fights
You'll learn what life is all about
In a place where we're all safe and sound

You had it all planned out right
Already you know it will turn out
No second thoughts, you are on solid ground

So welcome to suburban home
Welcome to a life only in chrome
For those who can't afford the market price
This is your paradise

Safe from the, far from the city
Your life when everything is pretty wack
And you're never looking back

You're never looking back

Safe from the, far from the city
Your life when everything is pretty wack
And you're never looking back

Looking back..
Looking back...
Never looking back...

This song is great, typical Millencolin. I highly encourage you to check them out!

Rocky Mountain High

view from look out at A-basin
Tony and Justin


Yesterday was kind of a cruddy weather day. It snowed most of the day (none of it stuck) and it was windy and cold. Later in the day it got nicer so we went up to Boulder to walk around the Pearl Street Mall and eat dinner. It was such a nice evening. The people walking around were just like you would expect, eclectic - no one really looked the same (except that most men had facial hair), everyone dressed differently, originally, it was refreshing. Everyone looked really casual.

Almost everyone we've encountered here, from the McDonald's workers to the car rental guy have been super nice too. Everyone gives you a smile and tells you to have a good day.

Today we woke up early and drove up to Silverthorne to meet up with Justin. He lives in Avon, so we met half way. We drove up to A-basin for the view. AMAZING! The runs are still open and are going to be running until late June, early July!! That's crazy! But there were tons of people up there. The wind chill was in the teens, so we couldn't stay out of the car for too long, but it was beautiful. Then Tony and I decided on the way back to take the back road to Estes Park...too bad we didn't know that 2 hours in the road was still closed until June! Oh well, at least the drive was scenic!

Tonight we went and got some amazing Mexican food....New Mexico mexican food, or as close as you can get. Best part? The sophapillas came with the meal! I love that!!

So tomorrow we fly home. Time to start really going through and tossing stuff. Our apt. is only 700 sq. ft., so we need to go through a lot.

Apartment Hunting

Well, we found an apt. I'm so relieved that it is over. We looked all day yesterday and then some this morning. The first two we looked at were disappointing, but livable. We really didn't want to spend that much money, since we are going to be trying to buy a house this year. There wasn't a price difference between the sub par ones and the nice ones. We are really happy with the one we signed with. It's in Englewood, so my commute shouldn't be that bad. It's only for 6 months, so even if it turns out not to be the best, we don't have to live with it for that long. The last apt. we saw yesterday was in the most beautiful area. It is in the foothills, on the outskirts of Littleton, but the commute for me would have been one hour on a good day. And i just can't commit to that. I've already been there and it sucked!

Now we have the next couple of days to relax and explore around. Maybe we can go into the city and find a cool place to eat tonight. On Sunday we are going to meet up with Tony's best friend Justin who lives up in the mountains.

I'll try to take some pics and upload them.

Tony's interview went well yesterday, so we'll see what comes of that. In the meantime he's applying around like crazy. We have faith that something will work out though.

I can't believe we only have 2 weeks left in Maryland! There is still so much to get done! I have heart palpitations even thinking about it!

We made it!!

We made to Denver! Of course I cried. I'm just so happy that this is happening! Our flight was good, once again though the rental car place wanted to give us a PT Cruiser....thankfully we got a Ford instead. Tomorrow we are going to go apt. hunting and Tony has a job interview. Keep us in your prayers!

Farwell Parties

Sitting around the table chatting after dinner at Cherie's on Saturday

Diego and Irene, Jesse and Nathan at Cherie's a couple of weeks ago
Irene, Jen, and Heather at Jen and Adam's house for dinner
Renata, looking very preggers!!! I love it!


The past few weeks our friends have had a few going away get togethers. The parties have been so nice and have meant so much to us. Everything has been happening so quickly that it still hasn't sunken in that we are leaving. I know that we will be back to visit and I'll be back for meetings and classes, so that makes it easier, knowing that we will get see our friends again. And I'm really hoping that (hint hint) they will come out to CO to visit us! I want to keep in touch and not lose the connections we have made. Especially since our friends are starting to get married and have children, life just changes so much and I'm really hoping that we don't become just Christmas card friends. I promise I'll try my best, good friends are really hard to come by. And without our friends here, I don't think we could have made it the 3 1/2 years that we did. Just thinking back on how lonely and how sad we were when we first moved here, just that sick feeling of being so homesick, and having no one here to ease that. I REALLY cannot say thank you enough to the people who stretched out their love to us and made being so far from home easier. You guys took us into your homes and into your lives, you have shared our sorrows (losing Arnold) and our joys (moving to the city, getting this job in Denver). You have allowed us to be with your family and closest friends, bringing us into your existing circles, giving us a chance. You did so much, I really can't thank you enough for accepting us (especially me, Tony is pretty easy to love) for who we are, for the invites to your special moments (Renata and Jason's wedding) and for always thinking about us and inviting us into your homes for the holidays, when you knew how sad we would be. You have been a blessing to our lives.

In the moving arena...no new news....unfortunately. We were supposed to go to CO for our House Hunting Trip this coming Wednesday. Then Kirby got sick and we thought he was dying, then laid down $500 all for the vet to say every test was inconclusive, but to continue shoving antibiotics down his throat.....needless to say this was not the added stress that we needed on top of everything else. So hopefully we will make it out there either this week or next week and we can sign a lease on an apt. Tony has an interview tomorrow, hopefully he will be able to find a position before we get out there.

I'll try to keep the blog updated as we learn more - and as I get more and more weepy.