Lauralee and Shey's place

We finally visited Matt's aunt and uncle, Lauralee and Shey, by Castle Rock, CO.
Hopefully I spelled their names correctly :)

Apparently they love Mexican food, so it was fitting that Lauralee made an excellent taco lunch for us. Thank you again for the great food. I really enjoyed the green chili egg souffle. As I went back for seconds of the dish, I wished that I could have sat down and devoured all of it to finish by licking the bowl. Seeing that it was our first introduction I felt I keep that to myself and stay appropriate by just having a small slice on my plate and settle with enjoying every little bite.

After lunch we had a small tour of their cute place and Lauralee was kind enough to share her Vaseline glass collection and amazing artistic quilts with us! We continued outside to see their new toys; two 4-wheelers. Lauralee and Shey hoped on their ATVs as we took the Rhino and headed over to the Olsen's plot. What amazing views of the valley from the top of the land.

We are still considering camping on it but Shey made a point to let us know a mountain lion with cubs has been spotted around the neighborhood. Then we headed back to the house for ice cream sundaes with all the classic toppings!! It was a lovely afternoon.

I wanted to add these two pics of a thunder show right outside of our window. I wasn't quick enough to capture the lightening but I think these shots turned out well.

Rockies Win

It was a beautiful day to enjoy our nations favorite past time. With tickets being so cheap, we decided to catch a ball game before the end of the season. What better way to do it than go to see our new local team, the Colorado Rockies. This game was an experiment to see where the best seats are. That is why there are a few different vantage points of the field. We would sit in one seat and than move to another to find the best. Although the Rockies were on a 9 game winning streak, there were plenty of empty seats in the house.

Though the picture may not show it well, this is a TINY TINY stadium. I couldn't believe how small it was when we arrived. Honestly, there are no bad seats here. Even in relation to Fenway, which is a small park in the baseball scheme of things, this was far smaller.

Here we see JJ standing against the Denver skyline. The park is pretty much right off the heart of Denver. Not a bad sight. The buildings are nice too.

While the baseball game is interesting, we all know why we go to the games. That's right, to eat. First thing I did when entering the park, was buy a bag of peanuts. I don't know what they put in those things, but they always taste better at the park. Maybe because I can just throw the shell on the ground. A culinary mystery for sure.

The game was a close one against the DiamondBacks. We were tied heading into the bottom of the ninth inning. Last batter up. One strike. Two strikes. The pitch, the swing, HIGH FLY BALL INTO THE OUTFIELD. GOING, GOING, GONE!! HOME RUN. Rockies win. 10 in a row. Good thing we were there. Probably would have lost without us.

Red Rocks

Tuesday we had the pleasure to head up to Red Rocks and enjoy the John Mayer and Owl City Concert. Thanks the our great friend, Chelsea, I recieved this amazing and unexpected gift of two tickets to this concert for my birthday.

Never been to the Red Rocks, we decided to leave early so we could have a picnic and enjoy the beautiful scenery that everyone raves about. We hopped on google maps and followed the directions of 18 miles and 22 minutes. Not really thinking that it was rush hour, we followed the freeway route. A few miles into the drive we found ourselves in 6 lanes of stop-and-go traffic. I tried to embrace the experience as an adventure; my first time driving in real traffic in a big city, whoo hoo! A quick hour and fifteen minute drive later we drove up a winedy road following a pack of cars to the parking areas. We decided we had found ourselves a perfect spot when we observed about 20 cars of people picnicing by their vehicles under the rocks. This is the area in the pictures above. Once you drive through the rock tunnel, u arrive in a massive hearding of cars parked in lines up to the venue.

We spent about an hour enjoying our picnic, the amazing view of the city and each others company. Then we headed up the the concert. As we walked up the stairs I started to get winded. Matt explained we were about 6,200 feet, and I could fell it.
We found a decent spot to place our blankets in the open seating area amongst the sold out concert of 9,500 people in the ampitheater. We had an amazing view of the city in the background as the sun was setting. We ventured off to the visitors center and then explored the beautiful grounds. We learned that the Red Rocks opened 1906 and has hosted some of the biggest names in the business including the Beatles, Greatful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Rolling Stones, Rush, etc.

(The below pics are off of my phone since I couldn't bring in my Sony camera, but you get the idea, it was pretty neat.)

Washington DC Trip!

We invite you all to come along with us and enjoy a fabulous weekend which was spent in our nations capital, Washington DC. Although, I am sure most of you know what was going on, I will inform the rest of the blog readers of the back story. One of my high school buddies (and former band bass player) Adam Ross, made a wonderful decision to marry a beautiful woman, former Ms. Kaitlin L'Italien, now a Mrs. Allow me to take you on the journey though our weekend.

Thursday 8/26. Day One: Wake up at 3am to drive to the airport in order to catch our extremely early 6am flight. Spend the next million hours on two 2 hour flights to arrive in Dulles, 30 miles from downtown DC. The main event of the evening for us was the attending of a Washington Nationals baseball game. You can see here, the stadium was packed and our seats were top notch. JJ was extremely excited when we entered the stadium, but after an overpriced hot dog and some roasted peanuts, she began to fade quickly. I guess some of us need a little more beauty sleep than others!! (I'm so going to get a punch in the arm for that one!!) After the game, which the home team lost, there was a spectacular fireworks display shot off from a barge in Anacostia River. One of the better shows I have ever seen. I wonder how good the fireworks would have been if they actually won.


Day Two: Culture Day (At least to begin with). Today, Matt's old next door neighbor, Matt (shown above with wife Cory and JJ) made our way down to "The Mall" in DC. We were caught by surprise to see a large amount of people had congregated on the mall that day. Unknowingly, Glen Beck, FOX News blah blah blah, was holding a rally today. We could tell who was attending the rally just by looking at all the middle aged, sweaty, men and women all walking around with folding chairs and American Flag T-Shirts. Interesting as it may be, that is not what we did today. We, on the other hand, decided to attend a couple of the Smithsonian Museums. First, the Air and Space Museum. One of Matt's personal favorites. While, I am sure I have been there over 10 times, every time is more amazing than the last. The shear magnitude of the exhibits in the building are astonishing. Shown here, are pictures of all of us enjoying the museum. One personal favorite is a picture of Matt, and his "Special" friend, Matt.

After our whirlwind tour though space, we traveled back in time. During our visit to the Museum of Natural History we enjoyed an amazing collection of fossilised dinosaurs. Shown here is but one of the many, many, many rooms.

Next stop on our trip through the Natural History museum was the Gems and Mineral Exhibit. Shown top left, is the 45.52 carat Hope Diamond. Shown here for the first time out of it setting since its creation. This picture does not really do the stone justice, but I will have you know... its kinda big. Shown below is some other, less impressive 31 carat diamond. Yeah, I know. Whatever. Top right, shows Matt standing next to the body of a giant squid. Some fun facts about this creature of the deep. It can grow to an estimated 43 feet in length, its primary predator and food source is the sperm whale, and no one has ever seen one alive in the wild. SPOOKY!! Isn't scince fun?! Our last stop within the museum was to the Butterfly Pavilion. This was a large dome one could walk through amongst hundreds of live butterflies. Shown here are a couple of examples of those beautiful insects.

It was getting late in the day and it was time to head back to the hotel and get cleaned up for the main event of the evening. However, being DC, there are a million things to see on the way to wherever you are going. Here are a few art pieces in the Statue Garden right outside one of the many Smithsonian's.

Ok, here we go. The MAIN EVENT (of the evening!!). Being the crazy overachievers both Mr. and Dr. Ross are, what better way to spend the night before their wedding, than to put on a Rock n' Roll show for all their friends. Actually, a little back story about this, Adam and Kaitlin originally met in this band. Adams friend had told him about a girl with an amazing voice which would be perfect for their band. She came, auditioned, sang, joined, and the rest is history. The lovely couple played for two hours in front of hundred of screaming fans!! Awesome. Pictured below, top right, Dan Harris and Matt. Top middle and right, Bride and Groom, (DUH) Adam and Kaitlin. Bottom from left to right, Adam Hess, Dan Harris, Matt "The Man" Olsen, Jon Halpert, and Al McRae (all high school friends of Matt)

After a lovely evening of ROCKING OUT, we made it back to the hotel and rested up for the somewhat smaller MAIN EVENT on Day Three:

Located in a small chapel in the heart of Georgetown, a man and a woman became man and wife. It was a very nice service which had a lot of audience participation. I guess thats what you get from Catholics. Unfortunately, from where we were sitting/standing, we were unable to get a good shot of the groom with the bride, but just close your eyes and image one.

After the ceremony, a bus picked us up and transported us to the reception. A location expertly named, "The Top of the Town". Sitting on the twelfth story, we enjoyed a birds eye view of many of the national monuments. The pictures do not describe how amazing this location was. Never in a million years would I have hoped for this. Visit their website to get a better idea of views. You will not be disappointed. We weren't. (http://www.topofthetown.net/)

While it was hard enough to try and cram so much into three days, we had a few more hours on DAY FOUR: Our flight didn't leave until 4pm so we still had time to see a few things before we left. JJ had expressed to me she would like to see some of the national monuments she had not seen last time she visited DC. Shown below, is the World War II memorial. A fairly new site which I had not seen before either.

A short distance from the WWII memorial was the Vietnam Memorial (shown below top right). You never understand the magnitude of this particular memorial until you are standing there. Next we walked the steps to the Lincoln Memorial. Though there were tons of people in and around the memorial, amazingly enough, JJ is shown here alone with Lincoln. (Top right) We see the view from the Lincoln Memorial over the reflecting pool toward the George Washington Memorial.

While I am sure we did more things, I am just plain burnt out from writing about our trip. It was incredible to see DC with JJ, see all my old friends and make some new ones, as well as enjoy a little vacation to boot. It is unfortunate how quickly reality sets back in once you get back home. Oh well. At least from time to time, we have the ability to escape it.