Girls' Camping/Hiking Weekend!

I was lucky enough to have a new friend invite me along for a girls' weekend camping and hiking up in the Rocky Mountain National Park in the Estes Park area. We rented a campsite just to make life easy since it's summer and the weekend up there can be crazy with tourists trying to find a spot on a first-come, first-serve basis. The 1 1/2-hour drive up from Denver was perfect since it gave me time to get to know everyone and we all hit it off with each other right away. I love when you meet people that just "get you" and everything clicks, you know? :)

Once we got to our site we quickly set up our tents. A storm was rolling in so we decided to drive around snapping some goofy pics with the dark clouds as a killer background and just doing some site-seeing. The tourists up there were hysterical to see with all their funny poses so we decided to take a pic in front of the sign entering RMNP in poses we all saw tourists do...

After getting the first round of goofy out of us, we drove from the Beaver Meadows entrance of RMNP up Bear Lake Road. Bear Lake was gorgeous but a little too crowded with tourists so we made our way back to camp to cook up some yummy appetizers and dinner. Wendy (cowboy hat) starting acting hip-hop which was hysterical since she doesn't have an ounce of hip-hop in her soul. Sara and I began imitating and this pic was snapped. I swear it was funny in the moment!

The night was filled with massive silliness and I loved every moment of it! I think we laughed ourselves to sleep. The next morning we packed up camp and headed up Colorado Highway 7 for our hike that was to start near the town of Allens Park. On the way we had to stop for a photo-op that was too gorgeous to pass up. (This is one of my faves.)

The hike itself was stunning with views all along the mountainside trail that opened up to eye candy like this:

We arrived to our halfway stop at Calypso Falls and had snacks. The falls were amazing and the pic doesn't do it justice at all!

We lucked out by having a Steller's Jay land right next to us on a log and hung around long enough to snap some pics. How beautiful is this bird?!?!

One of my fave pics from the trip is Sara and I snacking at the Falls when a bout of the giggles overcame us.

This pic pretty much sums up how all four of us were the entire time... laughing 'til out bellies hurt. After our snack break, we hiked back to the car and headed home. The ride back was filled with more laughter (shocker) and plans of when we could get together for another trip again. How cool is it to meet girls like this?! Life is definitely good....

Busy in the New Casa!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted but it doesn't seem like it! Wrapping up on school, packing, and seeing friends definitely made the time go by quickly!

Last Saturday, I left at the crack of stupid (aka 4am) and drove 15 hours to my pit stop of Manhattan, KS. It was really great getting to drive through Chattanooga and Nashville one last time since I have so many great memories driving those roads to see friends. Quite the nostalgic drive. The first part of Kansas was interesting as I passed a museum for Brown vs. Board of Education, the Eisenhower Library, and the Wizard of Oz Museum! If I wasn't so antsy to get to my stopping place, I would have definitely stopped to see some of these places. (A do-able drive back, if I want, though!)

I crashed pretty quickly then got up the next morning pretty early and hit the road once again. The last two-thirds of Kansas can be a little bit of a challenge since the drive the entire time looks like this:

These spaces were so huge, I finally understood the real meaning of "wide-open spaces". I actually went through a storm front and was able to see where it began and where it ended. Amazing. I also passed a huge farm of windmills that were enormous! There must have been 200-300 of them!

After 5 hours of driving through Kansas' "wide-open spaces", I was very happy to finally come upon this:

Three hours later, I arrived to movers unloading all my belongings into the new house! The rest of that Sunday, all of Monday, and most of Tuesday consisted of, literally, dawn to dusk unboxing and unpacking. Once the house started to actually resemble a home, Adam and I next tackled replenishing our fridge and spices and cooked up some yummy turkey/feta/cranberry burgers!

On Thursday, I felt like having Mexican so I went over to an older post of VO2Maxxed and borrowed their recipe for fish tacos using mahi-mahi. I made three of their baja sauces (the Green Baja Sauce, the Pink/Red Baja Sauce, and the Chipotle Sauce) and had such a great time using my food processor again! (It's been 6 months since I've been living with my in-laws.) I also was craving some pickled red onions so I used this recipe and was thrilled with the results! It was so easy too! The side item used was a cajun shrimp and corn salad with lime-chili dressing. Check out the pics of the results! (I LOVE all the colors and the pink of the onions in the jar rock!)

Yesterday, Saturday, a friend from Greenville came in to visit and I we went up to Boulder to hang. I first took her Chatauqua Park then we went to Pearl Street and mulled about until we came upon this place that puts feathers in people's hair. We were totally game and now we both are rocking some feathers! It'll be fun to have something crazy in the hair while out of school!

Here's Bridge at Chatauqua...

Here's a shot with some of the feathers in my hair. Crazy fun!

Bridge is such an amazing friend that when we got back to the house she wanted to tackle the front garden that was completely overrun with weeds. Here's one small section of the garden before we tackled it...

And here's after just weeding, mulching, and putting in pavers!

We left as many of the flowers as we could and now I just need to figure out what to fill in the empty spots with to brighten it up. The garden faces the east and is shaded for a good part of the day until the middle of the afternoon where it does get some sun. I've noticed poppies are in serious abundance out here and I definitely like those! Anyone have any suggestions, I'll take them!

I'm loving Colorado and it's only been a week!

(Sorry for the post being so incredibly long! I obviously had a lot to catch you up on and I wanted to share it all! )

4 Weeks and New Challenges (but fun challenges!)

(Sorry for not having a pretty pic with this post. I promise the next post will have some!)

In exactly four weeks, I will have loaded up the Subaru with the last pieces of my life left in Atlanta, driven 1,400 miles, and arrived to my new life in Denver, Colorado. I'm definitely ready to be in the same city again as Adam. Six months away from him has been seriously hard!

Adam and I lucked out finding a house to rent at a ridiculously affordable price in a pretty cool area of Denver called Washington Park (or, as the locals say, Wash Park). The house is wicked spacious with a huge deck and an equally large backyard with lots of possibilities. One of the possibilities I want to jump on is starting up some gardening again. This presents a new challenge of learning for me since I've never lived in this kind of climate/altitude before and I need to learn about the growing conditions and vegetation unique to Denver. In addition, I'll probably do container gardening since the house and it's backyard, don't technically belong to Adam and me and I don't want to cause any issues with the landlord by converting the backyard into my own personal Garden of Eden. I came across an interesting gardening system called Earthbox after watching a youtube video of one of my favorite chefs, Rick Bayless being interviewed. The boxes seem to get pretty good reviews but I would love to hear if any of you have used an Earthbox!

The change of scenery will also present a new twist on what goes down in the kitchen. I've been reading some about cooking/baking and know my boiling point will be affected due to the change in atmospheric pressure which will in turn affect, among many things, my cooking time. One way I have really enjoyed cooking is braising and I'm not sure the specifics on how this change to a higher altitude will affect this kind of cooking. Obviously, I understand the cooking time will be longer and I'm guessing I may need to start off with more liquid then the original recipe calls for, but I came across a good point made on a website related to high-altitude cooking and it got the wheels in my brain turning a bit. The comment was this:

Charts giving the boiling point of water vs altitude are based on the standard atmosphere and can be quite misleading. If the barometric pressure is different from the standard atmosphere, the actual boiling point of water will vary from that given in the charts.

For example: If you live in Denver and wish to calibrate your thermometer using boiling water as the standard, the charts will tell you the boiling point of water in Denver is 202°F. If on that day the barometric pressure in Denver is 30.05 inHg, the correct boiling point for water is 212+°F. If your thermometer indicates 212° in boiling water, you will believe it to be 10° high. This means that if you are cooking a chicken to an internal temperature of 170°F in the breast, you will actually overcook by 10°, scratch your head, and wonder why is was dry when you did everything right.

A more reliable way to determine the correct boiling point of water, at a specific time, is to use the calculator below. Just enter the current barometric pressure, in inches of mercury (inHg), and click on "Do Boiling Point Calculation". The correct boiling will be returned in the lower window.

Now I'm wondering if I need to be checking the barometric pressure before cooking something, like a chicken, in order to properly adjust for the correct internal temperature needed so my food is still edible. (Yeah, I know. Probably a nerdy thing to do but this is my analytical side coming out of me! Thanks, Dad.) Anyone have any suggestions and/or advice? I would seriously appreciate the tips! :)

Music!

Here's a new group I've been digging lately. The band is from England and I'm totally loving their bluegrass style!

I didn't forget ya!

Sorry for being MIA for a while. The last month and a half has been completely filled with IEP meetings for all of my students along with several other tough meetings my coordinator requested I sit in on to try to bring a different perspective for our program. The meetings have been brutal and the paperwork has been crazy! Needless to say, I'm thrilled that last Friday concluded my last meeting and this whole week is my spring break!

I had an interview this morning at a really awesome school in Denver and was offered the job! I'm definitely excited about getting this job at this school because not only does this school have an awesome program for the Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing but the school is also exactly 3.4 miles from the house Adam and I will be renting starting in June! Which girl will be commuting to work on her bike??? THIS girl!!!!

It's crazy how everything has been falling into place and this was the last thing Adam and I needed to happen to make this move to Denver complete. Now all I have to do is finish out the last two months of school in Georgia then head out west! The Colorado dream has become a reality!

Something to make you smile

Came across this on youtube and thought it was too cute. Enjoy!

I am....

...Colorado bound tomorrow! Seven weeks is a wicked long time to go without seeing Adam. Can't wait! I'm also getting in a lot of wedding stuff like finding a caterer and photographer. Should be interesting!