Colorado: Days 1 & 2...

We just returned from a wonderful getaway to beautiful Vail, CO!  In the past, we have gone over Labor Day, but with school starting today, Ken wanted to take me on a trip before.  It was a very fun trip, filled with lots of hiking, beer tasting, and hanging out.

Guess who made the trip with us?

Road trippin' like a boss

Kya was a wonderful passenger.  She and I rode in back seat together for a while and watched a movie while Ken drove us.  He sure does love his girls.

We took our time driving and arrived in Vail at 4:00 pm.  We were tired, but were ready to relax.

Does this girl look like she is ready for mountain air or what?

We rented a townhouse in East Vail and it was one block from a bus stop.  Ken and I rode the bus into Vail Village for dinner and drinks.  While we were sitting at the bus stop, I turned to Ken and I told him I felt like I was Forrest Gump.  I had never waited at a bus stop before.  :)

We wandered around Vail Village for a bit and both decided to call it an early night because you know, we are not the party animals that we used to be.

We woke up on Thursday morning and felt refreshed!  We were ready to tackle an easy hike. We decided on Booth Falls, which is a popular hike in Vail, so we left pretty early to beat the crowd. The scenery was beautiful and the company was just as great.

Kya deemed herself a mountain dog after her first hike

Beautiful scenery

My two favorite hiking partners

Kya and me

In previous trips, we had never been this high in the mountains, without hiking Pikes Peak, so we had never seen the wild flowers.  It was a beautiful sight to see!

Colorado wild flowers

Kya thought it was important to play in the wild flowers to get the full experience.

The aspen trees were quite abundant as well

These two were two peas in a pod on the hikes.  

My favorite picture of the day

We laughed because just about everyone we saw made a comment about Kya, including guessing what kind of dog she is.  A 10 year old Ken was the only one to say, hey look at the Siberian Husky.  We thought that was quite funny.

We hiked about 8 miles total and then made our way to a brewery for a little beer tasting.

When in Colorado.  I really liked their wheat beer and the gluten free beer they had.  I do not do gluten free stuff, but when the brew master said it had a lot of strawberry and other berry flavors, I was sold.

Kya also enjoyed some refreshments

Ken never missed an opportunity to try a stout!

After our afternoon at Vail Brewing Co, we went back to our townhouse and everyone chilled out for a few hours.  Ken and I rode the bus back to Vail Village out for drinks and dinner.  We ended up at a German restaurant for a little taste of Germany.

We always say yes to a liter of German beer!

Prost!

Vail Village

The clouds really started to roll in as we were enjoying our dinner.

Vail Village

We finished off the night with Apple Studel, or at least I did, and then we made our way back to our townhouse to call it a night.  It was such a wonderful, full day.

Chicago...

Over the weekend, my friend Jill and I took a girls'trip to Chicago!  We had so much fun!  Jill had never really explored Chicago before, so I was her official tour guide.

We arrived to Chicago on Friday and were welcomed with blue skies and a beautiful day.

The Wrigley Building, which is my favorite building in Chicago

The Corn Cobb Towers and the shiny Trump Tower

Our first mission was to stop for lunch and a glass of wine.  We found a darling spot with outdoor seating called Howls & the Hood and quickly began enjoying some Rose wine.

Jill lovin' the kid-free weekend

\Me lovin' the wine at noon

We spent the remainder of Friday afternoon shopping, wandering, around, stopping at Starbucks, you know the things girls do when they are together with no husbands or kids. One place that we had to hit up was Magnolia Bakery.  They have the best brownies I have ever had, and if you know me, you know I have had my fair share.

Happiness in a display case

We walked along the River Walk to find a restaurant for dinner

After our tasty Italian dinner.  We were, of course, mistaken for sisters a few times.

We were so close to Navy Pier that I told Jill we should just walk the few blocks over so that we could see it at night time with the Chicago skyline lit up, because in my opinion, it is the best view.

Jill and me at Navy Pier

Chicago Skyline

On Saturday morning I got up and went for a run around the city.  It was the first time I had ever run around the city without running in the marathon.  

After my run, we got ready for the day and made our way to Millennium Park and over to the lake front.

Millennium Park

For lunch, we had Lou Malnati's pizza, which is my favorite Chicago style pizza.  

Pure deliciousness!

After we stuffed ourselves with pizza, we made our way to the Hancock Building to go up to the Signature Lounge for the view and a few cocktails.

P.S. the view from the ladies bathroom is the best!

Enjoying our cocktails

We ended the day with another trip to Magnolia Bakery and then out for sushi and wine.  It was a great girls' getaway!

Celebrating 10 years of friendship!

Thanks for a fun weekend Jill!

Lazy Days...

With the recent heat advisory we seem to be under, every single day, combine with me working from home over the summer, we have had some extremely lazy days.

All three hooligans just love sitting with mom, but there has been a little bit of cabin fever and tensions developing in the house.  It seems like Kya likes to play kitty police.  Ken thinks she is quite good at it, but still, tensions are high.  Hurry up Fall!

Kya is never very far from me while I am working.

Angel sleeps best when she utilizes her tail.  If you got it, use it, right?

Theodore gets my vote for Associate of the Month.  Look at how cute he is working on the laptop!

I know they are fur children, but I really do enjoy spending the days with them, even if I repeatedly say things like, "that is not how we behave in this house" or "You are not in charge of the cats, Kya!"  

The Fox...

I am a huge animal lover, huge! I often name the wild animals that appear at our house.  We have had Francis the Fox, Chester the Chipmunk, The Robinsons the Rabbits, and many, many more.  Basically, I love animals.

You can imagine how excited I was today when I was working on my laptop in our hearth room and I saw a fox appear outside our fence in the backyard.  I squealed, I was trying to taking pictures, and was just oh so excited!

I was trying to text Ken a picture of Francis the Fox, when suddenly Francis's lady friend appeared!  I was screaming and managed to get a picture of the lady friend.

I called Ken and told him about my siting and he thought it was so cool that I saw Francis and his lady friend and that I was so excited.

I text him a few pictures after I hung up with him.  A few minutes later, Ken called me back.  He told me that he was very sorry, he was calling with bad news.  Apparently the fox, was not a fox.

That's right, the "fox" and the "lady friend" were both actually coyotes.

Oops.

What I thought was Francis the Fox, but actually is Mr. Coyote

You can see how concerned Kya is that a coyote is behind her.

The lady friend making a mad dash

At first, I thought Ken was lying to me about the animals being coyotes. I Googled a coyote and it turns out, they were both coyotes.

Independence Day...

Usually, we have big plans on the 4th of July.  We like to have friends over or go out of town. This year, we did none of that.  We relaxed all the way.  We were originally going to go out of town, but Ken had some stuff come up at work, so we decided to postpone our trip for a bit.

I started the day off with spin class.  Can I just say how much I love going to spin class?  I try to go two times a week and would really go more if I was not running or swimming.  After spin class, Ken and I drove to the big city of Fort Scott, KS to check out their 1848 history show.  Yeah, that really was not too exciting.  We did have a great lunch at a local bar, so it was not a complete bust.

On our way home, we stopped at our favorite place, Somerset Ridge, for a quick bottle of wine and to hear some music.

In the summer, we heart rose wine at our house!

We ended our evening hanging out by the fire and watching the firework displays that our visible from our backyard. It was the perfect, low key night.

Fire + this new fun drink I found = a great evening!

The two of us girls enjoying our night!

Happy Birthday America!!

Summer Vacation...

May 8th marked the beginning of summer vacation for me!  I officially wrapped up the first semester of nursing school, complete with the 4.0 I was hoping for.

I had an amazing first semester and discovered that I truly am meant to be a nurse.  Now, I just need to figure out the specialty that suits me.

My wonderful friends, Annie and Brittney

After our final clinical, we celebrated with a cocktail!

The three amigos!  We had so much fun during our time together.  As Annie says, nursing friendships are just different and you really bond with someone while you are tag-teaming putting in a catheter!

And at our house, a 4.0 earns you a prize of your choosing.  I chose a new pair of Tory Burch sandals.  Thanks Ken and the hooligans!

Arizona Trip: Biltmore Time!

Every moment after I made our reservations at the Arizona Biltmore, all I could think about was laying by the pool with a pina colada in hand.  

We woke up our first morning after a wonderful night sleep and slowly made our way to the pool. We ordered lunch, pina coladas and did not move until after 5:00 pm.  Six hours of lounging by the pool was just what we needed.

This was the best pina colada I had ever had in my life!

I had so much fun floating around on this raft and drinking my pina coladas!

At some point I switched over to mojitos, which were just as tasty as the pina coladas.

We ended our first day of relaxing with room service in our room and watching a movie.  It was the most relaxing day I have had in a very long time.

Our second full day, Ken's former boss picked us up and took us to lunch.  We enjoyed lunch and wine while spending the afternoon with her.  

When we arrived back to the hotel, there was a surprising thunderstorm that happened and we got to see a rainbow.

The beautiful grounds of the Arizona Biltmore

A peek at the rainbow

We ended up having a wonderful dinner, complete with table-side smores.  They were absolutely delicious!

Table-side s'mores.  Be still my beating heart.

On Friday we woke up and packed our bags.  We did not have to check out until 2:00 pm, so we decided to head down to the pool for a little more pool time.

We sat under our umbrella while it began to rain.  It was very relaxing.

One final yummy pina colada at the pool.

Relaxed and ready to head back to the real world!

We had the best time lounging around the Biltmore.  Between school, Ken's work schedule, and of course the hike, we were pretty worn out.  I am grateful for the time spent with Ken in such a beautiful place.  Thanks for the wonderful vacation Ken!