It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ahh, the weather is getting warmer. The trees and flowers are blooming. I love Spring!

Usually, Summer is my favorite time of year, but I'm currently loving Spring and all it brings. Yesterday, Matt and I got out to enjoy two of my favorite things about this time of year: hiking and playoff hockey!

The first hike we ever took together in Colorado was a short, but moderately steep (at times) hike to Mallory Cave by Boulder. We've gone back a couple of times since that first hike in March of 2008 to see how far we've grown in our hiking ability (and to see if we're in better shape!). So yesterday, we headed to Mallory Cave again for our first hike of the season, and we definitely handled it a little better than we did that first day!

A couple of odd trees that we always remember as a landmark. A weird bonzai-looking tree in the middle of the trail, and an awesome twisted tree.

Trees.

Matt at the end of the hike. You can't actually get to the cave from April to October, but we still got a decent view out of it.

Boulder.

A view of the building where we started our hike... and Boulder in the background.

I always love this time of year because of playoff hockey, but my excitement obviously varies depending on whether or not my Avs are playing. Well, this year they are! Last night, Matt and I headed to the third game of round one against the San Jose Sharks (boo!).

The ice crew started dancing to Michael Jackson when they came out to clean the ice. It was funny.

Though the game was low-scoring (or no-scoring until overtime), it was an extremely exciting game. We had a blast, and even though I had homework waiting at home, we were still excited when the game when to overtime. But we didn't have to stay too late because the Avs scored 51 seconds in to overtime! It was a bizarre bounce, but we'll take it!

So excited! We won!

Our goalie made an amazing 51 saves throughout the game, so the crowd was chanting, "Andy! Andy!" all through the arena. It was very exciting.

Final score!

Yay! We won!

The Avs lead the series 2-1 now. We're excited to see where they go next!

And I'm very excited for more hiking! Yay, I love hiking and camping and shorts and flip-flops and concerts and barbeques! Yay summer!

My New Love

I have a new toy:


Isn't she pretty? I've had a growing list of issues with my old laptop, and it was getting pretty annoying. With so much relying on my being able to access a computer daily for school, we (Matt and I) decided I needed something new. I decided I needed something little and cute.

And look, pretty swirly designs on the back!

So far, I like my new lappy. It's technically a netbook, though it's got an 11.6" screen, so it's a little bit bigger than most. It's still rather tiny though:

It's like a baby lappy.

But even though she's small, I think she'll work just fine for me. Plus we have Matt's desktop for serious school work (as opposed to trivial school work?). And Little Lappy is certainly an improvement over the Giant.

Other than anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new piece of awesomeness (we ordered her online), we haven't had a lot going on. A couple of weekends ago, we went skiing for the last time of the season. We headed up with Dave again, and Melissa joined us! It worked pretty well to have another person at my skill level around (Mel had only been skiing once before, although she had tried snowboarding quite a few times). It was crazy cold and snowy and windy, so the camera stayed put away for most of the day. But I did get to snap a couple of quick photos.

Taking a break. We both liked to take breaks occasionally.

Me and Mel!

I'm pretty excited about my growth over the season. While I'm still spending my time on the easy, EASY runs, I'm getting way better with my control. And Matt is out there doing harder greens and even some blues! So we've had a pretty good season, and we're already excited for next year. But for now, we have summer! My favorite time of year!

Six Years...

Today is our anniversary. Not our wedding anniversary, but our "together" anniversary. Once most people get married, they tend to focus on the wedding date as the day to remember. While I will always acknowledge my wedding day as one of the happiest days ever, I like remembering the date that Matt and I first started dating, too. We could have chosen a large variety of days for our wedding, but we had less of a say in the day that we started liking each other. That's something that is kind of left to fate. So I always enjoy recognizing the day that we decided to "try and see where this could go."

We're not an extremely sappy couple (at least Matt isn't), so I won't go crazy with my memories. But here are a few pictures of our life over the last six years:

April 1, 2004. The day we first started "talking."

November 2004.

August 2005. Matt shared his first love with me.

October 2005. This picture cracks me up!

May 2006. In Italy!! About a month after our engagement.

December 2006. Graduating! Matt with his Master's, and me with my Bachelor's.

July 29, 2007.

August 2007. Our honeymoon at Niagra Falls.

Summer 2008. Beginning our love for the Colorado outdoors.

December 2008. Skiing for the first time.

April 2009. We bought a house!

October 2009. We continue to love traveling! In San Francisco.

February 2010. Still finding new things to explore together. (Ok, I got a little sappy in the end.)

And many more adventures are still to come!

Spontaneity on Spring Break!

Oh, Spring Break. How wonderful you are! Over my break I did lots of homework, tried new recipes, cleaned a little, and made a fun trip to Kansas.

We have a couple of awesome friends, Dac and Alisha, who live out in Matt's hometown. We get to see them pretty often when we have family events going on, but we usually have to squeeze in our visits around all the family time. This time, we decided to switch things up: we went to visit Dac and Alisha, and we squeezed in family time around our plans with friends!


It was a pretty short trip, but we wanted to make sure we got to see everyone! We headed out late Wednesday and got in to my grandparents' house really early in the morning. It was great to visit all day Thursday. We had delicious food, prepared by my grandma, and lots of chatting. We even took a little bit of time to check out the local used bookstore. I loved it because there were three cats running all around the store.

They loved attention. When Matt sat down to look through a book, he had a friend jump up to join him.

Then we got back in the car (we spent a lot of time in the car...) to make our way to good ol' AC.

Me and my car buddy, Henry. He's a frog/pillow.

We had some family time on Thursday night. Good visiting and more good food. Friday morning, we were ready for some quality D&A time. But first, we had a date with Jerry.

Mmm. Jerry's donuts.

While Alisha was at work, Dac, Matt, and I dug around for some fun things to do around southeastern Kansas. Like disc golf!

Crouched in the trees.

Digging out discs.

Synchronized disc golf.

We needed to kill a little more time, so we went to the nearby casino. I have never gambled before, so it was an exciting side trip for me.

My first time! We got in trouble for taking this picture...

Finally, Alisha came home! We had lots of fun talking, playing games, and just being silly. It's so fun to hang out with these people!

Blokus!

Friday night, we had plans to add some more great friends, John and Anna, to our little party. Unfortunately, due to other obligations, they decided they couldn't make the two-hour drive. We were a little disappointed that our sixsome was back to a foursome. But in a hugely spontaneous move, we decided that if they couldn't come to us, we would go to them! We packed up our party, including games, drinks, and snacks, and hopped in the car for a mini road trip.

Ready to go.

We have a history of making surprise trips to see John and Anna (if one other time makes it a history). We let Anna know we were on our way, but we told her to keep it secret from John. We arrived at their door, and Matt ran in to plop on top of John.

Surprise!

Not quite as crazy as the last surprise trip, when Matt crawled into bed with John in the wee morning hours. But it was certainly a bit of a shock!

We were able to continue our previously planned evening of fun and games in a new location.

Fun times.

We said good-bye to John and Anna on Saturday morning, and headed up to Wichita to hunt for a game we'd been wanting to play since last year, when we were all stuck inside due to a Colorado snowstorm. We found the game, had a good lunch, and then went to a fun at a barbeque at Matt's folks' house. Then it was time for Settlers of Catan!

Fun game. (And yes, we put the Avs game on the computer in the background.)

Sadly, we had to head home on Sunday morning. But we had a great time with great friends!