Living Life in Fort Collins, Colorado

After our adventures in Denver we headed up to Fort Collins, Colorado to spend some time with our friends Heather and Jonathan (aka McGee) and Eli, the relatively new (nearly 6 months) addition to their family. We were able to stay with Phil and Marjean, parents of some good Colorado friends of theirs, and enjoyed getting to know them. Life is different now that Heather and Jonathan have a kid, but it was great to have the chance to live this new life with them. One of my favorite parts was that Heather, Eli, and I were able to take a lot of walks together and catch up on life. And, we all had a lot of fun just hanging out, watching Eli be a baby, and laughing at the weird craziness of our lives as well as the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. 

Our reputation precedes us. Heather prepared a delicious taco dinner Monday night. 

We brought tacos to Jonathan at work and then had a tour of his lab

Taco Tuesday lunch from Fuzzy's Taco Shop

We had to don lab coats to see the mice that Jonathan uses for his experiments

Making the obligatory trip to New Belgium, a Fort Collins staple. This time we were on a quest to discover which Belgian breweries the owner visited to inspire the start of New Belgium. We're hoping to see some of those breweries in Belgium with Nate this April. 

Wearing my t-shirt promoting Founders and Michigan beer

Brandon always gets excited about the impressive barrel aging room at New Belgium 

Small batch area where employees can create experimental new brews 

New Belgium is immense. No wonder it's the 4th largest in the United States. 

Watching the bottling line is always my favorite 

Our tour guide was enthusiastic about his job at New Belgium and thoroughly explained the brewery's history. He also gave us the name of a brewery to check out in Bruges, Belgium. 

That's all the pictures we have from our days in Fort Collins. We're getting lax. I can't believe I don't even have a picture of Heather. So, I'll have to use the following picture of their family instead. 

Jonathan, Heather, and Eli about a month before our time with them

Life is good. A piece of me wants to move to Colorado now...time with good friends, snowboarding in the mountains, warm weather in the winter. But my heart is in Michigan too (and a bit of everywhere else we've visited). 

March Denver Adventures

As Brandon mentioned in the last post, we were able to stay in Denver with Nate's parents again. While we were there, I took advantage of walking the trails through the neighborhood green space. I probably should have been running to train for an upcoming 5k, but walking seemed more enjoyable. Brandon joined me to check out Red Rocks one afternoon as well. I had hiked there with friends before, but Brandon and I ended up just checking out the concert venue. More of a rest day was in order. 

Red Rocks natural, outdoor concert venue

When we were in Denver in January, Nate's mom had suggested we check out Tocabe, a Native American Eatery. We didn't get a chance to go then, but we remembered her recommendation. On Friday night, we were able to take her there and check the place out. The restaurant was set up Qdoba style, but instead of burritos you could choose Native American style tacos, flat bread, or nachos. There were pots of rice, beans, spiced meats, and toppings to choose from. Brandon had a Native American taco topped with buffalo meat, while I tried the flat bread. Both were delicious. There was even honey provided on the tables to dip the flat bread in. Yum. We left wishing Tocabe would open restaurants beyond Denver. 

Spread from Tocabe 

On Saturday our friends Heather and Jonathan (who Brandon refers to as McGee) had to be in Denver for a birthday party, so we met up with them beforehand. It was fun to meet their son Eli (who Brandon refers to as mini-McGee) for the first time over brunch/lunch at the Denver Biscuit Company. The menu includes a variety of sandwiches and dishes including biscuits. The place is also noted for it's cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon roll was giant, and we were able to split it between all four of us. After trying some other things on the menu and leaving in a sugar coma we all decided the cinnamon roll was the best. 

Only about half of the giant cinnamon roll

In the evening, we were able to meet up with friends Chris and Savannah who we met through Nate. We were able to meet their new son Jameson as well. It was a fun evening of swapping stories over a flight and a few pints at Elk Mountain Brewing, their neighborhood brewery. 

The flights were served on snowshoes

We appreciated our time in Denver and the time went quickly. Sunday morning we headed up to Fort Collins to meet Heather and Jonathan at their church and spend the next few days together. 

Our March Copper Mountain Visit

We had a great time snowboarding at Granby Ranch, but it is not the biggest of places. So even back while we were in the planning stages for this trip we knew that Winter Park was just down the road and thought we might take a day to go there or something like it just to get in a little bit more variety while my family was still around. Well as Katie mentioned in her last post we ended up using our last day with Blake and his family around to go tubing instead, so we weren't going to get in any more days with them. But as it turns out my dad had an appointment in Boulder on Friday to stick around for. So it worked out really well to go tubing on Wednesday because we could let our achy bodies rest a day and still have all day Thursday to do whatever we wanted with my dad still around. 

We decided to head up to Copper Mountain instead of Winter Park because Katie and I still had one day left to use of our four day pass. It just meant a little further drive Thursday morning. But that was well worth it to save on the price to two full price lift tickets. So we set off early Thursday morning taking a really beautiful drive across on US 40 and down CO 9, neither of which I had ever taken before. 

It was again a really beautiful sunny day. Copper ended up being a lot more crowded for a Thursday then we would have expected. But we were still able to make the most of it.

Riding up in the chair lift together

Katie and her now more refined snowboarding skillz

Dad following behind, blindly trusting where we were taking him.

My dad can attest that Copper is much bigger than Granby Ranch. He was very thankful that he did his first two days back at Granby after his 10-ish year hiatus from skiing. But he still had a great time on the longer and bigger runs. We just took our time to get down and took lots of breaks. After lunch he got in one more run with us. He then spent the rest of his afternoon relaxing at a sports bar watching NCAA basketball and drinking some beer while Katie and I finished off our day out on the slopes. Definitely not a bad way at all to end a day out skiing, and Katie and I had a really good afternoon together exploring some of the harder runs that she was too intimidated to try the last time we were there. She really came a long way this season... Go Katie!

Taking a little break, snappin some photos

Katie having another really good day so she was all smiles.

Dad making his way down for his final run. 

Katie and I surprisingly stayed out on the slopes til last chair at 4. Somehow our bodies lasted that long even after being out two days already that week. We then met up with my dad at the base and drove our way to Idaho Springs to make the obligatory stop at Beau Jo's for pizza and beer. It was delicious as always! From there we parted ways, and Katie and myself made our way back to Nate's parents' house where we were crashing for a couple nights.

Oh Beau Jo's Pizza, you be so tasty.

This was probably our last day out snowboarding this season, which is crazy! It's crazy to think that the "snowboarding" section of our trip is already over since we had been looking forward to it for so long. It was really, really cool to see how much Katie improved each time we got out. And I had a ton of fun since I had always wanted to trip like this where we could hit up multiple spots on one long trip out West. I don't know if we'll ever be able to do something exactly like this again, but I have a feeling we'll look back fondly at this time adventuring together with friends and family and want to at least try to do something like it again in some capacity. 

Historic Fraser Tubing Hill and Snowshoeing

After skiing/snowboarding for two days everyone was tired. So instead of hitting the ski slopes again we all decided that tubing was a better option. It turned out to be a great decision. 

At the top ready to go down for the first time

Brandon pretty much dared me to go over the jump on the hill. I was successful and got some good air. 

Riding the tow rope back up the slope

We all went down together holding the handles on each other's tubes

Cael went over the jump several times

Eli went over the jump as well

Blake, Barbie, and the boys tubing over the jump together

Brandon's dad had to get in on the action too

Proof that Brandon's dad got quite a bit of air off the jump

The boys doing the jump together one last time 

Note that as Brandon was the main photographer there are no pictures of him doing the jump. When I pointed this out to him, he just shrugged and said there are plenty of pictures out there already of him doing various jumps. True that. My husband is a bit of a dare devil. 

Even with the rope tow there was a lot of exercise involved in tubing, so we were all hungry afterward. The closest restaurant happened to be Azteca, a Mexican restaurant, so we were treated to tacos. One of the salsas we were served with the complementary tortilla chips was actually a spicy slaw which was unique and delicious. 

Rice, beans, enchilada, and tacos

Following the morning adventures Blake, Barbie, and the boys had to leave for home. Time flew by so fast. We are looking forward to spending more time with them in June. 

Brandon, his dad, and I stayed at the condo for another night as we got a great deal for the night and planned to head to Copper Mountain the next day. We rested for awhile after tubing and then decided to check out some snowshoeing trails around Granby Ranch. After some trial and error we located some trails at the golf course. I don't think we followed the correct trail system, but we did find some beautiful scenery as we trekked along a creek and railroad cutting through the mountains. Thick snowflakes began to fall making the journey even more picturesque. 

I was tired of wearing my snowboard boots, so I tried my tennis shoes in the snowshoes. Fail. It was more comfortable to go without the snowshoes. I think I need some regular snow boots. 

Along the trail

The scenery was spectacular

Brandon and his dad were successful with their snowshoes

Taking a break to enjoy the view

Brandon's attire did not blend into the surroundings

On our way back the sun was trying to shine through thick snow fall

Brandon's beard accumulated many snowflakes

Between tubing and snowshoeing, we didn't rest much on our "day off" between Granby and Copper Mountain ski/snowboard days. But, we used our muscles in different ways and had a lot of fun. 

Snowboarding at Granby Ranch - Day 2

Our second day of snowboarding at Granby Ranch had just as much sunshine as we had snow the day before. So it was a quite a lovely day. Several of the main trails were groomed, but there were still runs left untouched with chopped up powder leftover from the day before. I was a little worried that the powder would harden up from the cold night, making it less fun to ride in, but luckily the snow stayed just as soft as the day before. 

Group shot on our very sunny second day out.

After a few warm up runs Blake, Katie, and I went over to the more difficult side of the resort to try out the blue and black runs that were a bit more untouched. Katie went off on her own for a bit to run things at her own pace, so Blake and I ventured off together exploring different parts of the mountainside. I did my best to cut into any untouched powder I saw and had a blast doing so. We even decided to try out a run through some trees that looked extra "interesting". As it turns out "interesting" meant extra challenging. We both took some good falls, mostly controlled to avoid running into a tree. But we survived and had good fun.

Blake emerging from the heavy tree section we decided to take.

After our adventures on the harder side of the resort, we met back up with Barbie and my dad to do a couple runs and then head back to the condo for lunch. 

Blake having some fun as he heads in.

Katie RAWRing me as I try to snap a picture

Barbie and her "skiing wing man" for the day...aka my dad... following the rest of us down to lunch.

Google decided to stitch together some pictures to create a scene that didn't really happen all at once. But I still think it looks cool

Katie was doing so awesome she even decided to do some runs through the trees with me. That is where the freshest powder was and she wanted a bit more of a challenge. She killed it!

An aerial shot from the lift of Barbie and my dad

An aerial shot of Blake

Chair lift RAWRs

We did indeed keep a closer eye on the time and got my nephews out of their class right at 3 so that we could have the whole last hour to ski with them. We could see vast improvements even from the day before. Part of it may have been that the groomed trails were easier to navigate. But you could tell their confidence was up too since this was their second day out. They both did awesome. 

Eli wanted do a run with Uncle Brandon and Aunt Katie so he could go fast and not stop as much. So we also rode up on the lift together.

Eli really liked to go fast!

But he was still willing to make some turns to maintain at least some control

Eli finishing off our run together full speed ahead.

Cael wanted me to watch him for a run too, so this meant we also got a chance to ride up on the lift together.

Cael making his way down like a champ with Blake trying to keep up.

Cael didn't spin around and ride down backwards once. In fact he didn't even have a single fall on our run down together. He improved so much from the day before. It was really cool to watch.

Family picture

It was another great day of snowboarding with my family. We ended the day again with some relaxing time in the hot tub, showers, a homemade spaghetti dinner, and more games. Bed time was welcomed by all since we were all worn out from our day of fun activities.