Mile High Shenanigans

I've been telling myself for three days now that I was going to get this post done. Well, life got in the way, work over consumed my evenings, and I feel asleep at 9:30 last night. I haven't went to bed before 11:30 in months. It just doesn't happen at the Kutter household. We go to bed late.

I am so freakin' happy it's Friday. Can't wait to have a night on the couch watching The Social Network. Yes, I understand we are probably the last people to finally see this movie.

Our vacay to Colorado was super fun. Family time, fun with friends, skiing, lots of eating (I love food!), a night out in Denver that left me with a wicked hangover, seeing our cousins get baptized and a little bit of relaxation. Not to mention a great way to spend my b-day.

I have a million things I could tell you, but I'll do my best to just focus on a few. And, you're about to see a TON of photos, so I apologize if that's not what you're into.

Adventure 1: Exploring the City (or lack there of) and ending up at a downtown brewery
My bestie and her hubby officially moved to Denver about a month ago. She was at the top of my list of people to see, so we made plans Thursday afternoon to play. Well, considering the 4 of us didn't know the city, we met at Cherry Creek Mall until we decided to hop in the car to "explore." We hit the jackpot when we stumbled across a local brewery.

The Great Divide brewery offered the two things we needed most: A place to sit and chat and beer.

 Love this girl

 Great Minds Drink Alike.

I ordered the Wild Raspberry Ale, which was recently featured in Maxim for its "57 Best Beers" front page feature. I typically don't enjoy thicker brews, but this was a velvety-smooth beer with a chocolate overtone that doesn’t overpower the subtle raspberry flavor. 

 I went in the back and snapped some photos.

Adventure 2: Dinner at Steuben's with friends This place was recommended by the lovely Denverite and fellow blog friend Lauren. Fun drinks, retro modern decor and delicious eats. I couldn’t believe how packed this place was on a Thursday night. When we left around 10:30, they were still on a wait!

Me and Lynds drinking Moscow Mules: Vodka, ginger beer and lime. Yum. Yum. I don't know why I was so red. Probably from laughing so much.

Melany and Blake

Mac N Cheese with broccoli. It was divine.

Brian had the meatloaf. Go figure. He loves meatloaf. It was REALLY good.

Brennan

  A chocolate cupcake for me and Blakes' b-days.

Adventure 3: Copper Mountain
We only skied two days this trip, but boy was I sore! When you don't use certain muscles for years, you pay for it. It was also a little cold, but we had great snow so we couldn't complain much. It was just me and Brian on Friday, so we got in A LOT of runs. In case you were wondering from this post, he ditched the board for skis. I was shocked.

Chad, Lina and Santi joined us Friday night for dinner at the DAM brewery in Silverthorne, and we were up at 7:00 the next morning to hit the slopes. Brian’s cousins and their three boys, and Blake and some of his buddies came as well. We had a huge group, so we had to split up a lot.

Wondering how we witnessed K-State's win over Mizzou? We stopped at a bar and watched the second half over bloody marys. It was too big of a game to miss.

Look strange? It should. We rented our skis in Denver, trying to save time. Well, when we were at the bottom of the first lift and tried to snap into our skis, we realized they didn’t fit. Yep, the freakin’ place didn’t size them correctly. Brian’s were too small and mine were way too big. Maybe they switched our boots and skis? Nope, Brian tried my ski and that didn’t work either. We were pissed. An hour later and $40 cash to have Copper Mountain fix them, we finally began our day of skiing.

Santi, Lina’s son. It is adorable to see this little of a tike on a snowboard.

Me and Lina

Brian and Chad

These were my life savers for two days. Hand and toe warmers.

Brian and Justin

Adventure 4: One crazy night out downtown
As if we weren’t tired enough from skiing all day Saturday, we Blake thought it would be a great idea to go out. We knew we would be exhausted, but we really wanted to experience downtown. So, we drove straight to Blake’s apartment after skiing, showered and were at the bars within an hour.

I definitely thought I was a goner about 2 hours in*, until we started taking jager bombs. Moscow Mules + beer + jager + red bull = wicked hangover.

But it was fun. And worth it to hang with Blake, Melany, Brian's cousins and Gman. I even ran into a girl I used to work with at the KSU Collegian that lives in Denver. It’s such a small world!

If you ever go to Denver, check out The Blake Street Vault and The Front Porch. We had a great time.

Blake showing us his guns. LOL!

I love how you can see my teeth through the glass in this pic. Funny.

Blakey Poo

GMAN!

*I must mention that our wild and crazy friend Blake went home early. I was pretty impressed with myself that I lasted longer than him.


Adventure 5: A little R+R with the Fam
We stayed with family 3 of the 6 nights we were there. Family we don’t see very often, so it was nice. After Saturday night and a baptismal to attend Sunday morning, we really needed a day on the couch, so that’s exactly what we did.

Staying with our cousin Lisa, she assumed her rugrats would be good birth control. But it really just made me excited to watch 3D movies with my kids one day. We watched Shrek 3 and part of Despicable Me in 3D. It was so cool!

Check out our cool 3D glasses

Playing battleship

The view from Lisa's backyard in Broomfield.

Thank you to everyone who played a part in this fun-filled vacation! The hospitality was superb!

We're Back!

We're back in KC after spending six wonderful days in Colorado. Two of those were travel days, spending 18 hours in the car, but the other days were undoubtedly memorable for the Kutters.

We visited half of the city population, at least it felt that way:). The good news is, if we ever make the move to Denver, we have a ton of family and friends already there.

From Arvada to Copper Mountain, and Downtown to Broomfield, we had quite the sampling of places to see and stay. And just as I expected, we had a damn good time. What a wonderful way to spend my birthday!

Brian did really good this year surprising me with a new point and shoot camera.

Remember the little bet we had last summer? The one he lost and the one where I was supposed to go buy myself a camera for winning? Well, the one I was going to get at Costco wasn't there when I went to make the purchase awhile ago, and I kind of forgot about the whole thing.

Well, the one I was workin' with was 5.0 megapixels and about 7 years old. Yes, I just said 5.0 megapixels. I was due for an upgrade. Thank god I have our Canon SLR camera, but it's quite cumbersome to lug around to certain places. I definitely wouldn't have been able to take it on the slopes, so I was super excited to receive this gift before we left. Thanks babe!
 
I took a fair amount of photos, but surprisingly, I wish I would have taken more. I didn't have the chance to simply explore and take in all the scenery the Mile High City has to offer.

I'm a picture freak. I'm surprised my husband hasn't lost all patience with me, as I am constantly making him pose, shoving the camera in his hand, or having him pull over on the side of the highway to snap some shots of the mountains or the wind farm near Salina. Real safe Krista.

All I can say is that I couldn't miss an opportunity to photograph the turn off point to "God's Country" aka Great Bend, KS. Blake, one of the friends we visited in Denver, is from Great Bend and happens to think his hometown is the best place in the nation. I'm not kidding.

When someone utilizes the words "God's Country" and "blessed with attractive people" to explain their hometown, it confirms your thoughts of just how crazy he is. Crazy fun that is and always down for hitting the town in shit kickers. He was a great host along with the rest of our friends and family.

We rolled in last night (right before the CATS domination over Texas! Wahoo!), coming home to a 58 degree house, an 81% full DVR, a large pile of dirty laundry, and a super busy week ahead. However, we dodged the icy, snowy weather in KC over the weekend. Score! Nothing like being in a city where you can actually do something with the snow!

More pics and details to come of our super fun winter vacay.