Happy October, friends! My friend Lisa came for a visit last week and it was so splendid. We actually headed to Vail for a quick overnight getaway on Sunday, where we stayed at Antlers and ordered food and walked around the adorable town and chatted and basically had a blast. An early fall snowstorm coated the ground in snow, which made it all the more beautiful and festive, if not somewhat scary to drive home in :/ We made it, though, and the trip was definitely worth the trek!
^^ This photo is blurry, but I love it. Lisa & I have so much fun together, always. I seriously hope Lotte and new Baby C find friends like her in their own lives …
^^ The view from our balcony. I would highly recommend Antlers – it’s close to a bunch of shops and restaurants and has a free shuttle to take you into the other section of town. We had a huge kitchen and living area with a fireplace, plus a balcony with a grill. We didn’t use the pool or hot tub area, but it looked glorious, as well.
^^ Lisa took this shot on our porch – oh hello, third trimester! This pregnancy is seriously flying by, so I’m hoping to slow down a bit this season and savor the final few weeks of it (11, to be exact!) … as if that’s possible 😉
^^ While Lisa & I were livin’ it up in Vail, Lotte had a fun little day date with her dad on Monday. He took her to the Butterfly Pavilion and Insect Center, which I think may have actually been more of a trip for Chris than for Lotte 😉 (Chris’ obsession with tarantulas borders on the insane … ) Look at this fun lunch he packed for Lotte for their little outing, though – how cute?!
We spent the rest of the week at home, taking walks, making trips to the playground, cooking delicious foods (well, Lisa cooked, I ate), and Chris & I even snuck out to the Red Rocks Thursday night for a date to see The Shins, which was amazing.
^^ The Shins were amazing — such a good show! Thanks for letting us play hooky for a night, Lisa!
^^ Three (ice cream) cheers to besties and the amazing times we have with them. Please come back soon, Loo, we miss you!
Hi friends,
^^ Super pumped for her second trip out east!
^^ Have you ever seen a happier dog? Can you blame him — look at that view!
^^ Chris’s traditional birthday steak dinner … just one night early 😉
^^ What you see here are parents who are ecstatic that their child slept through their meal!
^^ After presents we made our way to 
^^ The falls!
^^ The rising sun was not my photography friend on this hike, but the falls are there, if you look hard enough!
^^ Again, slept like a champ throughout the whole thing! We made sure to rug her up so she was nice and warm, all cozy-like against dad’s chest for the hike.
^^ After the hike we had a seriously delicious breakfast at 
^^ Bloody Mary’s all around!
^^ Under the table and dreaming 😉
^^ See? How cute is this back patio?!
^^ After breakfast we went for a little walk in town to do some shopping and check out the fall colors. Although some things were unfortunately closed for the season (like back patios, for example, and the gondola), I would highly recommend traveling during this time. It was really quiet, which was nice, and the views were spectacular.
^^ Cowboy boots for days!
^^ They had ’em for kids, too!
^^ See what I mean about the fall colors? Glorious!
^^ 
^^ After shopping we hopped in the car for a (super) short ride to 
^^ Again, ecstatic parents that their child is cooperating …
^^ Lotte did wake up from a short nap here, which allowed us to take some silly pictures. Always a plus in my book.
^^ Silly pic No. 1 …
^^ And 2 …
^^ And 3 …
^^ And 4 … and trust me, there were many more, but I’ll spare you. You get the picture.
^^ We tried to hang at 
^^ On Sunday morning we had to get rugged up again (which someone was not happy about at first), because we took a walk down by the 
^^ On the way back to the lodge to grab the car we stopped in 
^^ We definitely wanted to check out the area near the mountain while we were there as well. It’s really cute with lots of little shops and restaurants, and while you can tell it would probably be crazy packed in winter, again, at this perfect time of year, it was pretty empty, which is always amazing for a ski town.
^^ Improvising when no ramp is available.
^^ We grabbed lunch at 
^^ Multitasking at its best.
^^ Views on the drive home.
^^ Country road views on the way from Denver to Crested Butte
^^^ Here we are, all ready to hop our Japanese Bullet Train from Tokyo to Kyoto — yehaw!!
^^^ Entrance to the Yasaka Shrine. We thought the shrine closed to visitors at 5, and most of the stalls and things were closed, but you can still walk into the actual shrine area past 5, so seeing it at night (and then again later during the day) was special.
^^^ We were starving and decided to get sushi (no raw fish for me!) at a little place we happened upon in the Gion district. They had vegetarian noodles, so I started with those, and then gorged myself on veggie sushi, as well. Yum!
^^^ We caught the ferry from Hiroshima over to Miyajima Island first.
^^^ Chris & his dad about to chow down on some fried oyster donuts. Chris said this was one of his favorite things he ate the entire trip.
^^^ We also took the
^^^ Back down on the island …
^^^ After Miyajima Island it was on to Hiroshima, where our first stop was this structure, now known as the 
^^^ The city as it stands today. Incredible. While it’s obviously been a while since the attack, it’s still pretty amazing to see how the city has built itself up around the ashes.
^^ Homemade cinnamon buns from my stepmom. Best. Gift. Ever! (And yes, they were every bit as delicious as they look … )
^^ So exciting getting this in the mail!
^^ Chris and I found out a few weeks ago the gender of our baby. We took the paper with the gender on it to our local bakery and had these cupcakes made up with pink or blue frosting inside to let us know. It was just the two of us, but it was really fun to find out this way, and I’m so glad we did. [I’ll keep it a secret on here for now … some things are more fun when you wait for them ;)]
^^ The most delicious (and addicting!) ginger cookies from Trader Joe’s, sent as part of a ‘first trimester in pregnancy’ package from a best friend and her (three-times-a-momma!) sister.
^^ I mean … could these fortune cookies be more accurate?!
^^ A snowy day in downtown Denver.
^^ Chris and I planned to fly into Newark on our last trip back to New York because it was easier for my stepdad to pick us up there. Unfortunately that meant we had to have a layover at the Cincinnati airport, and when we landed we were given the unfortunate news that all flights into New York had been canceled because of weather. So that meant we spent the night at a hotel near the airport, which at first we were super bummed about, until my stepdad pointed out that the Cincinnati airport is actually in Kentucky, not Ohio (go figure!), and neither one of us had ever been to Kentucky before, so hello that totally counted and we can add it to our list of states visited! Of course we were so exhausted from the day (and our flight out to New York was at 6 a.m. the following morning), so we ended up doing nothing but relaxing, watching television and ordering in (which was delicious, by the way, see above). Still, we were in Kentucky for a night and a meal, so that counts!
^^ Not exactly the best picture, but flying into New York will always send my heart a flutter 😉
^^ Celebrating my grandmother and her twin sister on their 94th birthday. Could there be anything cuter than these two?!
^^ Still in love, after 94 years together. That’s some soul mate action, for ya.
^^ Although I spent the majority of my time in New York with family upstate, I did get to meet a friend in the city for a couple days (we stayed at 
^^ Catching up with another preggers friend of mine was definitely a highlight, but it got even better when she had her baby on the Friday before I spent all weekend long at the writing conference, which meant I actually got to meet little baby Fiona, which was beyond amazing!
^^ Lisa likes to jazz up photos we take when we’re together, and I like to look at ’em 😉
^^ Ahhhhh, registering for baby shower stuff. Can we all admit that this is fun for about an hour or two, and then by hour three and four all you want to do is sit down and eat cake?
^^ Chris was only with me on this trip for the first weekend (for my grandmother and her twin’s birthday party), and not for my jaunt out into the city and for the writer’s conference, so when he picked me up at the airport when I flew back, he was waiting with these amazing flowers. What a hubby, am I right?!
^^ A blurry view of the snowy trees whizzing by on our way up to the mountains on Christmas Eve.
^^Our dining room looking into what we came to affectionately refer to as our “Christmas nook”.
^^The kitchen
^^ Our Christmas nook, pre decorations.
^^ Chris spent most of his time stoking the lovely wood fire.
^^ Our Christmas nook, all decorated and lovely.
^^ Christmas Eve dinner was at the 
^^ Christmas eve entertainment was a roaring fire and some Christmas classics.
^^ Christmas morning Christmas nook views.
^^ I thought this photo was artsy, with the Christmas lights in the foreground, but Chris just said it was confusing.
^^ The 
^^ I took a lot of pictures of buildings people, because … I mean … come on! So gorgeous!
^^ We decided to do take away from Cafe Du Monde Friday, but we were able to sit down at a table on Monday morning, and it was fantastic. The people watching alone is worth it, but to sit at a table and dunk your beignet in coffee — you’ll think you died and went to heaven.
^^ Check out the beautiful 
^^ There are no open container laws in New Orleans, which makes for a pretty interesting time. You can’t have glass bottles on the street, but there’s a lotta paper baggin’ it happening around here!
^^ Look at this little kid, just playin’ his drum as he crosses the street. This is quintessential New Orleans, if you ask me.
^^ The first of many 
^^ The front lobby.
^^ One of the many second line parades we saw while in town. Anyone can register with the police department for any reason to have a parade, and they will be given real police escorts and everything. Of course you have to hire your own band, though — but those aren’t hard to come by in New Orleans. See the bride in the back? So much fun!
^^ Checking out the scenery at The Carousel Bar.
^^ So much fun!
^^ The band in the background could be heard all the way up the carousel part of the bar, which was really cool.
^^ My husband, up to something at Mimi’s, that’s for sure.
^^ Holy cow does it look cold or what?! Well it was!
^^ Passing by markers for the Oregon Trail during our drive brought me right back to my American history days!
^^ Our first stop in South Dakota was the 
^^ Yes, these are mountain goats, my friends, and guess who was super excited to add this animal to our list of animals we’ve seen this year …
^^ My husband was … that’s who 😉
^^ Entering the Mount Rushmore area was a sort of out-of-body experience for me at first. I mean you spend your whole life growing up, knowing that this place exists, seeing photos of it in history books and reading about what it represents, and then you see it in person … and you’re just blown away.
^^ The sunrise view from our hotel Wednesday morning certainly wasn’t too shabby.
^^Wednesday morning we drove through 
^^ We saw bison — hey bison!
^^ A vulture …
^^ You can’t really see it too well in this picture, but there’s a coyote a little right of center in this photo …
^^ There he goes, off to the right and into the woods!
^^ Prairie dogs!
^^ And more bison, super up close and personal.
^^ Look at these little cuties! We sure do miss them when we’re not with them.
^^ We also got to quickly check out 
^^ And then it was back to Mount Rushmore one more time to finish up with the museum and check out the monument again before heading back to Denver.
^^ We hopped into the car on Thursday, Jan. 8th, all four of us as a family. Everyone was all, “Oh my gosh, you’re taking your cat and your rabbit in the car with you? For four days? Across the country?” And we were all, “Ummm, yeah. They’ll be totally fine!” And guess what friends — they really were! Totally rocked it, is what this kitten and bunny did! Good job guys – we were very proud of you.
^^ Penny and Nugget had no trouble making themselves at home in our hotel rooms — especially the Hilton in St. Louis which was super swank.
^^ Like I mentioned before, the Arch was only a couple blocks from our hotel, so we just had to head out at night to catch it all lit up …
^^ And it did not disappoint!
^
^^ This statue was a gift to the city, but its back faces towards the more poor area, and the people who live there unfortunately took that to be a bit of a slight.
^^ The 
^^ We were in the old section on a Monday, so we were lucky enough to catch the changing of the guard at the Presedential Palace, which really is quite the show.
^^ We also visited the part of Quito where the lines of latitude and longitude are zero, which was fascinating. (There are actually two of these places. The first was the one the French thought was zero latitude, but the Ecuadorian army later scientifically determined the actual spot to be about 200 meters away. Still, that’s not bad for an educated guess!) Anyway, the equator line is so weird! This is me, trying to balance an egg on its end (which our tour guide and someone else in our group successfully managed to do), and you have practically zero strength on the line as well. It’s also incredibly hard to walk in a straight line when you’re directly on the equator (as demonstrated by Chris, below), and the water really does flush in different directions to either side of the line. So cool!
^^ These little leaf cutter ants were so amazing! They were one of the first signs of life we saw when we arrived, and there was a whole big stream of them running across the path we had to walk to get to our lodge, busy carrying those little leaves to their new destination.
^^ To get to the lodge, we had to fly to another city from Quito, take a 2.5 hour motorized canoe ride, walk a mile through the rainforest, then take another 15-20 minute canoe ride to the lodge itself.
^^ Super narrow streets and alleyways chock full of people made walking an interesting proposition as it was, but add in the high altitude and suddenly walking up even a couple flights of stairs would leave us breathless!
^^ There are quite a few churches in the main square in Cusco. We didn’t happen to visit any of them, but they sure were pretty to look at.
^^ All of the children wear uniforms to school in Peru, whether they go to public or private school, which I thought was so interesting, and not such a bad idea.
^^ How funny was the balcony at this restaurant/bar? We took to lovingly referring to it as the “long skinny” bar. Still, the view was pretty unforgettable.
^^ Alpaca’s at 
^^ The incredibly intricate work these women do seriously puts me in awe of them.
^^ A visit to 
