Back, Back, Back It Up

Happy beautiful Sunday morning to you all! I’m tellin’ ya, the weekends get shorter and shorter, don’t they?

Let’s back it up to Friday since I haven’t told y’all about that yet 🙂  We spent Thursday night at the Magnolia Hotel in Denver, thanks to Stacey!  When we got up Friday morning we went downstairs to grab breakfast before hightailing it back up to Boulder.  Obviously we started with some coffee:

I got a plate with some eggs, potatoes, two sausage patties (on accident, but I ended up eating about 1.5), and an apple:

We hurriedly dropped all of the photo gear off at home, picked up the dogs, and went straight to work.  It was quite the morning!  Lunch was simple, a turkey sandwich and some Boulder Canyon Black Pepper chips:

A little later I got hungry, so I snacked on a 100-calorie popcorn:

And Friday night?  When we got home?  We crashed. Well, I should say Nate crashed out on the couch…I tried to sleep, but couldn’t for some reason.  I decided to watch wedding reality TV on TLC all night and do an upper body/ab workout 🙂  However, when he woke up I was exhausted, so I went to bed immediately!  Saturday morning the dogs woke me up, so I decided to make a can of cinnamon rolls we had in the fridge.  YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM 🙂

All day Friday I had the biggest ITCH to do some yard work!  Totally rare, so I decided to go with it 🙂  We have this little patch of yard right in front of our kitchen window that just had a bunch of red mulch and random grass and weeds in it, and that was it…not cute:

I have wanted for so long to do something with that, but never took the time, or – when I had the time – never did anything about it.  Yesterday that changed!

1. First, I raked up all the mulch.
2. Then I sprayed down the dirt a little to make it easier to shovel.
3. I dug up all of the grass and dirt, then broke it up with a hoe.
4. The stuff that still had grass in it I threw in another part of the yard, upside down, just to have more dirt in there.
5. After I broke up the dirt clods Nate and I went to Home Depot to get plants, new mulch, planting soil, and some stones.

My back was tired.

At Home Depot we got 3 rosemary plants, 3 Dallas red lantana plants (they’re good for areas that don’t get a ton of rain!), and some other flower that was pretty and required the same water and light as the other two…sorry, threw the signs away before I did the blog!  We also got a different and BETTER color mulch to put down around it all:

It looks so great now!  We feel like real grown-ups with our landscaped front yard 🙂

Afterwards I jumped in the shower and emerged a new woman 🙂  While I helped Nate edit photos from the WillPower Summit I also baked off some roasted taco chickpeas:

• 1 can chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and dried
• 1 packet taco seasoning
• 2 tsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 400.  Coat the dried chickpeas in olive oil and seasoning.  Spread flat on a baking sheet and roast for 40-50 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  Be careful towards the end that the chickpeas don’t burn!

I only had a few of those though…didn’t want to ruin my appetite!  Robbie & Stef were coming over so we could all go to downtown Denver!  We started off at a place EVERYONE has said we need to try, the Cheeky Monk:

Robbie & Stef

Me & Nate (sorry babe, I told you I’d put this picture up here!)

I had a Koningshoeven Dubbel (whatever that means), which was probably the closest thing to a porter they had on tap:

And we all split some frittes that were covered in garlic, parmesan, and shaved truffles!  I’m drooling just thinking about these…

It was fun!  We all liked our beers, obviously we all loved the frittes, and we laughed about silly stuff the whole time.  Next we went to the 16th Street Mall area and walked around trying to find our next restaurant victim.  We started to go into one place, but it was WAY nicer than we were dressed, but the valet told us about a really great place just up the street, Sullivan’s.  He said they had an all-day-every-day happy hour on their patio, so we decided to go for it!

Y’all, this was one of the best places I’ve been to in a while.  The patio was perfect, the service was outstanding, the food was incredible, and the view of Coor’s Stadium (baseball) was awesome!  We all started off with martinis…I had the Knockout, which was very tropical 🙂

Mmmmmmmmmm

For the patio happy hour they have a selection of their great entrees at 1/2 price!  We all split the bleu cheese chips:

Some heaven gnocchi with mushrooms, spinach, parmesan, and a light cream sauce:

And Beef Wellington with mashed potatoes:

We also ordered another round of the gnocchi, split a burger 4 ways, and a bbq beef quesadilla thing, but those photos were past being salvaged, so we’ll just all use our imaginations 🙂  After that we walked down 16th Street Mall and then back to the car.  I was exhausted!  Yesterday was definitely a great Saturday, and I love that every time we come home we have some beautiful landscaping to look at!

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!!!

Happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers out there, but I want to say a SUPER happy Father’s Day to my daddy…the best daddy in the world!  My very own daddy (that’s what I used to call him :)) taught me so many things in life…how to enjoy books, reading, writing, and always challenged my sister and I to be the best we could be.

He taught me the value of adventure, hard work, and giving it all I have in everything I do.  He used to make my sister and write book reports for him every week in the summer, something I hated at the time, but am planning on doing with our kids someday!

He taught me how to make Old Dead Bugs & Worms (spaghetti with olives) and Mike’s Special Spaghetti (secret, sorry, can’t tell ya ;)).  He showed my sister and I what it looks like to have a supportive husband and has always loved my mom well.  He has always loved us unconditionally and, along with my Mommy, has been our biggest encourager and our biggest fan.

But most importantly my Daddy taught me about love, beauty, respect, and grave.  And I love him more than words could ever express.

Like I said, I have the best Daddy in the entire world – my very own Daddy.  Happy Father’s Day!  I love you Daddy!