the most wonderful visit!

since moving into the new house, we have started some improvement projects. one project that i have taken on is painting over all of the colors that i do not like. i have started the kitchen and powder room and man, painting a bathroom has to be the worst room to paint. i never thought about how one would paint behind a toilet and still have yet to figure it out. oh the adventures! so now i am taking a break to eat some macaroni (of course) and catch you up on the most wonderful of visits! (please excuse the font issue, i cannot figure out how to fix it!)

alisha came to visit about two months ago and we had the best of times! (and i cannot believe it was two months ago. wow how time flies!) we did all kinds of fun things and were completely exhausted by the time sunday night rolled around.

friday: 

we were initially planning to ice skate on the lake, but they unfortunately closed down ice skating the weekend before in preparation for the lake melting. but dont worry, we still had a glorious time! we introduced alisha to our brewshotski handsome made and then headed down to our favorite place to eat, one world. luckily, we made it there right in time because they were about to close. after making sure we had fun bellies, we headed down to the little bear for some drinks and music. i honestly do not remember the band that was playing, but we had fun talking and catching up.

saturday: 

we woke up to a winter wonderland! it was absolutely perfect and wonderful that alisha was here to see the wonderful large fat flakes falling! and the perfect day to head over to the frozen dead guy festival! with the blizzard going on, they had to change around some events at frozen dead guy because all of the teams competing in the different events weren’t able to make it. i think it also made the event a bit less crowded than usual. we found a local who knew what was happening to let us know where we should go. She told us where different events would take place and we decided to try out the “local hotspot”, PI (I cannot remember what PI stands for). it was a small bar and you could tell it was the local hangout. we got ourselves some beer in lovely souvenir glasses and decided to enjoy some queso, very weird queso that was served in a super tiny cup not much larger than a shot glass. ha! after making our bellies a bit more full than they were originally, we headed down to one of the event tents that was filled with people enjoying local brewery beer, live music, delicious snacks and buying tie dyed frozen dead guy shirts. we each bought ourselves a drink token and headed to the beer tables. it was nice because they let you sample the beer first to make sure you liked what you were getting. This was especially nice since all the options were beers that i had never tried before. we were hanging out, talking and people watching (especially on this guy who seemed obsessed with alisha, but wouldn’t actually come over and talk) when a nice guy came over and gave us a free VIP pass! free beer for the remainder of the day!

we tried out our new pass and then made our way to the other tent where the coffin races were about to begin. this has to be one of the funniest and probably most fun events to participate in! each team has made a coffin that they carry one of their teammates in while racing around a snowy path with snow obstacles that they must climb over. it must have been very slippery because no one was able to remain standing on some of them. There was one team made up of women in their 50s named the frigid beavers. We ended up meeting them in a tent after the race and they were celebrating a friends 60^th birthday! and they were from beaver, oklahoma! They were fun ladies.

here is a video of the coffin race:

by this time we were starving, so we went back to the first tent since it was around all of the restaurants. we watched a few people bowl with a frozen turkey and then ate some barbeque. after eating, we headed home. alisha and i napped while handsome was a safe driver.

we got home and were welcomed by a foot of snow! alisha and i made our usual artichoke ravioli using my new ravioli maker and we relaxed and ate while drinking homemade frozen bulls out of my favorite paper birch straws. by midnight, we finally felt rested and decided to begin extreme sledding! extreme sledding is the best ever where you go over bushes, have to dodge trees, hope you dont hit a rock and have to make sure you bail out of the sled before flying into a fence or over a smallish cliff. here are some videos of our fun! what a great time!

sunday: 

dont think the fun stopped on saturday! on sunday, we got up, dressed ourselves appropriately for snow adventures and headed further into the mountains for snowshoeing! we stopped for an amazing burrito for the drive and decided to have our snowshoe adventure on loveland pass. for those who do not know, loveland pass is along the continental divide. It is where the large tunnels are that you drive through to get to you breckenridge and vail so that you dont have to drive over the mountains. it is also where a bunch of adventure seeking skiiers and snowboarders (like handsome) backcountry ski. the snow is deep, pristine, and beautiful. i am pretty positive that snowshoeing is my favorite winter activity and i cannot give a reason why. i just love it! here are some more videos of our snowshoe fun!

we got to the bottom of the pass and then had to try and hitchhike to the top so that we could get to the car. this was definitely not the most fun moment. after waiting forever, we were finally able to get into a truck that we had to quickly jump into with a bunch of guys and equipment and sit squished for the ride to the top. we finally made it to the car and then headed to keystone to eat beer cheese, shop a bit and go tubing!

tubing was so fun! we had races and had the guys spin us as fast as possible. i regretted the spinning part a bit because once it was over, i could not walk. overall, great times!

we ended up getting home and eating a bunch of pizza and then having to pass out due to exhaustion. it definitely was a successful weekend!

i am so glad alisha came to visit and i am looking forward to more visits in the future!

love.