Off to Denver!

I headed up to Denver the day after my bday party for lots of excitement (and work). I spent the weekend with Kristin and she took me on a great hike. The elevation was quite high (I think she said 10,000-12,000 feet!), so I was a bit out of breath - but it was really beautiful. Kristin's two dogs and her friend Kit's dogs had a wonderful time too, as you can see in all of the pictures. We ended up hitting quite a bit of snow and for a while before we turned around, we were stomping through snow and occasionally loosing the lower portion of our legs into softer snow. I don't get an opportunity to hike in that kind of weather too much (not to mention that it was warm out and we had on shorts), so I loved it. There were also wildflowers out, which was so funny to see right alongside the snow.

Kristin made me the most awesome meal for my birthday. She's probably the best cook that I've ever known and I'm always very excited to eat whatever she chooses to cook. She made a 4 course meal starting with a plate of cheeses and nuts and fruit. I don't normally like blue cheese, but when putting it on a fresh fig, it was great! She then served a salad that I don't even know how to explain how good it was - but yummy! She then made mussels in a white wine cream sauce - I would never have any clue how to go about that! And she finished it off with a creamy shrimp and rice dish, similar to one that my mom used to make. I think that my mom got the recipe from Sandy, who is Ian's mom (Ian was the one who was just out visiting me). Anyway - it was always a great dish when my mom made it and Kristin remembered loving it, but Kristin even put a whole new fancy cook spin on it and I think it was the best thing I'd ever eaten! The next night, they wanted to go out and I just wanted to stay home and eat leftovers. :-) We finished off the night by watching Wil paint Lucy's fingernails. She didn't love it, but she was so beautiful.