First Day of Skiing in Colorado -- Copper Mountain, Nov. 14th!

I know, I know, I've really be slacking on the blog posts. I'll try to be better. :)

This weekend we got our first taste of skiing in Colorado. We purchased our season passes for Copper Mountain and Winter Park Resort over a month ago, so we were excited to use them. Friday night we went to the movies with some friends and saw the late, 945PM showing of 2012...crazy, I know. What were we thinking?! We didn't get home until 1AM and then we got up at 6AM to head to the mountain! Ryan and Danielle spent the night so we could head straight to the mountain. Unfortunately, we haven't yet gotten around to cleaning out the spare bedroom. It's full of things we haven't organized yet. So they brought sleeping bags and slept in the living room. I swear we'll have that all cleaned out and ready for Mike to visit the first weekend in December. Maybe that will be a day-after-Thanksgiving task.

Anyway, off to Copper Mountain at 6AM on Saturday, after stopping for some Einstein's breakfast sammiches of course! We got to the mountain at about 830 and hit the slopes. There was only, what I would call one trail open, straight from top to bottom. But it took two lifts to ski them both. We spent a little time in the terrain park. Well, Ryan and Danielle tried a box rail while Jason and I watched. Next time, when I'm wearing a helmet, I'll probably try it. We ended up skiing until about 230PM and then headed back home. Check out some of our photos...

Our first glimpse of Copper Mountain.





The view from about halfway up the mountain, just as we got off the lift.



Waiting in the lift line at the base.

View from the very top.




We had to pose for a picture!

Mountain biking down the slopes? Pretty cool!

Taking a short break for a snack.

Hanging out in the terrain park (behind me) and people watching. It was snowing at this point.





We saw the sun a few times throughout the day.



Another photo-op on the slopes.

Waiting for Ryan and Danielle to tryout the box rail.

Amazing view from the base after our last run.

Coming up this weekend...Winter Park! :)

Colorado Avalanche!

So we're making the rounds on all the Colorado professional sports teams...this stop, NHL hockey's Colorado Avalanche! I'm not feeling overly wordy tonight, so check out some of our photos. Oh, and the Avalanche won! :)


The Pepsi Center, home of the Avalanche, and the Nuggets.

TWO Zambonis!!

I got a kick out of these two...they did this before the game and at both intermissions.

Here comes the team!

Adam Foote, not only is he great, but I think it's funny that part of the Avalanche's logo is a FOOT (on each shoulder of the jerseys)!

Star Spangled Banner

Avalanche Power Play!

Great night out!

Denver Broncos are next!

Our First Colorado Snow Storm --- in October!

Colorado was hit by a HUGE snow storm October 27th-29th. The storm started around dinner time on Tuesday and continued through late Thursday night. We got about 20 inches in Westminster and Boulder. I was actually surprised that the Boulder Department of Commerce campus (where NIST is located) wasn't closed. We heard that some other places in CO got almost 40 inches! I don't remember where, though. I haven't yet gotten accustomed to CO geography. Some of the unofficial regions I have picked up though, are the Front Range (includes Boulder), the Western Slope (west of the Rockies, includes Grand Junction), Eastern plains (the nothingness that is east of Denver and precedes Kansas), and Denver Metro (includes Westminster). Now I just need to get a handle on what cities are where. I have some general bearings around Denver (the major suburbs), into the Mountains (where all the ski resorts are, of course), and Estes Park (entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park), and Fort Collins (where the Balloon Boy lives).

Check out some of our pictures from the storm. It all started with a delightful, light snow...

Two days later, we were buried, well, almost.

Tons of snow on the roof!

Poor tree was completely slumped over from the weight of the snow.

The Focus WAS buried. Took more quite a while to dig out, with only a scraper!

But I made it to work.

I love this picture, right outside our apartment building. I love the way the trees look right after a fresh now.

Another beautiful tree.

A frozen bicycle at CU.

Snowcovered Flatirons

Chautauqua Park

NIST

Took a break for a short walk and some photos of the Flatirons from the NIST campus.

One of the many people that took advantage of the early snow to get out their snowboarding gear.

Boulder Sunset

Another view of the Boulder sunset.

Beautiful snowcovered mountains on Saturday morning.

Our Colorado Pad, A Tour

Although we still have boxes around, and we can't nearly consider ourselves fully moved in, we figured everyone back home might like a little tour of our new place here in Colorado. We have a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment in Westminster, CO. This way, we have plenty of room to have people come visit. Keep in mind, our new 42" television that we just bought tonight is not in this photo tour, but we're getting it mounted on the wall on Monday :-). Also, we haven't hung much of anything on the walls yet in the way of pictures and paintings. We plan to get these started very soon. Welcome to our "new" place:

View from our balcony out into our neighborhood.

Living room looking into dining room.


View from the door, into the living room.


Fireplace in the living room, and the place where our new 42" TV is hanging.


View from the front door down the hall way, with the kitchen on the left.

View from the front door into the kitchen and dining room.

View from the kitchen in the living room.

Down the hall, 1st right, guest bathroom.

Just beyond the guest bathroom, into the guest bedroom, which is obviously being used as storage for the things we haven't yet set up.

Hallway. At least we have the degrees hung up.

Down the hall to the left, utility room with washer/dryer and camping/biking/skiing gear.

Down the hall, 2nd right. Our bedroom.

Through our bedroom into the master bath.

View from the master bath back towards our bedroom.

Well, there you go. A glimpse into our little world here in Colorado. Ready for a visit? I suppose we could clean off the bed for you.