Weekend Explorers

 Is it weird that I still feel really pumped from our weekend?  Blame it on the mountain air, or some good exercise with friends, but either way, I'll take it!  

After spending a spontaneous Friday night at happy hour, enjoying great conversation with my bestie, we decided to get up Saturday morning and do a fun, new hike.  After some online research, we decided on the Beaver Brook trail in Genesee Park.  It took us about 20-25 minutes to get to, but it literally felt like we were in the middle of nowhere!  Miles from home.  It offered some beautiful scenery on our descent into the valley, and a serious (for me!) workout on the return uphill.  

On our water break, we decided to do a little impromptu family photo sesh.  Don't mind us, we just needed to make sure we got every combination of our group as we could.  And no, we weren't delirious, this was before the climb back up.

This photo gives just a little taste of the uphill trail on our return.  It also gives me away, that I was in the back the whole time! Ha! 

Don't let the beauty of the scenery fool you -- it was COLD and WINDY!  Luckily, we were moving, so we stayed pretty warm... especially on the uphill return!

After our morning hike, we found a cute little organic, family-owned cafe and bakery tucked away in a cute mountain town.  We were very pleasantly surprised at the quality of both the food and the service, and will most definitely be returning with out-of-town visitors in tow.

We then went our separate ways with our friends, and, being spontaneous, Chris and I continued our drive through the cute little mountain towns.  As we came down out of the mountains, we decided to go to the super cheap movie theater in Littleton (we weren't far away at that point!) to watch the movie Prisoners.  It was our first time at the theater, and we were very excited to find that the tickets were only $2.50!  And for a fairly new movie as well!  And even better, we have one of these theaters just down the road from our house. Score!

After the movie, we made it home and had a much-needed relaxing evening indoors.

But we didn't relax for long...  Sunday morning, we decided to set off East to explore the plains a bit.  We always seem to head to the mountains (understandably so!), but were curious what the flatter part of our new state had to offer. Turns out?  Not much!  Just lots and lots of tumbleweeds (I felt right at home!).  Don't believe me?  See for yourself!

{ pit stop. }

We finished off our Sunday with a brisk walk around the lake at dusk.  All in all?  A really great weekend with the hubs and friends!

Now we are looking forward to two long weekends in a row!  Bring on the adventures!

Making Sense of Our Garage

With the temperatures dropping steadily, we decided to organize our garage so that we can park both cars in there overnight.  No more scraping windshields for us!  Though, yesterday was a beautiful summer's day, so who knows what the next few weeks will bring!  But at least we can relax knowing that we are prepared for anything.

That dresser on the left has been on my to-do list for a few months now.  We snagged it for $15 at a thrift store, with the intent of refinishing it.  So far, we have not made any progress, but my hope is to tackle that in the next few weeks.  Then once we move it to the guest room upstairs, we can finally put up our stacked bike stand that we got as a wedding gift!  

It is definitely a tight two-car garage, but somehow we managed to pull it off.  Now, if we can just manage to not accumulate anything else!  Ha!

Happy Monday!

Master Bedroom - Paint Reveal!

Apologies for the delay in posting the master bedroom paint color.  We just got around to cleaning up the painting supplies and ladders out of our room this morning!

Not all of the photos depict a very accurate portrayal of the color, so even though there are no filters on the photos, they all look slightly different in the daylight.  Also, I took them with my iPhone, because I can't find our camera anywhere!

We love the way it turned out!  It really brightened up our room.  We didn't realize how dreary our bedroom was until we saw this vibrant color on the walls!  We want to put in a thicker baseboard and moulding around the doors and windows, as well as crown moulding, but for now we think it looks great!  

I can't wait to get some things up on the wall.  I have already started collecting pieces for our collage wall, though I expect that will take several months to fully put together before we put them up.

What do you think of the color?

I also daydream about adding these white seersucker tie-up curtains to add to the charm a bit.  I seriously love them.

And, of course, I am still daydreaming about buying this quilt from Etsy.  The good news is, Chris and I agree on this for our bed.  The bad news is, we are saving our pennies to make it happen. :)

Hope your weekend is off to a good start!  Get out and joy it... I know we will!

Daylight Savings Saved My Life

Okay, so that is a slight exaggeration, but for the past 6-7 weeks, I have been struggling to wake up in the morning and just an overall lack of energy throughout the day.  I assumed it was the change of the season, and it seems to a certain extent that I was right.  More specifically, the fact that it was staying dark so much later in the morning.  I would leave for work under a blackened sky, and it would stay that way until long after I settled into my cozy office at work.  

Well, I am happy to report that with the falling back of time this past weekend, I have a renewed energy!  It is light before I finish getting ready for work in the morning and I seem to have adjusted accordingly.  Now, believe me, I understand that it won't last for long.  But it at least gave me a chance to catch up, which I hope will allow me to adjust a bit easier when the morning darkness returns.  

Did you struggle with the changing of the seasons this Fall?  How did you compensate for your lack of energy?

I am embarking on a new challenge/adventure this week, and am looking forward to the next few weeks.  I will share a bit more once I am successfully on my journey (no, it's not pregnancy! ha!).  Stay tuned for more details over the next few weeks!

Is that too much of a tease?  Okay, I'll give you a hint.  It has to do with healthy living.  Any guesses?

American Obsession With the English Accent, Take 9,367:

This year, Chris and I decided to forgo the traditional craziness that happens every Halloween, and do something a bit different.  What, you ask?  We went out for an Indian curry, followed by a movie in our local theater.  Two funny things happened that I felt must be shared here, with all the talk about the American obsession with the English accent and all.

So we had a lovely meal at a quiet little Indian restaurant near the theater, and then made a mad dash for the theater, as it was quite cold out!  As we were walking up the steps to the theater, we were chatting away, and this young guy carrying a big sign passes by us.  He obviously hears Chris' accent because he literally dropped his sign, trying to turn around and asked Chris where his accent was from.  There was a lot of awkward fumbling trying to keep his sign in check, and he seemed a bit desperate to find out where Chris hailed from.

{ I may have to try this sometime. If only so I don't get written off before I even open my mouth! }

Once Chris told him that it was, in fact, an English accent, he responded the way I imagine many people respond to the Queen: awestruck.  "That's so cool."  He then turned and walked off.  That's all he wanted, was to know where Chris' gorgeous accent was from.  :)

So, off we went into the theater to buy our tickets.  

Funny thing number two doesn't really have anything to do with the English accent, but as it happened last night as well, I might as well share it here.  

We really wanted to go to a movie, but there was nothing we really wanted to see that we hadn't already seen, so we opted for one with great reviews, despite our reservations about our interest level.  It was called Enough Said, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, & Toni Collette.  It had a 96% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so we went for it.  And truth be told, we both enjoyed it.  It wasn't the most creative storyline I've ever heard, but the acting was good and it held our attention.  Want to know who else's attention was captured by this movie?  The 20 other viewers in the theater.  Oh, and did I mention they were all over 70? Ha!  Chris and I felt so out of place with every new couple that came into the theater.  What started as one other older couple, which we laughed off as a coincidence, of course, quickly became 10 older couples.  

Overall, we had a great Halloween.  Even though there wasn't really anything Halloween about it.  :)  I have to admit, I get the excitement around costumes, but for some reason, the holiday really doesn't do much for me.  Now, Christmas... that's a great holiday...

P.S. We weren't complete duds when it came to Halloween this year, we DID get pumpkins.  Pumpkins I placed on the front porch, fully intending to carve them at some point.  Only to have them eaten.  Eaten, you ask?  Yep, our neighborhood squirrel must have gotten hungry.  After the first two got eaten, we assumed it was the pesky raccoons back again.  But then Chris caught him in action...

Stay tuned for the reveal of our bedroom this weekend!  We painted it last weekend, but have failed to do cleanup, and as there is a ladder blocking half the room, I will wait until we clean up to take our after photos.  Which color do you think we chose?

Happy Friday!