Sunday, July 24, 2011

July (so far!)

There shouldn't be much more stuff happening in July, so I feel safe blogging about it so far. If I do anything else, I can always add a blog!

I took Friday, July 1st off to hang out with my sister and her kids, and we went to the zoo!! I always have fun there! July 4th was nice because I was also able to take the day off from work, so we mostly just hung around the house and had a small BBQ with my mom and dad. Susanna, our HR intern, came over and joined us as well! She was a huge hit with my sister’s kids, mostly because she played the “pretend” games with them and let them crawl all over her! I was also a big hit because I had gotten quite a few glow sticks from the Dollar Store and gave them to the kids as a surprise – it was a HUGE hit! They were SOOO excited! They had bracelets and necklaces, and each kid had their own wand. I learned from last year that those definitely keep them entertained while we’re waiting, plus it’s always easier to see them in the dark when you know where they are!

That week was also the week of the US Women’s Open! It was pretty slow for us in the Administration offices, but we got out to the Merchandise tent to help at the register. It was packed, and it didn’t help that it rained all 4 days of the Championship and everyone came inside to do some shopping! It was crazy, but it added to the already memorable experience of saying that you worked at a property that held a National USGA golf tournament that got worldwide recognition. I even came out of it with “credentials” and a free Cutter and Buck t-shirt! So I would say it worked out well!

I also went with Katy and Susanna (both from work) to a Sky Sox game! The Sky Sox are our Minor League team that feeds into the Colorado Rockies. The stadium is really close and it’s really affordable – the seats closest to the field are only $12 plus tax! Then the food and drink are priced what you would expect, between $6 and $8 but that’s not bad! We had a blast, and we stuck around for after the game when we saw FIREWORKS!! Nevermind that we just saw them a few days earlier for the Fourth, but they shot these off RIGHT outside of the ballpark, which is relatively small.

I also went to another Rockies game, this time with Susanna and friends from her school program, Sarah and Lumi! We had a great view from Right Field, but we were in direct sunlight the entire time – IT. WAS. SO. HOT. Thank goodness Susanna had 50 SPF sunscreen in her purse, or we would have burned skin off – it really was that hot. The only breaks we got were when we got up to get food or beer and when a large cloud covered the sun for a good chunk of time. We also decided to go to the gift shop and buy the first white sleeveless tank top we could find to help allieviate some of the heat from our black cotton t-shirts! 3 out of the 4 of us got a new tank top that day, and changed in the bathroom. The shirts fit a little funny, but it was worth the $27 to have even a little bit of relief! On a non-baseball related note, I think that I had the most amazing cheeseburger I have ever eaten at the game – SO yummy!! They also gave us so many French fries that I couldn’t eat them all, and I didn’t even need dinner! My dad also gave me an old camera of his – the camera wasn’t really that old, but he wasn’t using it and didn’t sell it in the garage sale they had that weekend. But, it has 12X zoom and I was able to get some really cool shots! The only bad thing was that the closer you zoom, the fuzzier the picture got. But it was still cool!

Finally, I completed my 5K!! You can read about that here. I bought a 5K sticker to put in my car’s rear window and might even continue running – might even do another 5K!

So, with that all finally being said and done – here is a highlight of July so far (with a few more photos to come – the next few weeks are busy too!):








Yet another Rockies game! However, it was someone else who had the tickets this time, and gave them to my team. My boss and 2 co-workers made it out on a Tuesday (yikes!!) and got a nice hook-up with seats. My boss was able to get an upgrade because he helped someone in the Rockies box office with their training program, so we had AWESOME seats! We’re generally a silly group of people who work hard but then like to relax and so of course we had a blast. The fun didn’t stop, even though we hit massive amounts of traffic on the highway on the way home. Next time, we’ll go to a game where we don’t have to work the next morning – we were all dead.

I was also invited to go see Brett Dennen in concert in Denver with a friend in early June, very last minute, and it was a blast as well!! In fact, because I went, I saw that probably one of my top 10 favorite bands was playing at the very same theater later in June – PANIC! AT THE DISCO!!!!!!! I have loved them since 2006! I went home and promptly bought 2 tickets because I couldn’t wait and it’s a good thing I did because it sold out!!! I blogged about it here, and took Susanna with me! It was seriously the most fun I have had in the past year.

And lastly, I surprised my sister with a dinner at the Penrose Room – a restaurant at the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs. It is the only 5 Star and 5 Diamond restaurant in Colorado! I won it as a prize for winning Employee of the Month in May, and decided to share it with her! She had NO idea what we were doing and I kept sending picture clues to her all day to keep her guessing. She was completely surprised and excited and was extremely happy. We ending up eating (in varying portion sizes)- caviar, lobster, rabbit, halibut, filet minon, and more!

Yet another barrage of photos (this time from June):











Monday, July 18, 2011

Catching you up!

I haven’t really been blogging on here because of my running blog, http://learningtorun.blogspot.com, but then again, I’m not quite as busy as most of my peers! Most of the things I do are normal, everyday things, which aren’t really that interesting!

However, I have been pretty busy the past few weeks, so here’s an update…I've broken it down so it's not a marathon blog!

May:
My company has 4 tickets to the Rockies, and allows employees to sign up for one game per season (based on availability) on a first come, first serve basis. I was able to get tickets for an afternoon game on a Saturday, which is great because I hate driving all the way down from Denver really late and especially if I have work the next morning. Susanna had just been there one week and I invited her to go because she didn’t know about baseball!

We got there and it was overcast for most of the day, until it started raining around 3 or 4! Bummer! The worst news was that we were both wearing flip flops because when we left, it was nice and warm, but at the game, our little toes got cold and wet and it was pretty rough. Susanna had purchased a foam finger for one of her roommates and found that it made a very nice temporary “sock”! I had thought ahead to bring a rain jacket (someone tell my mom!) and Susanna had packed an umbrella, but forgot she had it until she had been sitting in the rain for a while (oops!)

All in all, even though it was overcast and foggy and wet all day, we had a really great time and it was a great baseball experience!! May was also when I started Yoga (shocking!) and my Couch to 5K program. I am proud to say that I have stuck with both, except that I will not be doing Yoga this week so that I can practice running some more, because I have my first 5K on Saturday!

I also went to an event in Denver called the Furry Scurry! This was before I started running, so I did not run this but it was event to raise money for animals in shelters and it was HUGE!! There were thousands of people and tents set up, and Bailey and I spent almost 2 hours just wandering around – he even got to have a cup of doggie ice cream because it was so hot out! Well, that and I love him to death and spoil him like crazy.

Then, I brought Susanna to something called Territory Days. It's held every year over Memorial Day in Old Colorado City, Colorado. It's basically a gigantic street fair meant to celebrate when the city was the capital of the Colorado Territory. The weather was perfect and it was just a lot of fun! (Even though there were large crowds!).

Let the photo montage ensue:










Saturday, July 2, 2011

Panic! at the Disco - BEST. CONCERT. EVER.

So I love Panic! at the Disco. Duh.THEY. ARE. AWESOME.

And yes, you have to have the exclamation point in their name, because that's legally how you write it.

Back in college, circa 2005, a friend of my boyfriend at the time knew that I liked "punk" music (Bowling for Soup, Blink 182, Simple Plan, etc.) and she handed me a purple burned CD of this group called Panic! at the Disco and told me I should listen to it because I should like them.

I had vaguely heard of them before in passing, but really had no idea who they were. At first, I thought "this is way too weird for me" and slightly wrote them off. But the more I listened to it, the more it grew on me until I loved them!! I hadn't really heard about them a few years later though, and they fell off my radar.

Until I was invited at the last minute to a concert in Denver with a work friend. It was for an artist that I had never heard of, but as we drove past the theater, I saw Panic!'s name on the billboard for a future date in June and FREAKED OUT!!!! Now, he had never even heard of them, but it was like they jumped right back onto my radar and I wondered what had happened to them!

So later that night, I did some research and found out they came out with a brand new album in March of 2011!! So I immeadiatley purchased this album on iTunes and bought tickets the very next PayDay. (This turned out to be a very smart move on my part because it sold out!!!)

I bought 2 tickets figuring that I would find someone to go with me, and at the very least, I would just go with myself. Either way - I WAS GOING. (Fortuately, my office has a super cool intern working with us who I really get along with and she was game!!) And…the best part????? She took video of a lot of the songs and I can not WAIT to see them!!!!!!

Turned out to be an AWESOME move!!!!!! The concert was last night and it lived up to every expectation - in fact, I'm sure it actually blew any expectations off the road and then waved at them as the concert passed them by - it really was THAT GOOD. At least for me.

So if you feel like it, go check out my photos from the event - but be advised, they were all taken from a cell phone camera at a distance, so apart from the colors, they probably won't look that different to you. But it will be an amazing experience that I will never forgt, and will NEVER regret doing.