There are a few photos from Kyllan’s visit to Denver on my Flickr.
Also, my cousin Robyn has recently started a blog, Sunshine Days. She mostly post about her two young daughters Samaya and Aleesha. I’ve really had a lot fun keeping up with the girls and reading Robyn’s tales of motherhood. You’ll be able to find a link to her blog in the right hand side bar under “friends and family.”
William and I had a great time in Denver this past weekend. Typically we are simply excited to be in each others presence, so we don’t really take time to “plan” anything for our visits. However, this time William planned some “touristy” things for us to do. We have previously been to the Capitol Building, Mile High Stadium, and other sites in and around downtown, but we crossed a few more sites off our list.
After breakfast on Saturday at what has quickly become one of our favorite breakfast places, The Delectable Egg, we began our tour of the Denver Art Museum. With two buildings with several levels of exhibits, we became very overwhelmed at the amount of art on display, but did not really find anything that made us extremely fascinated. I guess we have not fully developed our appreciation for art. After the museum, we spent some time exploring the 16th Street Mall. We had several lunch options on the mall, but somehow managed to wander several blocks off the mall to a cute little pizza joint. After the long walk to get there, we were wondering if it would be worth it, but we both enjoyed our selection of the “Brooklyn”, which we quickly devoured. After making the walk back to the mall, which of course seemed much shorter this time, we treated ourselves to gelato (Italian ice cream). Yes, we broke our “healthy eating” rule, but hey… the gelato has less calories and less fat than regular ice cream 🙂 We concluded the day with William’s favorite combo…dinner and a movie. William was surprised to learn that I was interested in seeing Get Smart, and I think we were both surprised that we both enjoyed the movie and laughed throughout the film despite the lukewarm reviews.
To conclude the weekend, we enjoyed Sunday brunch at Dazzle. I thought the brunch was very good and the live jazz band was a nice touch. Please do not ask William how the brownie covered in fudge that I brought to the table for us to share became Kyllan’s dessert. It had chocolate chips in it! Brownie without nuts, fudge topping, chocoloate chips….enough said.
William took pictures, of course, so I am sure he will post those soon.
Oh… and I have to report that after multiple visits to the Apple store only to come out empty handed and disgruntled, William is now the very proud owner of an iPhone, which he loves. I am sure he will post about that later this week.
Kyllan will be in town this weekend. We may try and do some touristy things and spend some time down town.
This past Friday I invited the lab and some of the graduate students in the department over to my apartment to watch Batman Begins. On Saturday we all met up and went to see Dark Knight (the IMAX: Experience.) Apparently a lot of other people did too. I thougt it was great! Probably the best super hero movie I’ve seen, other than Iron Man. Heath Ledger was just flat out creepy as the Joker. The film was long, it was dark, but it was also very entertaining. I highly recommend to anyone that hasn’t already seen it. (My parents also saw the movie this weekend, but did not enjoy it as much as I did. It may have been a little too dark for them.)
I can’t believe we are already on week 4 of our exercise challenge. I hate to admit it, but so far, William is in the lead. He has been faithfully exercising (running, riding his bike to work, etc). He has been able to lose 4 lbs so far. I did well during Week 1, but Week 2 and 3 were bad for me. The holiday threw a wrench in things and I think I picked up a few pounds. The good news is that I was back to the gym this week doing my Turbo Kick classes and I have making some healthy eating choices with the exception of the desserts at work..it’s killing me! I have a hard time passing up apple cobbler, chocolate cake, or any cake for that matter. So… I am still working on that. I think with a couple pounds added during the holiday and the delay getting back on schedule, I am only down about 1-2lbs. I do plan to commit myself to my exercise routine (I have added it to my calendar at work to make sure I leave on time to get to the gym) and I plan to keep choosing and preparing healthier meals. I know William will continue to do well. Plus, we have Dr. Neil to coach us along he way! (Thanks for your support and advice Neil)
Will skip past the staying at the lab until 5am Friday and the dog poop on my doormat incident… Early Friday morning I, like so many others, set out to buy an iPhone. At 9:30am I found myself at an AT&T store with a line two blocks long. When I spoke to one of the store employees, I was shocked to learn that was not the line to buy an iPhone. They had sold out of iPhones an hour ago. The line in front of the store was to pay for a phone and come back later when the store received more shipments and then wait in another line… on Tuesday. Luckily, we have two Apple stores in Denver and the boss was expecting me in late; It was his experiment that keep me in the lab until 5am. I made my way over to the Cherry Creek mall location figuring I would have to wait in line 45 minutes to an hour. Surely the line would not be very long. Most people have 9 to 5 jobs. Well, the line stretched the entire distance of the mall and began to loop back around. There had to be more that 500 people. I sucked it up, went to work and figured that the madness would be over on Saturday and I could walk right into the store and get one. When I arrived at the mall on Saturday the line was much shorter, but still an estimated 3 hrs long. If Kyllan had been there I may have actually waited. We could have chatted a little bit. We could have taken turns walking around the mall. But, I was by myself and at this point my excitement had started to dwindle. I made a final attempt Sunday. No line. I walked straight into the store… Only to be told they were sold out.
Now what? I am not really excited anymore. It’s time for a new phone, but I am not waiting in line for one. If things calm down and supply seems steady, I may make another attempt this week. If not, it may be a while.
Pictures from the reunion are up. I warn you, there are over 700. I included pictures taken by my Uncle Sam and my father. My Uncle Same would like me to add the disclaimer that his pictures tend to focus on his daughters and granddaughters. With so many photos, I didn’t take time to add an individual title and description to every photo. Enjoy.
Kyllan and I had a great time at my mother’s family reunion in Jacksonville this past weekend. Unfortunately I am having some trouble loading all of the photos from the weekend on Flickr. I will let everyone know once they are all up.
I don’t think I mentioned it before, but a photo I took of Invesco Field (Mile High Stadium) was chosen to be posted on Schmap, publisher of free digital travel guides. Well… I received an e-mail yesterday informing me that Schmap guides are now going to be available on the iPhone and iPod touch. She sent me a link to show me what my picture would look like. Check it out!
************Challenge Update**************
William and I did pretty well during our first week of “getting back on track”. He actually won this week, fitting in a workout every single day! I was only able to fit in 3 days of workouts, but I guess 3 is better than 0. This week is not going so well for me. I did some weight training Sunday, but that has been it so far. William and I will be in Jacksonville this weekend to attend his mom’s family reunion, so I am not even going to pretend that I will be working or choosing healthy options this weekend. I think he may be taking a break too, but we will be back on track after the weekend!!!
