Glenwood Springs May 2011

Oh yeah, we are playing catch up here :) All the way back to our two year wedding anniversary at the end of May. :) We returned to Four Mile Creek B&B where we spent our anniversary last year. Once again it was an absolutely delightful and wonderful stay.

We stayed in the barn during our first visit, so decided to try something new and stay in the cute little cabin by the river:

We have never stayed at any other B&B's, but I can't imagine anywhere having a better breakfast. The food was incredible as usual:

We also decided to repay another visit to Hanging Lake, which we hiked to in September 2009:

There are so many photos from our hike, that's going to be a whole separate blog post. Coming soon :)

What is better for sore muscles from hiking than a trip to the hot springs?! We decided to spend some time there the next day.

In the evenings we had fun playing card games, relaxing... it was just great. It is always hard to leave this place and we can't wait to return next year! Details of that hike coming soon :)

Stained Glass Class

From May 10th to June 14th, Ian and I took a class at a local glass studio - Beginning Stained Glass! It was a fun experience and we have LOTS of photos from it :) It was great to spend quality time together and learn something new. Here are some photos from the 5 week class :)

Working on our patterns:

Glass selection:

Cutting & Grinding:

How they looked when all of our pieces were cut:

Copper Foiling:

Flux & Solder:

Adding Patina and Cleaning/Waxing:

Finishing & Framing:

And finally, our finished pieces at home!

We enjoyed taking this class together and we learned a lot. However, turns out it's not really our "thing". It was really expensive and time consuming. But it did perk our interest in learning other forms of glass work such as glass fusing! We've already taken one class in that and have another coming up soon, so I will be sure to share all about that as soon as I can :)

Meyers Homestead Hike

May 14th, 2011... In an effort to just start hiking already, we went up to Boulder and did this 5 1/2 mile hike. We wanted summer to be here and wanted to start hiking... well unfortunately it was about 40 degrees, windy, foggy, rainy... pretty much awful. But we are proud to say we did it anyway!

I was freezing before we even got started :(

Do I look cold?

The homestead:

Very pretty trail!

Some handsome hiker I picked up along the way:

My hair was getting wet by this point from all the fog and mist:

The fog descends upon us:

Some pretty flowers we saw:

We hiked about 5 1/2 miles... we think we went a little farther than we were supposed to, oops! But we had a great time and we were proud of ourselves for doing the whole hike despite the uncooperative weather. Hopefully many more hikes ahead of us this summer & fall!

Christie's Birthday 2011

Ian made my birthday special this year as usual! The day before my birthday I was surprised to come home and find my birthday gifts all wrapped and laid out on the kitchen table, with a sign:

I pouted a little, because well, that's just torture! Then he made a little change to the sign:

The first box I opened turned out to be a real treat...

Birthday cupcakes for me! They are from the bakery that made our wedding cake!! :) And he even put the cute cupcake shaped candles in them... just awesome!

We enjoyed one right away (which we split) - a cookies and creme one, oh so yummy!

He was also very nice and let me open my other presents too :) I just couldn't wait!

Most of the gifts I had asked for... this great set of bags I wanted from Fossil to use for all my knitting projects, and the small coinpurse is for my ipod and headphones :)

He also had a surprise gift for me, which I opened excitedly!

It's this awesome glass globe, very colorful... it has a tree trunk on the inside, and leaves all over the top and outside - REALLY cool!

On my actual birthday, we went to an open house of Pillar of Fire / Westminster University... the awesome castle in Westminster that we used to live near. We've always wanted to see what it was like inside!

Ian took most of the photos and I just followed him around, looking at everything :)

I thought the coolest part was going all the way up into the tower...

We also liked this one part of arched openings outside and Ian got some nice photos of me there!

Ian took MANY more photos of the open house, so if you are interested in those you can VIEW HIS ENTIRE ALBUM ON FLICKR BY CLICKING HERE :)

After the open house we picked up my friend Amber and she had a lovely gift for me - a Starbucks mug filled with my favorite kinds of flowers, topped off with a Starbucks gift card!! She knows me so well, and it was so thoughtful!

The three of us went out for the evening for dinner, a trip to Outdoor World, to get some frozen yogurt and to go see Something Borrowed, which was a great movie!! :) A very enjoyable birthday indeed.