Weekend Recap, Vol. 3

Good morning, friends. While this weekend wasn’t quite as eventful as past weekends (here and here), we still managed to fill up every minute of it and have a blast while doing it.

One of my best friends from Texas A&M was visiting Denver for a wedding this past weekend. The best part? I got to see her, even if it was only for a few hours. D is a fellow Aerospace Engineer and she actually works at Johnson Space Center as a mission controller. We met when I was just a freshman starting out college, ended up serving as Chair and Vice Chair of AIAA together, living together when I was working at JSC over the summer, and even had the same advisor for our M.S. degrees. Needless to say, D has been a big part of my life and I was thrilled to learn that she would be in the Boulder area on Saturday.

Being the nerds that we are, we took a long walk around the CU campus and made a pit stop at the CU Astronaut wall in the Aerospace Engineering wing. It’s essentially a wall honoring all of the astronauts to have come from CU, including Scott Carpenter and Jack Swigert.

Her husband had a blast playing with the water globe outside the Discovery Learning Center. I can’t say I blame him…it’s not as if I haven’t done the same! There is a kid in us all, no?

After our walk around campus, we drove up to the Flatirons to watch as the sun was setting. Boulder is such a beautiful place. If you haven’t been before, I’d highly recommend it. There’s something here for everyone, really.

After walking around the base of the Flatirons, we headed off to dinner. Naturally, I was starving. When am I not? One of D’s friends recommended a little authentic Mexican restaurant, Effrain’s, so we headed off the beaten path to try it!

After walking around campus most of the afternoon, we were extremely thirsty, and so we all decided to get strawberry margaritas. So refreshing! I ended up drinking mine more like a smoothie. Ooops.

 

For dinner, I tried a combination plate that included a cheese enchilada and a tamale. It was my first tamale ever! I can’t say I was a huge fan, but hey…at least I gave it a shot! And as you can see, we went to town on the chips and salsa. #sorrynotsorry

We finished up dinner and said our goodbyes. For now at least… I know that D will be in my life forever, so it’s just a matter of time before I see her again! It was such a treat to have her in town. Moving to Colorado from Texas, I wasn’t sure how many of my friends would be able to make the trip for a visit. But already I’ve had two friends stay in the month and a half I’ve been here. It’s really wonderful to have relationships that last the distance. I’m so thankful and blessed to have them in my life.

Sunday I had another photo shoot in Denver with Cheyenne. Isn’t she just the cutest?! I really love hanging out with her–she’s full of such great energy and spunk, and we somehow always end up laughing hysterically. I feel so lucky to have met her! Also, I can’t wait to show you the next round of photos coming to the blog soon!

After the shoot, we headed farther into downtown Denver for breakfast. I always let Allen choose the spot since he is such a trooper for waking up early and tagging along with me. This was my first time in downtown Denver that I can recall. It seems like such a fun place–a place that hosts a great atmosphere to be in. Here are some of my favorite shots from our walk around town.

Allen picked Sam’s No. 3 for breakfast and boy did he pick well! It’s actually been showcased on The Food Network, so you know it’s got to be gooood! As a matter of fact, our last breakfast choice was also featured on TFN. Apparently, they’ve got some great breakfast places here in Denver! And you won’t hear me complaining.

Per the usual, I needed my fix of chocolate (with coffee, never the other way around), so I ordered a mocha latte. And it had the cutest number 3 drizzled in chocolate on top. Yum!

Me just making some goofy faces at Allen while we waited for our meal. He makes it so easy to be happy.

As soon as we got our food, Allen wasted no time getting after it. He ordered the Greek omelet, with gyro, feta, tomato, and red onion. He was particularly taken with the fresh flavors of the tzatziki sauce. Allen also ordered a side of biscuits with sausage gravy, and I can certainly vouch for them being delicious from the spoonful I stole while he wasn’t looking.

I ordered the Denver Skillet with veggie green chili (instead of pork green chili) and It. Was. Amazing. It was a veggie scramble with grilled peppers,  and onions, and corn, and black beans with  sauteed potatoes and ham. Needless to say, it put me in my happy place very quickly.

After breakfast, we walked around downtown a bit more before heading back to Boulder for a nap. (We live a hard life, I know.)

Later that afternoon, we ventured out to get supplies for a little baking post I’ll be doing in the coming weeks. Get excited! (It’s not called Cupcakes and the Cosmos for nothing.) We just happened to drive by a Glacier Homemade Ice Cream & Gelato on our way and it only took one glance between me and Allen to know we were headed there. They have so many great flavors, ALL of which taste amazing and are homemade. The first time I went, I got the double fudge brownie flavor (their equivalent of Chocolate Therapy by Ben & Jerry’s) and it was decadent. I even saw them slicing up more brownies for their next batch, so you know it’s got to be good if there are legitimate brownies going in there.

I ended up getting birthday cake ice cream in a waffle cone. The purple sprinkles were just too much for me to pass up. Allen got a milkshake made with the Death by Chocolate ice cream. And let me tell you, that ice cream is not for the faint of heart. It was made from dark chocolate, as opposed to milk or semisweet chocolate, so it wasn’t overly sweet as you might expect. There were more of the homemade fudgey brownies in it as well. As a chocolate addict myself, it was all that is good and great in the world of cocoa.

Isn’t he just the cutest when he gets really into his food? Allen doesn’t mess around with chocolate either.

On our way home, Allen tricked me into going to the Valmont Bike Park. He’s been trying to get me to go there for a while now. In truth, it’s not that I haven’t wanted to go…it’s just that I wasn’t sure what to expect. I don’t consider myself much of a biker, mainly because I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to ride a bike. I’m a runner, so I generally run or walk where other people would bike. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t love to become a better biker, and in fact, I have been making strides towards just that since moving to Boulder, 1) because Boulder is very biker friendly when it comes to roads and right-of-ways and 2) because campus is just a little too far to walk to and just a little too close to drive to. At any rate, I’m trying new things and getting better along the way!

Here’s a shot of one of the jump areas. I’d love to go with Allen the next time he’s out there and get some shots of him going off the ramps. There’s also some flatter dirt trails with rolling hills that he wants to take me on. I’d be up for that! Especially since this little boy was shreading it. If he can do it, I can too, right?

Turns out, bike parks can be beautiful too!

Ahhh….Colorado. Need I say more?

We stayed in Sunday evening and cuddled up with a good movie and freshly popped popcorn. I let Allen pick the title this time. It seems like I’m always picking what we watch so I wanted him to have a go at it. Typically we have the same interests, so it’s not a big deal either way. But nonetheless, I wanted him to have first pick. Allen chose Guardians of the Galaxy. A great one!

We made it just to the end of the movie before calling it a night. School nights call for early(-ish) bedtimes, don’t ya know? At least when I don’t have work due the next day… Overall, we had a great weekend. It was nice to catch up on sleep from the past week of tests and to reunite with old friends. What about you? Did you do anything fun this past weekend? I’d love to know!

In case you are interested, here is my last weekend recap. As always, feel free to leave comments below! If you’re interested in getting posts sent straight to your inbox, subscribe in the sidebar with your email. Or follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or Bloglovin’.