Project 365: Day 219

Up in the air....

Nick loves his airplane snacks!

Project 365: Day 218

Happy 70th Birthday Papa Joe!!!

After a day of relaxing at Julia's house we headed over to the Gravity Inn for Joe's big birthday bash. The whole family was there and we had a nice little surprise party. He had no idea that Nick and I were in town, so it was an extra special surpries.

Afterwards, we headed back to Nick's sisters house with his immediate family to hang out.  It was a short visit, but we had a really nice time with everyone. I'm glad we made the trip!

Project 365: Day 217

After a long day of work, I had a 5-hour drive to Honesdale, PA to surprise Nick's family for his dad's 70th birthday party. I didn't arrive until 1:30am but it was nice to spend the night at home and wake up with family.

Project 365: Day 216

This is the luxury of what a perfectly made bed looks like after a night of completely organized sleep! One of the perks of hotels I guess...

Project 365: Day 215

I forgot my kindle at home this week, so I did something novel and bought an actual book at the airport. Almost devoured the entire thing on my flight to Boston. Love Malcolm Gladwell!



Project 365: Day 214

On to Boston for work, my first trip of many this month. I made a pit stop in down town Boston to have dinner with my friend from College, Krystal.  Then for the surprise of the evening, she took me to the last Red Sox home game of the season. She gets an amazing discount for Sox games (her tickets are only $5 each) because she's a resident at Brigham Women's Hospital. The ticket window was closed when we got there (the third inning) though, so the guy at the entrance let us in for free!!! A Red Sox game at Fenway for free?! Can't beat that deal, right! It was a beautiful fall evening and the icing on the cake was that I got to see the Red Sox lose at home! hehe.

Despite being the home of the Red Sox (and thus their fans) I have to say, they have a really great ball park. It reminds me of Kennywood - an old amusement park in Pittsburgh - very charming and intimate. It was great!
Happy 100th birthday to Fenway! Good times were had by all.

Project 365: Day 213

We went to a farmers market after the walk yesterday and picked up a package of home made tamales. According to the guy we bought these tamales from they are the best in Colorado. I have to admit, I can't argue with that statement. We had them for dinner and they were amazing. Now if I could only remember the name of the company that made them....

Sorry for the not-very-artistic photo. I was too hungry to take my time getting a good shot!

Project 365: Day 212

Step Up for Down Syndrome!!!

This morning, a big group of us got together for our annual BBQ and walk for the Mile High Down Syndrome Association to support our buddy Logan. He is an amazing little boy who loves to dance and give hugs and we had a great time hanging out with him.

After the walk, Aimee and I played with sidewalk chalk and painted gifts for some family members. Weekends don't get much better than this!

Project 365: Day 211

We saw the aspens!!!!

On Saturday morning, Nick and I hit the road and headed to the mountains to drive the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway and enjoy an absolutely gorgeous fall afternoon.  Somewhere between Ned and Raymond we stumbled upon this huge aspen grove near the side of the road and stopped the car to explore. 

After just a couple of minutes walking down a wide, flat path, we entered the aspen grove - it was absolutely gorgeous.  I have been trying (obviously not a concerted effort) for years to get to the mountains to see the aspens, and they did not dissapoint. It is a breathtaking scene - completely surrounded by warm golden asapens, quaking in the cool breeze. I could have spent an entire week up there.

After our little walk, we continued down the road, taking in amazing views of the mountains, including Longs Peak - an infamous 14er (fourteen thousand + feet high mountain). The views continued all the way to Estes....

We finished our trip with stops at the Colorado Cherry Company (for some cherry cider and strawberry rhubarb jam) and Oscar Blues (for a growler of local beer).  We topped off our evening with some horrible romantic comedies and popcorn on the couch.  A perfect Saturday.

Project 365: Day 210

It was fan appreciation day at Coors Field! Nick and I went to our 2nd to last (maybe last!) Rockies game of the season. At the end of the game the Rockies put on a fabulous fire works show - as they always are at Coors Field - to show their appreciation for their fans. Coincidentally they also broke and MLB record for reaching 60,000,000 paid fans in only 1,582 home games in club history! 
But if the Rockies really wanted to show us some fan appreciation, they could have at least given us a competitive game (Diamond Backs won 15-5).  Did you notice there I didn't ask them to win, that would be too tall of an order, I would just like to see a ball game where the action on the field is more interesting that watchign the fans walk through the stands. OR they could have just ended it at the 7th inning stretch, put us all out of our misery, and started the fireworks show early. I'm just sayin.....I'm ready for the season to be over!

Project 365: Day 209

well I didn't much leave the house today, but I spied this scene out of my office window... the fall has come to 10th street!

AND I'm SUPER excited because on Saturday Nick and I are going to take a long drive to check out the quaking aspens!!! They should be gorgeous this weekend so I am pumped! (much more pumped than I am to go to ANOTHER Rockies game tomorrow night.... will this season ever end?)

on another note, I am completely obsessed with Noosa yogurt. ESPECIALLY when it's mixed with this organic lemon curd that I got from the farmers market. It's AMAZING!!!  True or false: I ate this entire container of yogurt today.....

TRUE!!!

Project 365: Day 208

I'm PINNING!!!!!

I finally took a little break from obsessive wedding pinning to go back to my original Pin-obsession: food! Nick and I bought a crock pot a couple of weeks ago and have yet to break it out of the box. I thought I'd get started in style by preparing 8 meals all at once.

One of my first pins ever was a blog post called "Freezer Cooking: Slow Cooker Meals" where a girl posts a grocery list and instructions for putting 8 meals worth of food into 8 1-gallon zip lock bags and throwing it into her freezer for later. Then whenever she needs dinner, she just thaws it the night before, throws it in her crock pot and has dinner ready when she comes home from work! Its pretty brilliant.

I'm about to embark on an grueling 6 weeks in a row of traveling for work and can almost guarantee that the house will be completely devoid of groceries for the entire month of October. With that in mind, I had an epic shopping trip on Tuesday and set out to prepare for the coming weeks. This way, I can still have home cooking when I come home from a trip without having to go to the grocery store on my way home from the airport! I'm excited and I hope the meals turn out well. (I'm sure I'll post some pictures of them as the month goes on!)

My bags consisted of two each of the following meals:
Healthy BBQ Chicken
Teriyaki Chicken
Veggie Beef Soup
Goulash (beef stew)

after exactly 2 hours and 15 minutes of prep work, this is what I ended up with:

each bag is labeled with the name of the meal, the date, and instructions for anything we need to add at the last minute and how long to cook it for. Pretty neat, huh!?

The grocery list that I used also included everything I need for a chuck roast in the crock pot, so in the next couple of days I will break my crock pot in with that recipe. Pretty domestic, don't ya think!?

Project 365: Day 207

My sister's boyfriend, Adam, and his sister, Christina, stopped by Denver on their way to San Fransisco tonight. If you haven't heard the exciting news, Allie got a job in San Fransisco and she's moving THIS WEEK to California!!!  I'm so excited for her (and hope to find an excuse to visit her there soon!!!).

 We had a nice little evening with our visitors - including her puggle, Panda.  They arrived in D-town just in time for dinner on our balcony and then we took them on a little walk around capitol hill to see the Capitol Building and some cool statues around the library and art museum.

 We finished off the evening at our favorite place: Yogurt Land!

Wednesday morning they were up bright and early to hit the road, they should be in California by Friday evening.

Project 365: Day 206

Do I have the cutest fiance ever, or what!?

It's kind of fun that he works at a school and gets a nice picture taken every year.  He never smiles like that in pictures for me!!!

Project 365: Day 205

What u lookin' at!?

Project 365: Day 204

You can't make this shi*t up...

It was Katie's birthday and so the entire group rallied for a second night in a row to celebrate with her. We met up at Katie's early and then piled into 6 cabs to go to Wicked Garden for bottle service and booty shakin'.  Some chick threw and elbow at Katie, so she kept it real and told the girl to watch herself. Next thing u know the girl turns around and socks Katie in the FACE! on her birthday! RIDICULOUS.  Thankfully, Katie is a badass chick and after a brief conversation with the fuzz she was back on the dance floor rockin' her goose egg like it was the hottest fall accessory.

Project 365: Day 203

Happy Birthday TOM!!!!

Crystal and Tom are basically the best. They moved to Denver less than a year ago and I actually met them on the night I started Project 365 (they were at the wine party).  It was Tom's birthday, so Crystal surprised him with an 80's party and let's just say good times were had by all!  As a side note, the entire country must be having 80's parties this week because it looks like the 80's walked into H&M and Forever 21 and threw up all over the stores. It was good for us though, we got some awesome gear!

 Robyn and I actually purchased these outfits at the mall on Friday. The 80's is back with a vengeance folks!

 Ashley, on the other hand, owned that gem of a skirt. Her shirt came courtesy of Goodwill.

 Katie has some serious moves, good thing she wore that wind suit to keep things real. She was teaching us all how to Dougie.

 Even the guys got into it!

The couple of the night! I know where Crystal went shopping because I almost bought those same pants!

On another note, Cottle is back in Colorado!!! We're both happy to have Nick's best man back in the state - he's already working on his toast!!

The icing on this totally awesome 1980's cake? My purse is full of pop rocks, pixi sticks, and now and laters! O yeah, and they have an AMAZING view from their rooftop!

Project 365: Day 202

Just checkin' out some street art on my bike home from yoga....

Project 365: Day 201

Not much goin' on on Wednesday, so I took a couple shots of this art installation in my dining room:

Aimee made it in her ceramics class last year and didn't have anywhere to store it, so we're holding it for safe keeping (even though I already broke to top off the chess piece in the middle).  It'll be on display in the Steinle/Stachokus household until further notice.

Project 365: Day 200

The search for the perfect quiche continues.....

It began over a year ago when I made my first quiche and accidentally used sweetened condensed milk instead of regular condensed milk - that one tasted like candy coated eggs. We basically ate the crust and the cheese on top and nothing else. It was pretty bad!

Since then I've had endless problems with quiche that wont set, takes forever to cook, and is mushy and wet in the center. I finally figured out that it's because I don't drain my veggies well enough before I put them in the middle, in particular the spinach which apparently gets very wet when cooked.  I think I finally learned my lesson because this quiche was perfectly cooked on the inside. BUT it was a bit over done on top.... so the quest continues. 

I feel it though... the perfect quiche is within my grasp!

Project 365: Day 199

Ok... it's Monday, and I'm cheating! I lost my camera somewhere in all of our tailgating gear and have yet to locate it. As such, I have decided to showcase a picture that Kevin took of me and Nick on Saturday morning on our balcony. Kevin has a great picture-of-the-day blog over at http://pricelesshotdog.com/ so you all should go check him out. He's a much better photographer than I am!

Project 365: Day 198

How 'bout dem stillers!!???

I had such a great weekend hanging out w/ the Pittsburgh crew and we ended the weekend with the Steelers / Broncos game. Nick scored $30 tickets for me, him, and Ashley in a 1/2 price sale a month ago - so that was awesome. Unfortunately the Steelers didn't win, but that's ok. We did get to see Missy Franklin and Peyton Manning threw for his 400th career touch down in his debut game with the Broncos... not too shabby!

Project 365: Day 197

Another birth righter moved to Denver!!! I'm so excited to have Steph in town and she's living ONE BLOCK from me! Crazy!!! All we're missing is my little sister!!!

Project 365: Day 196

Pittsburgh Weekend!!!! So excited to have some friends from high school in town for the Steeler game on Sunday. Friday night we hit a couple breweries in the Highlands and then headed to LoDo to finish off the night. Good times!

Project 365: Day 195

Lovely Thursday evening grilling on our patio for a pretty decent dinner - if I do say so myself...

Grilled lime chicken w/ avocado and corn salsa (avocado, tomato, onion, skillet corn, lime juice). I'm no Cat Cora but it was pretty tasty.

We also had artichokes. Mine was pretty good but Nick had the unfortunate experience of finding a critter in his.... to be fair, we suspected he might be in there, but it's still not a nice way to end dinner!

Man, I love being home! Not traveling for three weeks is spoiling me, I'm never going to want to leave again!!

Project 365: Day 194

Another tell-tale sign that autumn is upon us...

If that isn't a leaf that's ready to drop it like it's (not) hot... I don't know what is.  I do love the fall.... but I'm not ready for summer to be over!