A little of this, a little of that.

I have every other Friday off of work. Most of the time I'm booked with appointments or lunch dates, but this Friday was different. I convinced Jake to come home from work early. We had get our sunshine on!! 

This hasn't been a typical January, so we decided to head to the mountains!

It was a little too late in the day to go anywhere far, so we decided on Red Rocks park.

There weren't very many hikers on the trail, but tons of mountain bikers.

At the summit we decided to take a picture and I nearly went over the edge!

Jake convinced me that we should take a shortcut, only his shortcut was a 50% grade. SUPER SCARY!

Another picture to prove I survived scaling down a hillside.

Later that night, we had a date with Rebelution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was in total awe. It was flippin' awesome!

Any day that I get to spend with my honey is a perfect day! I love you Frankey!!

Oh Baby!

When I saw these buns in my sink, I was like oh baby! Audrey & Jonny came over for dinner & a bath. 

Kudos to me for getting a non-chimo picture!

I started out the next day by visiting my doctors office. I parked in the spot with this sign and laughed. Little did I know it would have meaning later in the day.

When I got to work I started my usual routine. Well, the universe must have decided for me that my ipod project was too boring, as my ipod was playing on its own... on shuffle. I concluded that I'm not one to argue with the universe, so... project over. 

Thanks universe!

I miss everything about you.

This is my dad, John.

He passed away 365 days ago.

Its unbelievable how much someone can be missed.

Sometimes I have dreams about him, and its like we are back together again. The feeling of seeing him is overwhelming and hard to explain. No amount of time can prepare you for the heartache, and no hug will ever feel like his.

Someday will all be together again, but for now, I miss everything about you.

Evelyn Wishard

A tiny reminder that you are still around.

Wish I could hug you.

Happy Birthday

Dearest Sara,

It seems just yesterday that we where 27 and meeting for the first time. I treasure you my friend! Thank you for letting us throw you a birthday party! You are awesome! Happy 30th Birthday!

They're not good, they're grape!!

You know whats grape? When you're at lunch with a friend and you get a phone call to tell you, you won concert tickets! That's right, this pretty face has a date with Rebelution at the Fillmore this Friday!

After work Stacey & I headed out to do some dinner shopping & ran across a well kept secret.

Grape licorice. It pretty much wiped regular Twizzlers off the map. My love affair of this fantastic flavor has its own tiny yet significant menu. I would recommend to anyone grape G2 Gatorade. 

Nothing could be better than sharing with friends! 

Later, I made chicken philly's for dinner. While I placed mine on a whole wheat tortilla, Jake carved out a cavern for his sammich. Totally worthy of a picture, right? I couldn't believe my eyes. 

He wouldn't let me take a picture of him, so this was the best I got.

What a day!

Get Inspired... or Experimental

This week I decided that I am going to listen to my ipod all the way through, by artist. Seems simple, right? The music you choose for your said listening device was all hand selected by... you! What's the worst that could happen? I love rockin' out!

 I've been keeping record of all the artists I've listened to so far, this way I cant cheat my way through.

 ... and then I listened to AFI for 8 solid hours... at work.

Even though it was a really really really long AFI concert at my desk, I decided not to give up on this project. I kept telling myself "its almost over!" All in all, I REALLY miss shuffle.

What have you challenged yourself too lately?

Take-sies Back-sies

Its lunch time at the old Van Gilder, and as Stacey and I walked into our community kitchen, we noticed this in the vending machine. That sucks.

The Worst Premonition Ever

I had some crazy idea that something fantastic was going to happen on January 10th. Well, something fantastic DID happen.

My check engine light came on. YEAY!!!!!

All Quacked Out

On Sunday, while stopped at a gas station, Maura and I had an encounter with two ducks. I saw them coming from across the parking lot and whipped out my camera. Normally, when you run towards birds camera in hand, they fly away. But not these ducks. They came right up to us. 

For a minute I thought maybe they would take a bite at me. But they just chilled and quacked, and made some other quacky noise I've never hear before.

 I couldn't help but feel worry while I watched them slip around the parking lot. The girl duck sat down, almost in protest, while the boy duck waddled up to people looking for hand outs.

I asked Maura if city ducks where able to survive crazy Denver snow storms. She assured me not to fret, that their duck house was probably near. All I could think was "I hope someone knits them a sweater." 

Memoirs of a Chino

After a small debate between Jake and I on Monday, I agreed to "Bubba Chino's" for dinner.  We got in my car and headed out in the snow. For some reason I was inspired by our visit to this yellow eyesore. 

"Jake, what is a Chino?" I asked. Jake simply responded "You're a Chino". This is not an unusual response from him, as most questions are responded to with a question. (or responded to with "your momma"...this is the way we joke)

The Chino thing had me stumped. I should know the answer to this, right?

So what do most people do, google it.

Chino is Chinese in Spanish. "But this doesn't make sense!" I declared. Bubba and Chino are conflicting. Wouldn't that be a red-neck Chinese dude or something? Why would someone name a restaurant this???

This had to be resolved. More googling. Found it!!!

I had found the answer. And it is SO LAME, I'm not going to tell you. 

 

But I will post pictures of "Frankey Chino" and "Jess Chino" just to make it up to you.

Oh, and to my english fanatics, sorry I called this masterpiece a memoir, I just liked the way is sounds!

Birds of a Feather

So now that you know about my life with Jake, we can go back to 2011.

Last night Jake and I had dinner with my sister Audrey & my nephew Jonathan (Jonny). Every time someone pulls out a camera, regardless of if you are going to use it or not, Jonny does his "cheese" face. I love this kid!

Today Audrey, Anna & I are going to Asteria Salon in Cherry Creek to have feathers weaved in our hair.

We where all really anxious to see the end result! It made me so happy I was dancing in the chair.

I like that I can add colors to my hair without actually dying it, so I chose purple, black and white.

Anna chose a really awesome turquoise with black and white.

And Audrey chose black and white, and two different yellows.

Ultra swank!

The Genesis of J y J

Ahhh... 1999. Can you smell it? The beautiful young lady in this photo is my great friend Kat. Kat hails from a giant island in the Indian Ocean known as Australia. She is pretty much responsible for introducing Jake and I, but not in the usual "I have a friend you might like" sort of way. Nope, Kat locked lips with Jake one summer, but they both decided they liked each other more as friends. And yes I am wasted in this picture.

In the spring of 1999 I graduated high school. Coincidentally Jake knows my cousin Micaela. See Jake's step-mom Penny, and Micaela's mom (my aunt) are best friends. So Micaela and Maura knew Jake since they where kids. Little did I know that we would all hang out together for the entire summer.

How could I not fall for him?

...we did some drinking,

but sometimes too much.

By August, I knew. I told our good friend Chris aka Boyd (orange shirt) "I'm going to mack Jake". Mack? I cant believe I used that term. Anyway, we declared ourselves a couple the next day. August 4, 1999.

We did the oh so common "ignore your friends just so we can gaze at each other", but that didn't last long. Our friends are our glue, and we are so blessed by the people that surround us.

...and I'm pretty sure its official when you get portraits done at Walmart.