(obviously) Double the birthday fun!

I know the average person only has *one* birthday, but Hubs has been lucking out year after year with multiple. You see, I get all gung-ho scouring the after Christmas sales for birthday pressies because “his birthday is right around the corner and might as well grab the good deals while I can!”  Little does my brain realize, Hub’s birthday is not, in fact, right around the corner but rather almost two months after those tantalizing Christmas sales end.  That’s 1/6th of a year, people.

And since his birthday is so far off, I’m forced to show him the pressies I bought so he can try them on and let me know if I have to return any before it’s too late.  Fast forward two months and his *actual* birthday shows up unannounced. Obviously, he gets additional/real presents and all sorts of birthday fun.  It’s all very predictable and nice.

But.  Not this year.  I actually stayed clear of the malls after Christmas since we are on a budget.  For his birthday gift, Hubs requested to go to a Minnesota Timberwolves vs Denver Nuggets game, so we got tickets for a game in April.

Then, on his actual birthday, he had no presents to open, EXCEPT for the cold I graciously handed over, and I didn’t even have a doggone card for him.  Dirty rotten, I tell ya.

The day of, I slapped together this blog post in honor of him and then after my track practice, we decided to meet up with friends for some ping pong and pizza.  Looks like wild crazy fun, eh?

Truth is, the weather was really mean and the night was low energy because I had a cold and subsequently transformed into a troll. These are not the proper tools for making magical birthday memories.  Not at all.

So that weekend, I declared a Birthday Redo.

It was a nice sunny day, so we biked to Noodles for lunch.  Hubs had a birthday coupon and so his meal was free.  I also seemed to sprout antennas overnight…

I did finally make him a card and wrote mushy stuff on it….

After lunch, we snuggled with this little 8 week old cutie,until he got scared of my moving shadow.  HE WAS SO ADORABLE.

Then, we hit up some shops near by and Hubs picked out new shoes, courtesy of some birthday money from his dear Mom.  They were an awesome score and he loves them – bravo MIL!

Then, we shared an ice cream

and grabbed a movie to watch at home.  It was a really good day.

Hubs, somehow you managed to sneak multiple birthdays out of me again this year and it was a good thing.  Happy, happy birthday (and leap year). Love you long time.

This is another Spotlife, so you can steam with jealousy over our wonderfully adventurous lives!

**Warning, long post ahead.  Might want to grab some coffee to get you through this.

Last time we trucked it up to Eldora for some snowy fun, we were slapped in the face with brutal conditions.  It sucked and made our hearts sad.  But since we have season passes there, we knew we’d be back again. Much to our delight, we got pounded with snow the first weekend of February. Gleefully we made plans, along with the rest of Colorado, to get out and enjoy it!

We rose early, packed up all of our gear and Hubs went to work on scraping the car.

Our hearts were singing with excitement.  As it would be, we had a little trouble getting out but with some patience and shoveling – we were on our way!  That’s when Hubs noticed I had ran the car low on gas.  No big deal, we swung by the gas station to fill up and grab a creamy cappuccino to put in our rockstar thermos.

We each took a swig and just as we were to set sail to the mountains loaded with fresh powder, Hubs got a text that one of his servers was down.  We hustled back home so he could work his computer magic, counting our blessings that we weren’t half way to Eldora just to turn around!

Our somewhat frustrating day quickly declined from this moment on.

Hub’s usual magic tricks didn’t work and we had to wait until the server company got their very uncool issues sorted out.  In the meantime, while Hubs was feverishly working, our neighbor pounded on the door.  When I opened up to greet her, she chewed my head off with such vile and spite, it actually scared me.  You see, even though we don’t have assigned parking spots, she had worked to clear one out, marked it as “hers” with her shovel and then left for a errand.  Unbeknown to us, we had pulled into “her” spot when we dashed home to fix the server.  It’s all very silly and petty of her but I snapped into action and moved our car to the next spot over, while she glared at me with her arms crossed.

Hubs server finally came back up (hoooray!) and we popped in the car, more anxious than ever to get to the mountain.

Well, in my haste to appease the neighbor, I did an improper job of parking in the next spot over.  And we got stuck.  Really, really, really stuck.  We took turns shoveling, pushing, spinning the tires, and rocking the car back and forth trying to nudge it onto a surface it could grip to.  This went on for a long while.  Thankfully, one of our other neighbors noticed our futile efforts and filled up a bucket of hot water for us to pour it down by the tires.  It did the trick and we were on our way, yaaaaaaay.  Finally.

We didn’t get far up the canyon pass before we were greeted with a wall to wall traffic jam, both ways.  *sigh*  We just couldn’t win, could we?

We figured there must be something blocking the pass on the way up and that’s why so many people were heading away from Eldora.  Disheartened, we waited in line for forever until we were able to turn around, like everyone else, and head back to Boulder.

*A moment of hindsight:  Turns out, it was a unique situation where Eldora got pounded with new snow but the other larger mountains didn’t get any.  So, practically everyone in the state chased the snow to Eldora, causing this local rinky dink mountain resort to be way over capacity and they were forced to turn the people away.*

Grumbling and bickering, we decided to drive to Chatauqua and hike around, mostly to let off steam because we were not happy campers. Chatauqua did a good job of upgrading our pissy moods; it was utterly gorgeous with the new snow.

Love me those Flatirons. We clomped around for a few hours chatting, taking pictures and soaking up this not so bad day.

We even stopped for a mini picnic to enjoy our cappuccino and the sandwich Hubs had packed us.  The new snow was fluffy and deep, so we frolicked.

What a sweet way to cap off a really crappy start to our day.  All was good in the hood again.

Eldora, you may have won the fight, but you haven’t won the war.  Surely, we’ll be back!!