Colorado Trip: Days 2-5

On Friday morning we woke up in our comfy hotel bed to some very sad news coming from Aurora and praying that no friends or family were involved. I knew there was always a chance because I grew up close to there and have family in the area. I found out later that my cousin was invited to be there so I am really grateful that he did not go. It was a bit of a somber drive back to Golden as understandably every radio station was covering the story at all times. It was definitely a flashback to Columbine.

After we got Amanda and Tyler and all of the camping stuff loaded up in the car, we went downtown to Woody's Pizza for lunch. Then we went to the Coors Brewery, Golden's claim to fame. We were going to do the tour but the wait was an hour and a half, so fortunately we were able to do the little-known "short tour" and just head straight into the tasting room for three free beers! They had a few new beers we hadn't tried that weren't distributed outside of Colorado, as well as the classic Coors and Blue Moon varieties.

After Coors, it was time to head up to the mountains! About two hours later we were at our campsite at Green Ridge Campground on Shadow Mountain Lake. My sister and I have actually camped there before, but it is much different now. The pine beetle has killed so many of the trees in the area, it is really sad. We still had a great time. That night we hung out by the lake while Tyler and Amanda fished, made dinner over the campfire, and enjoyed roasting some marshmallows and seeing unbelievable stars.

               

On Saturday we woke up and made breakfast burritos and got ready to go head out for our hike. We hiked to Cascade Falls, which was about seven miles round trip. It was challenging. The best part was just taking our shoes off and dipping our feet in the freezing cold water and enjoying the rest and the incredible view up there when we got to the falls.

 Sunday morning, it was time to say goodbye to the mountain air and head back to Golden :( On Sunday afternoon Aaron and I went to Great Divide Brewing in downtown Denver. It was pretty insane there- we got there before they opened and as soon as they opened, a flood of people came and it was crazy in their tap room. We ordered a flight but it didn't come labeled and by the time Aaron got it back to our table, of course he didn't remember which beer was which. The beer was good, but we were pretty disappointed in our experience and the service there... there's not much of a point to tasting beer if you don't even know what it's called so you can have it again in the future. Sunday evening we had an enjoyable family dinner at my aunt's house.

Monday we went to Boulder and hung out around Pearl Street mall for a while, and then visited two breweries. The first was Twisted Pine, which was awesome. We really loved it, the bartender was very friendly and gave us a few free samples. We loved most of the beers we tried there and we certainly tried a lot! The only bummer is that Aaron bought a pint glass and forgot it.

After Twisted Pine we went to probably our most anticipated of all breweries.. Avery! It certainly did not disappoint. Avery has several beers that I absolutely love and I'm craving them all frequently however have no means of getting them here in Texas. My favorites were the Lilikoi Kepolo ("a truly authentic Belgian-Style wheat cleverly infused with a copious amount of passionfruit"), Salvation ( "luscious apricot and peach aromas are delicately interwoven with spicy suggestions of nutmeg and cinnamon in this heavenly soft, champagne-like elixir"), and Wheel Sucker Wheat (Bavarian hefeweizen).

Colorado Trip Day 1

Two weeks ago, on my birthday, we flew off to Colorado. It was a quickly planned vacation, but I think I planned it well and we had an amazing time. Combining our free flights (Southwest points, holla), free or dirt cheap lodging (my aunt's house and camping), and a free "rental car" (my sister's vehicle)... the trip was inexpensive and we didn't feel obligated to skimp on things we wanted to do. We wanted to do three things: spend time with my sister, go camping in the mountains, and visit tons of craft breweries. Well, we did pretty good!

The first day we got there super early in the morning (my sister picked us up) so we stopped at Snooze in Denver on the way from the airport to my Amanda's college. Oh my gosh, it was amazing and we need one here. Fortunately for us it was early in the morning on a Thursday, and we still had to wait a little bit but the line was really building up by the time we left. I ordered the pancake flight, and it came with three pancakes: milk chocolate and white chocolate chip with espresso infused maple syrup, red velvet with cream cheese icing and pecans, and sweet potato with pecans, ginger butter, and caramel.

Aaron ordered the breakfast burrito; it was huge and did not disappoint either:

After that, we headed to Golden to drop my sister off and then Aaron and I headed up to Fort Collins. Our first stop when we got there was Fort Collins Brewery where we tried a couple of flights. My favorites were the pomegranate wheat and the wheat wine. Aaron liked the Incredible Hop imperial rye IPA.

After about an hour in FCB we went to New Belgium, where we had reserved spots in the tour. It was not to be missed! Our favorite experience of the day was definitely here, surprisingly. Neither of us has ever truly loved their beer, so we weren't expecting this to be our favorite of the day. Our tour guide was awesome and they have a great setup. Not to mention, the beer we tried was excellent. Of course it got better and better as glass after glass was handed to us! We were lucky enough to try some excellent beers from the Lips of Faith series. We love the Tart Lychee!

After too much fun at New Belgium we headed down to Odell Brewing. They had a big tap room where we enjoyed two flights of tasters. It was lots of fun! 

After dinner we went back to our hotel, which was our biggest splurge on the vacation and it was so worth it. Our room was comfortable and modern in a historic hotel building that has around 40 unique, renovated rooms. Our room was the "honeymoon suite", so it had a big soaking tub and a comfortable king size bed with a fluffy down comforter. We really enjoyed it!

It was a wonderful way to spend my birthday! Thank you to Aaron for making it so great!

Retiling the Backsplash: Application of Tile

Once we were finished putting cement board underneath where all of our backsplash tile would go, it was time to actually stick 'em up! This process was the easiest and most fun part in my opinion. 


The materials we used for this part were:

• the tile sheets
• a utility knife and pair of scissors (for cutting around the individual pieces/sections of tile on the mesh backing)
• glass tile thin-set mortar: we used this one, this is what goes between your wall and the tile and makes it stick
• a 3/16 trowel like this one, this is what you use to apply the thin-set and give it nice grooves to ensure suction between the tile and the wall.  
• a big bucket for mixing up the thin-set 
• a plastic butter knife, used for "back-buttering" the individual tiles when we had to put them up in mosaic fashion
• tile nippers: we had to do some trial and error on cutting our tiles since we had a combination of glass and marble. these nippers worked great for the softer marble tiles while these worked well for the glass tiles. 

This is the backerboard surface we started with: 

You can see we laid out the tiles after cutting around for the electrical outlets while the thin-set was setting up. It should be the texture of peanut butter or toothpaste.

We just worked in small sections so that the thin-set wouldn't dry on us. When it did, we just scraped it off with a chisel and reapplied.

And this is how it looked after being applied. For the pieces around the corners and the electrical boxes, it was time to get creative with mosaic. This was the most fun part! We used no rhyme or reason, just cut pieces with their respective nippers to fit and applied thin-set on the back of the individual pieces with a plastic butter knife.

At this point we felt relief because we were actually starting to have a backsplash again and we loved the way it looked. The only thing left to do was grout... 

Family room

Our family room has undergone some changes recently. This is what it looked like when we moved in:

And here it is now: 

The only major things we changed about this room (besides adding our furniture and decorating) are we painted it (Wheat Bread by Behr), we got new white faux wood blinds in the three windows, and we painted the trim. 

I just recently purchased these curtain panels from IKEA, for a total of only $20. They're thin and sheer, but perfect for this room. I love the back tabs. 

The dresser is one I've had since childhood that I added new knobs to. It holds table linens and lots of serving pieces. Above it is what I like to refer to as our "mantle". It is a beautiful piece of cedar from Aaron's mom's property that I added some metal brackets to. 

It has an old mirror I've repainted a few times (currently gray), a succulent and pot from IKEA, some gardening books, three votive candleholders with quatrefoil cutouts from the thrift store that I spray painted, and a capiz picture frame I got on clearance at Marshall's.

I love the raw edge on the shelf, you can see it in this picture. 

The vase on the dresser was hard to photograph because it is all white, but I absolutely love the texture. When I found it the other day at my favorite thrift store, it looked like this: 

 It was $12.50, and like I said, I loved the texture so much. It reminded me of the very popular hive vase from West Elm. I sprayed it white, and I'm happy with the find. I've been on the hunt for some accessories for the dresser for a while, and I love how it is a little larger scale than the usual things I find.