May 14, 2019

Weekend Recap: Back from Vienna

After those last two very long blog posts on Vienna and Ragnar, how about a (slightly) shorter weekend recap?

I got home from Vienna on Thursday afternoon, and dove right back into life in Superior. My friend Heidi was throwing a “girls’ night in” with a twist: she invited various local beauty vendors to host their services at her house, and all of us got to sip wine and nibble on desserts and hors d’oeuvres in between treatments. Even though my forehead lines have been annoying me lately, I haven’t yet wanted to start injecting myself with Botox, so I settled for getting a lesson in how to quickly and easily curl my hair. It came out beautiful, and I promptly ordered a curling wand from Amazon when I got home, but so far I haven’t been able to replicate that success myself.

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My friend Jen is currently borrowing my wand to see if she’s any better at duplicating this gorgeous hairstyle. Our next step is going to be re-watching the videos that our hairstylist took of how exactly she did it… maybe together for moral support 🙂

Friday morning I was back to work, and had an absolutely packed day of meetings – including one at the office from 3pm-5pm. But I had to leave early so I could make it to an event Friday night: Aspire, the annual fundraiser for Boulder Valley School District. I got home at 5:05pm, which left me exactly ten minutes to ditch my laptop and business casual and get into full makeup and formalwear. Certainly no time to curl my hair, but I think I did pretty well!

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I bought this dress to wear last year but ended up wearing something different; made it easy to just pull it out of my closet rather than having to shop!

I had a fabulous time at the event, magically managing to enjoy the signature watermelon cocktail without having so many that I went nuts bidding on things. (Tell me I’m not the only one who overbids whenever I’m reminded it’s all for charity!) In between the end of the silent auction and the beginning of the live action, a seventh grade girl performed “Country Roads Take Me Home” for the audience, and I was spellbound. Her talent is unbelievable!! I listened to this on repeat the entire rest of the weekend.

And where did those country roads take me the next morning, when I wanted to go for a trail run in the mountains? Well, initially to Rattlesnake Gulch (closed due to mud), then to Marshall Mesa (ditto), and finally to Green Mountain where I decided I’d power hike up and run down. I managed to get up and down in my fastest time ever, clocking the roundtrip at 2:01. I’m hoping that means later in the summer I can go sub-2 on the route!!

Chipmunk_on_Green_Mountain
Best part was sitting at the top while this little guy came RIGHT up to me nosing around. I was a little worried he’d bite me, but he was so cute!

That speedy time meant that when I got home, I was able to get some yard work done. I bought this electric dethatcher last fall, and it was finally time to get it powered up and doing its job. I was really impressed with how easily it unearthed tons of dead grass, though raking it all turned out to be a bit of a chore. After reading reviews online, people suggest using your mower to essentially vacuum up all the grass the dethatcher digs up – I’ll have to try that next time!

After yard work, it was time to get cleaned up myself – I was off to a Kentucky Derby party that one of my analysts had invited me to. Matt’s parents throw a big shindig every year, and I was excited for the opportunity to not only get dressed up and wear a fascinator for the first time, but – much more importantly – finally get to meet Matt’s new son, who was just born a few weeks ago.

I had a blast at the event, which turned out to be pretty serious on the Derby attire. Even Baby Robert was wearing a preppy button down, suspenders, and a little hat. And, more importantly, it felt great to realize how lucky I am to have colleagues in Denver who are friends both in and out of work. Our Denver office is pretty small (we have about 100 Advisory staff), so this is a rare treat!

Derby_2019
I also had a ton of fun wearing a fascinator, and now want to come up with an excuse to don one again. Maybe an afternoon tea party?

After the excitement of the race, I stuck around for a while to chat with Matt about some career stuff, but then had to hightail it out of there to another party – my friend Cathryn’s “guac-off” that she throws annually around Cinco de Mayo. I had made a batch of healthy Greek yogurt guacamole earlier in the day, so after a quick stop home to grab the guac and ditch my Derby-wear, I was headed over to Cathryn’s for the night.

This year’s guacs weren’t quite as exciting to me as last year’s, when I loved the sweet potato guac and my own tropical guac (with mangos and pineapple). But a few people brought queso recipes for the side “ques-off” Cathryn had added to the party this year, and there was one with chorizo that I was obsessed with – so good! Here’s the recipe, if you’d like to try it yourself.

Although I went to two parties on Saturday night, I didn’t stay out late – and after a solid night’s sleep, I was up early Sunday and off to the gym. My legs were still insanely sore from a Chuze Team Training class I had taken Friday morning (and my power hike the day before, probably), so I skipped Body Pump in favor of some straight up cardio on the elliptical, pullups/tricep dips/pushups on the gym floor (I’m only using 30 pounds of assistance on pullups!), and a lot of time in the hydromassage chair. It felt so good! Sometimes I am honestly motivated to go to Chuze just for the hydromassage at the end of my workout. (And for coffee afterward with my friend Heather, which has become our weekly tradition.)

On my way home from coffee, my friend Chris texted me an invite to come with her family to our new town bike park… which I jumped on. I’ve never done any real mountain biking before (riding my bike on mostly flat dirt roads doesn’t count), but Chris has two seven year old boys, so surely if they could do it, I could do it, right? Or at least that was what I thought till Chris and her husband Mark teased me for having a basket on my bike (it’s useful!) and I kept getting my pedals stuck while trying to do the little rollers on the baby course 🙂 But I got better as I kept going around and around, until I could successfully navigate all three of the dirt courses! (Though I was not going near the paved Pump Track, where skateboarders and expert bikers were whizzing around way too fast for my comfort).

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My favorite part of the day was probably when Mark was trying to motivate his son to go down a scary run by saying “Even Laura can do it! And she has a basket on her bike!”

After biking home, finishing up the dethatching, and showering, I wrapped up my Sunday with one more Superior activity: a walk around Hodgson Harris Reservoir with my neighbor Kathy. I had no idea how much wildlife was in this area – we saw a whole flock of beautiful pelicans, which I didn’t even know were native to Colorado!

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Kathy got a close up shot of these beautiful birds with her binoculars + camera.

All in all, a fabulous weekend hanging out with lots of neighborhood friends. Of course Vienna was fun, but it was nice to be home, too 🙂

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