for the love of...

I was sitting here eating my leftover chipotle burrito for lunch thinking about how much I'm enjoying my new favorite food.  For the longest time, I didn't give Chipotle the time of day.  I'm a self-confessed picky eater and mixing all that "stuff" up in a burrito defies my "keep food in their separate corner" motto.  In the past when I have followed my fanatic friends to Chipotle, I have whimped out and got either tacos or an ultra-whimppy quesadilla.  But my food-i-ness took a turn for the better back in July.

Kalin and I were working for our family friends and we all met up for lunch at ...Chipotle.  Oh great, I thought to myself.  I was so over a bland quesadilla.  So, I scoured the menu and picked out a barbacoa burrito, black beans, and the red sauce.   The first bite...DELICIOUS.  Then my mouth was on fire.  The red sauce was the hottest option.  Whoops--and I forgot to get some sour cream to calm it down.  But it was so delicious--I loved every bite, so worth the heart burn later.  

Now I can't wait until my next trip to Chipotle even though we were there last friday with some Westmont friends.  I have mastered my burrito preferences and life is good at Chipotle, even a few days later for lunch.  This picky eater is slowly but surely experimenting with good food and liking it quite a bit.  In large part, this change is due to a fabulous husband that always offers me the food he knows I might not agree too, hoping that one day I'll give it a try.

fall is arriving.

Here are some pictures from a brief trip up to Grand Lake where the aspen trees are turning a lovely shade of gold, pinks and reds.  

howdy folks, welcome to golden

That's the motto that graces the downtown strip in my hometown of Golden, CO.  This past weekend, Kalin and I spent some time there and I realized how great of a little town it is.

Fall has definitely arrived in the metro area and it feels so nice outside, you can't stay inside.  To kick off our day in Golden, we started with a hike up South Table Mountain (which is more of a plateau).  We hiked up what felt like a drainage trail up the face of the castlerock which was a bit steep at times, but the pay off was amazing once we got to the top:

This is the view of the town of Golden, very quaint and slightly lazy-feeling.  The top of the mountain has a large staircase from when there used to a beer garden up at the top that people took an old cog rail to get there.  After our descent, we headed to the town for some delicious sandwiches at D'Deli and a sweet treat at the Sweet Shoppe.  We poked around the farmer's market and decided it was a pretty good day.  We're hoping to keep up our weekend hikes to ultimately attempt a 14er (hopefully before the snow comes).

family fun.

This past week, all of my mom's siblings were in town and being that I am still unemployed, I got to hang out with all of them.  As a sidenote, Kalin is EMPLOYED!  Hooray, we are really excited and he's liking his new job.

It's always fun to hang around all my aunts and uncles and my little cousin Lane.  He provided a LOT of energy and luckily there were enough of us to appease his wanting to be entertained.  Thankfully, there is a lot of educational programming on TV that teaches him about feelings, chinese and spanish. (Thanks, Nickelodeon).

My Aunt Ginger, Uncle Mitch, Aunt Gina, Mom and I took Lane to the Denver Zoo for a day filled with monkeys, elephants, bears, birds, giraffes, lions and lots of senior citizens (they came by the bus load that day...)

Lane with the black bears.

Mom and Lane with the Mountain Goats

After a few days in Denver we all headed up to Grand Lake to spend some time relaxing, eating, wondering and in general enjoying each other's company.  Unfortunately Kalin and my Dad stayed back because of work but met us up there for the weekend.  Some went off fishing, some played games, some went into town and I did a lot of stitching.  Here's some pics from our time in Grand Lake:

if you give a moose a muffin...

my dad's newest "project" and some weekend work for kalin and i.

kalin soakin up some sun on the Lake

us!

sisters: my mom and aunt ginger

look who caught a fish!

So, it was an excellent mini break and I think I've met my quota of three-year-old time for awhile, but I'll be ready for the little guy once he's back.  But now it's back to the job hunt...