Last Day of 2009, First Day on the Slopes

Me and my roommate Holly

Jon, TJ, Amanda, and Jeremy

We headed up to WP for the first day on the slopes...on the last day of the year! We got a good crew together and got fresh tracks on a slope that opened for the first time at Mary Jane. It ended up being a pretty rough run for me...flat ground and waist deep powder with sniper rocks and logs all came together to present a HUGE struggle for me on my snowboard! Other than that struggle, the day was great!

So much white fluff!

I did a lot of unburying this thing!

I had a couple of options for New Years plans...in the end I chose a quite night hanging out by myself with my book curled up in bed. Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for a lot of lonely nights in 2010 with my welcoming in of the new year! :)

Christmas Come and Gone

My friend Jaymie Mart was in the country over from Scotland. She flew into Phoenix, and she and Melissa went to Vegas to ride and do a little dancing for the weekend. After that I flew down to Phoenix to hang out for a couple of days before Jaymie and I flew back to CO at the end of the week.

We had a great time and quite a laugh in Phoenix. We ate a lot of really good food, drank a lot of wine, road mountain bikes, and laughed our asses off for 3 days straight! On Thursday Jaymie and I flew back to Denver and headed into Boulder. I had school work that I had to do, so after a little last minute shopping, we spent some time in my lab, and then headed home for a relaxing Christmas Eve evening.

Super steak dinner!

On Christmas Day, we slept in, had a nice breakfast and then attempted to go XC skiing up at Eldora...when we got there it was 6ºF and the wind was blowing so hard that the windchill was nearly -30ºF! We made the executive decision that it wouldn't be much fun, so we went to the coffee shop and enjoyed some hot apple cider instead, definitely the right option! We came home and made a wonderful salmon dinner and learned how to knit! It was the most relaxing and stressfree Christmas I think I might have ever had! :)

We did finally go XC skiing. We rented some touring skis and skied out to Brainard Lake just North of Nederland. It was a beautiful day, and it was much warmer, sunnier, and much less windy than the day before!!

Such a lovely snow angel

Jaymie flew back to Phoenix yesterday after we indulged ourselves at Lucile's for breakfast! It was really fun to have her come to visit and spend Christmas here in CO!

Now it's time to get back to work! I've got tons of school stuff to do this week, am helping TJ move out of his apartment, and want to try and get some skiing in as well!

Jon's Navy Commissioning

Jon getting his Officer's stripes unveiled

Jeremy, "Sir Jon", and me

My friend Jon has been in Navy ROTC for the past couple of years of college, and after graduation on Thursday, he got commissioned into the Navy yesterday. The ceremony was really cool. I'm really glad I was able to go.

TJ, Jon, and Jeremy

Jon, TJ, and Phil...the grads!

All of the newly commissioned graduates had to throw down $200 towards on open bar tab at a bar last night. Needless to say, we all had a great time and enjoyed some great beer. Thanks Jon, and good luck with your Naval adventures!!

Graduation...Unfortunately Not Mine

I had several friends who graduated tonight. I went to their graduation ceremony, and it was inspiring to want to get done! haha TJ and Jon both graduated with their engineering degrees tonight, and my friend Garrett got his PhD. I'm really hoping that I'll be walking across that stage this time next year! :)

Adventures in the Kitchen!

Well, in light of all of the work that I need to be doing at school, I decided to spend the better part of Saturday screwing around in the kitchen! I found a webpage that described making hot chocolate on a stick and thought, what a great idea. Well, as it turns out, it wasn't quite as easy as I thought it might be, but they did turn out pretty good, in the end. :)