Hiking in February

Went for a hike at Chautauqua Park on Sunday. This mountain park with TONS of trails is only a block and a half from my house. Definitely need to start taking advantage of that more often. It was about 58 degrees...perfect hiking weather! Here's some pics:

The view of the Flatirons from my driveway

My house. For some reason my landlord decided it would be a good idea to fill our front yard with stones. Xeriscaping?

The Flatirons from the end of my street

Yummy restaurant The Chautauqua Dining Hall and the Flatirons

I did the McClintock Trail

It was pretty snowy, muddy, and slippery in some spots...

The view back down to Boulder

Hopefully by this time next year I will have climbed either the one on the left or the one in the middle!

This part of the trail was really pretty

View of Baseline Lake (?) and some cool houses on the hill.

Funky Boulder architecture

Some sort of black-headed blue jay.


In other news, I got a promotion, a bonus, AND a raise the other day! Yay! Now I'm the SENIOR admin assistant. Not that there is any junior admins, but whatever. So I booked a flight for late April to go visit Maia and celebrate. Woohoo! I definitely need a vacation. Oh, and I'm also taking a rock climbing class over the next month. Definitely looking forward to that. I'll try to get some pics of me climbing.

Stormy!

Just a video of my roommate's dog Stormy talkin:

E=MC Hammer

Thought I would post some trivia pics. The "quiz master" takes pics of every team and posts them on the trivia blog. Our team name is E=MC Hammer

1/29/08 - Vanessa, Me, Hunter, Christie, and some dude who joined our team

2/12/08 - V and Me. Bill left before picture time. Boo Bill.

I got my dress!

My bridesmaid dress for my sister's wedding this summer came in. It's still too big in the bust (lacking boobage) and too long, but it fits great in the waist/hips! And I do love the color. Here are two shots... one with straps, one without. I'm going to wait til it is altered and fits before I decide which way I like better, but right now I am leaning towards with straps. It takes some emphasis away from my bony shoulders and long turtle-neck. And by the way - posing is hard! I have a whole new respect for the red carpet now!

The Autumn Film

Hello! I know it has been forever since I have updated. That's partly because I haven't been doing anything terribly exciting, and also because I haven't been taking my camera out much.

What I have been doing:

• Snowboarding! The last time I went I rocked the trees a bit. It was really fun. Matt is a great person to go with because he is like one-step better than me so it pushes me to try to be as good as him...but then he gets better so I have to keep trying. It's been fun, but I wish I had more people to go up with. I'd like to go more often.
  
• Trivia nights. Been rockin these with some work folks about once/week lately. It's great to finally have some real work friends. One girl, V, is awesome. She's frickin hilarious. Actually she might start doing some stand-up comedy soon! Maybe we can be a team. haha. I don't think so. Anyways, who doesn't love trivia nights and winning free beer?
• Hanging out with the roommates a lot. This probably goes without saying, but when I was dating E, I wasn't home a lot. Now, us three roomies chill at home and watch movies a ton. I've also been cooking more which is good cause I feel healthier and I've been saving money.
• Planning my next vacation. I want to take a dive trip sometime this year. But I think I also have to go to Germany in October. And I'll be going home sometime this spring and summer for Meg's shower and wedding. But really... I want to go diving again SOON!!
• Getting back into rock climbing. I can't say I was ever really a climber, but I did dabble and climb a bunch (mostly bouldering) back in 2003. I've always wanted to get back into it, and living in Boulder is the perfect place to do it, so I'm seizing the opportunity. I've already got hooked up with a great group of climbing buddies and my class starts in March. And I'll probably join the local climbing gym, but first I have to see how my finances are.
• And finally, I've been working. Hard. And it's paying off. I'm getting a raise soon! Maybe even a promotion (which would be more of a job title change since I've already taken on a lot of extra responsibility). I still love my job and everyone I work with, so no complaints there.

OK, and the main reason I wanted to post was because I finally have some pictures! My friend Aubrea's band, The Autumn Film, headlined the Boulder Theater this past Friday, which is a HUGE accomplishment for them. And they ROCKED it. It was so good, and I took a bunch of pictures. They've just embarked on a 45-date tour, so go check out their myspace and go see them if they play near you! Here's the pics:

Dinner with George and friends before the show

Aubrea rocks the violin

Tifah, the lead singer

My other friend Julie plays bass

Julie and Aubrea = Rockstars!!