We were able to enjoy a relaxing Memorial Day weekend at home for the first time ever. This is actually the first Memorial Day that I have had off in 5 years. Normally, our annual meeting for work is the week following Memorial Day so I am in Houston at work, helping with last minute preparations and preparing to fly to D.C. This year, our annual meeting had to be scheduled a little later and we will be working over July 4th instead.
The three day weekend couldn't have come at a better time. We have been so busy lately and needed a little extra time to catch up. We finally got our mammoth pile of leftover landscaping dirt moved out of the driveway on Saturday. We ended up renting a Uhaul (evil!) pickup truck for the afternoon and filled it with several loads of dirt. We drove the dirt across the neighborhood and added it to a pile of dirt the size of a two story house that the builders have created. It was funny - what was such a huge pile of dirt in our driveway was like a drop in a bucket in the builders' dirt pile.
On Saturday evening, we hung out with our neighbors and watched a movie - Deja Vu. There were a couple holes in the storyline but it was nice to relax and watch a no-brainer action movie after a hard days work. :)
On Sunday we celebrated Michael's birthday! He got some fun new Chacos for his birthday. However, he spoiled the surprise by finding their hiding place about a week early. We met some people at the church we visited that took us out to lunch at Beau Jo's - the renown Colorado pizza place. We then, at Michael's request, spent the afternoon cleaning out the garage and washing cars. It sure is nice to have a clean and more organized garage again.
Monday morning we woke up with the intent of going on a birthday hike. We intended to leave early and be back before noon (and afternoon thunderstorms). One thing leads to another and suddenly you are several hours behind in getting out of the house. It was quite the bizarre morning.
Around 9:45 or so, we started hearing a funny noise. It started faint and grew louder. I was running around the house trying to figure where on earth it was coming from - if it was even coming from our house. I checked the sump pump in the basement - thinking it might be a failure alarm, I checked our burglar alarm, I went outside (where all our neighbors and a local police officer were standing in the street wondering what was going on). The noise was really loud outside and I finally suspected that it must be coming from the car - the Saturn. I ran and grabbed the keys. Michael came out and disconnected the battery and it stopped. So weird. It was like the horn got stuck - except it wasn't honking like an alarm or anything. It was like someone was just laying on the horn. Really weird. Expecially given that no one was around it when it started. Mind of its own. I guess that's the beauty of old cars. Over the weekend I was puzzling over the fact that we now have three vehicles and not one of them is fully operational. Last Tuesday, on the way home from the airport (Portland trip), the check engine light came on in the Prism (aka "PC"), the Jeep won't pass emissions testing and now the Saturn is doing bizarre things. Gotta love it! But I guess our newest car is almost 10 years old and has 120,000 miles. That might have something to do with it...
Anyway, we finally got situated and almost ready to go and our neighbors across the street came out to invite us over to lunch. We had lent them a few landscaping items and they decided to thank us by making us a really yummy lunch. Luisa, our neighbor, is Peruvian and made us a native dish called aji de gallina. We had it in Lima when we were there last summer. Yummm.... It was definitely worth postponing the hike for lunch (although I was so full by the end of lunch that I was in pain - it was that good)!
We finally left on our hike about 2pm. I was a bit worried about weather, but it was fine. A few raindrops here and there, which were actually a nice relief from the "heat" (we are quickly becoming wimps - 75-80 is so hot now). We hiked Waterton Canyon which is only about a 15 minute drive from us. Waterton Canyon follows the South Platte River and is known for sightings of bighorn sheep. It is also the beginning of the Colorado Trail (which runs from Denver to Durango). We intended to do about an 8 mile round trip hike to the Marston Diversion Dam. However, the Marston Diversion Dam was so uneventful that we unknowingly hiked right by it and all the way out to the Strontia Springs Dam - which was much more impressive. We even saw some bighorn sheep and their babies alongside the dam. In all the hike ended up being about a 13 mile trek and we were pretty exhausted that evening. However, it was definitely nice to get out and do something fun after weeks of hard work. Hopefully there is much more fun to come. There's definitely plenty of fun stuff to do around here.
Some pictures from the hike to come...
...and that's just Denver metro.
