Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was EVENTFUL! Amy, our friend Erin, and I threw a baby shower for our fellow masochist (aka Ernst & Young auditor) Jen on Saturday afternoon. Amy and I started the day early to fix snacks and get my place clean and set up for the guests. The previous weekend we had built a diaper cake for Jen... we were extremely impressed with our creation considering we're two pretty un-crafty girls. Although if you mention to Amy that she's un-crafty, she'll promptly pull out a pillowcase she embroidered a few years ago. It's pretty hilarious.


Here's our gathering... from left to right is Ida, Janelle, Anna, Cristina, Margaret, Jen, Erin, Amy, and me.
I hope everyone had a good time... I've always hated cheesy games at bridal showers, so I decided to spare my guests and not have any games. We ate some good food, though, and did plenty of gossiping about work.

Here's Ida and Erin. Ida and I spent a couple weeks together in fabulous Grand Junction about three years ago. It was a bonding experience. I'm just sad I never get to work with her anymore! Erin transferred to the Denver office a couple years ago. She's a Gator and played soccer for the University of Florida the year they won the national championship! I think that's so awesome. She even played professional soccer for a few years until the league collapsed. She just had a baby, Kylie, in August, and was the only person at our shower who could lend some words of motherly wisdom to Jen.Jen opening one of her gifts:Here's all of us again:

Like I said before... I really hope everyone had a good time!!

The next day was Easter!! Amy and I celebrated by hitting up Blackhawk, a casino town in the mountains about 45 minutes west of Denver.

Unfortunately, it was a cold and rainy day so I don't have any good pictures. But it was still really nice to go to the mountains.

Our main objective of the trip was to eat as much as humanly possible at the Ameristar buffet. We went last year, too, and I'd been dreaming of it ever since....
I thought it would be funny to document everything we ate. Beware. The following is pretty horrifying.

First round: Breakfast. My plate is in front and Amy's is in back.

Second round: Crab and SaladThird Round: Turkey leg, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, etc

Fourth Round (not pictured): More Crab

Fifth Round: Dessert. We each got our own cobbler and ice cream and then split the things in the middle.

Needless to say, I was feeling a little rough after all that food. That didn't stop me from taking some cotton candy with me on the way out. As we took a walk through the casino, I kept thinking how humiliating it would be for my parents to tell people their daughter died from overeating at a casino Easter buffet. "Yes," they'd say, "they had to pry the cotton candy from her cold, dead fingers."

Luckily, I made it through. I even had the strength to lose $10 at the slot machines.

What a weekend!

Rockies Opening Day

Since moving to Denver in 2005, I've been to Opening Day every year. I'd been counting down to Opening Day since Christmas... not only because it's an awesome day, but also because it symbolizes the end of busy season and the beginning of my fun spring and summer plans.

The day began with Amy coming to my place at 9:30am with breakfast burritos and Busch Light. What a friend!

I live a few miles from Coors Field, so I drove us a mile down the road so our walk would be shorter. I was pretty proud of the fantastic job I did parallel parking:We met up with some friends at a bar near Coors Field....

Travis, Amy, Me, and Super Joe:Justin (aka Fries), Amy, and TravisMe practicing my high kicks with Travis:My buddy Humphrey and Joe. Amy and me practicing our "angry" faces.... We laughed SO hard when we saw this picture. Obviously, we have the angry face mastered.Here we are looking a bit more approachable:I like how you can see Coors Field in the background here:
Not only did we hang out with our friends, but being the friendly girls we are, we made some new ones, too.

Crazy Tim:

Tim is in the middle of me, Fries, Travis, and Amy in this picture. Aptly called "Crazy" Tim, he was sitting at the table next to ours drinking black coffee and smoking a cigarette. He talked to me about his girlfriend... also named Lindsay... for a good half hour only to reveal they'd been dating 2 weeks. He then invited me and Amy to go to Costa Rica with him.... but don't worry, Mom, we're definitely not going.

Sooner Guy:

This goes to show there are crazy Oklahoma fans everywhere. Even at the Rockies Opening Day game .... understandably, I was completely appalled by his Sooners shirt.

Cotton Candy Guy:
Amy knows and appreciates my love for cotton candy. Being the fabulous friend she is, she saw me eyeing a guy's cotton candy across the aisle from us at the game. She promptly got up from her seat, walked down the row and across the aisle, sat next to cotton candy guy, and asked him if she could have some. He said, "I don't think I could tell you no to anything you asked for," and handed her a chunk of cotton candy. She came back to our seats to find me dying laughing. Not two minutes later, Cotton Candy guy came over to our seats and asked us if we wanted any more cotton candy!! Of course we said yes, and I snapped this shot of him and Amy.

Honorable Mention New Friends:

• Aura reading girl: Amy has a blue aura for those who want to know.
• Girl-who-hears-nonexistant-accents: Amy and I met a girl in the bathroom who asked us where we were from. I said Texas and Amy said Iowa... and the girl says to us, "I can tell. I love your accents."

We got to the game just in time for the opening festivities...

What a fantastic day ... and the Rockies won!

Lindsay's Winter (in a nutshell)

Winter is officially behind us, and all I can say is THANK GOODNESS! In my opinion, not a lot of good comes out of winter aside from Santa and wearing cute jackets. My winter was mainly spent working... but here were the high points:

(1) The EY Holiday Party:

Here's Amy and I getting ready....
And here's the final product.

Here's me and Jen. I love Jen. She is forever telling me what a funny, fabulous person I am and how she can't believe I'm single. Obviously, she's extremely smart. We also work with the same manager, so we commiserate together. What a great friend!

Matt, Me, and Amy. Matt went to OU, which has always been a sticking point in our friendship. It's hard to hold it against him though... he's just too funny.

Amy and Trisha. Trisha is my "roommate", which means I'm holding onto her bedroom furniture and tv while she lives in sin with Matt. This picture cracks me up.

I have no idea what's happening here.... but as you can see, we had a fun night.

Amy and her bball buddy, Justin (aka Fries).

(2) Slumber Party with Rusty:

Back in February, Amy was working in the mountains for a week, so her kitty Rusty came to stay with me and Magnolia. I wasn't exactly sure how Magnolia would react to another cat in her house... and as you can see, she wasn't much of a hostess.

Here's poor Rusty hiding behind a door and Magnolia daring him to come out.

Poor Rusty!!!

After a couple days, she started to lighten up. Sort of.

(Is it sad that one of my highlights of the winter is a cat-visitor? What is wrong with me?! This is further evidence that winter sucks.)

(3) Working with my crazy team:

No winter post would be complete without a shout out to my AIMCO audit team. I spent 75% of my year auditing AIMCO (Apartment Investment and Management Company), and after spending that much time with people... including some pretty late nights... you get to know them pretty well!

Here is Karl. This picture is taken from my desk, so as you can see, Karl is all up in my space ALL the time. Luckily, he's a lot of fun and really easy to work with.

Here are Dave and Cristina, our staff.

This is looking into our room... that's my empty seat right next to Dave.Here's our team fish, Sharkbait. Whenever we think we work a lot, we just remember poor Sharkbait who literally lives in his office.... as you can see, he's got a computer, desk, filing cabinet, plant... even with all that, he still isn't pulling his weight on the audit. Slacker.

(4) Rascall Flatt's Concert:

Amy scored $6 tickets to Rascall Flatts, which was an unexpected surprise and so fun!

(5) March Snow Storm:

On March 26th, Denver got almost a foot of snow. I left work at 11am that day, and even though I worked from home the rest of the day, it was GREAT!

I took this picture out my window when I first got home.

And here's what it looked like a couple hours later:

And that's it! My winter... in a nutshell. Bring on the Spring!