Seattle

In continuation of my birthday extravaganza, I went to Seattle with my dad over the weekend of September 6th. The American Academy of Periodontology (pretty exciting group) was having their annual meeting there, so I tagged along for the weekend. His flight from Anchorage got in right after mine, so we met up at the airport and headed downtown. It was great to see him and spend the weekend in a beautiful city. And no rain!!

(*all pictures taken courtesy of the sweet new camera my parents bought me for my birthday!*)

Highlights of the weekend:

Walking around downtown and checking out the Pike Place Market

Hanging out on the water

The Yankees/Mariners Game -- This was actually how I eneded up in Seattle in the first place. When I was visiting Alaska in July, my dad mentioned he was going to the Yankees/Mariners game and didn't know who he would go with. I jokingly said I'd go with him, and was like, "Okay!" The next thing I knew, he'd bought me a plane ticket to Seattle!

It was awesome to see a new park! And of course I had to get the nachos to compare them with Coors Field's nachos.... the verdict... Coors Field wins.

After the game, we had a late night dinner at Cheesecake Factory, which my dad had never been to, but loved. We had burgers and split a piece of cheesecake. Yum!

All in all, an awesome weekend. I hear the AAP meeting is in Hawaii in a couple years... I might have to tag along on that one too. :)

Another Year Older

My 27th birthday was on September 3rd, but I don’t believe in limiting my celebration to one day. In line with this theory, my birthday party was on August 23. (And as you will see in a soon-to-come post, the celebration lasted until September 7th!)

My friends all met me out the night of August 23rd at my favorite bar – Sports Column. I was so happy to see everyone, and we all had a blast!

Here is Amy, Me, Whitney, Khadeeja, Kari, and Lindsay
My roomie Kari and me

Jana & Cody

Olivia and Me

Me and Rob

Amy, Terra, Jana, and Me

Living It Up at Cheyenne Frontier Days

I've always said that if Miranda Lambert came within a 2 hour radius of Denver, I'd be there. Well, I finally had my chance when she came to Cheyenne, Wyoming on July 24th. Luckily, she was playing the same night as Jason Aldean, so I ended up seeing an awesome concert!

Amy and I headed for Cheyenne after work and made it there in about 1.5 hours. Along the way I "worked" while we listened to Amy's fabulous CD with Jason and Miranda favorites. In the midst of all this we also spotted a huge fake buffalo on a hill, but somehow missed the "Welcome to Wyoming" sign.

Cheyenne Frontier Days is an annual event with games, rides, concerts, and of course the rodeo. After arriving, Amy and I scoped the place out and settled on corn dogs and cheese fries for dinner. We took our food and made our way to the stadium for MIRANDA!! She played first and was awesome (as expected!).

After Miranda was done, Amy and I figured we had some time to go get a funnel cake. SO good! We made it back just in time for Jason Aldean, who was great!

We headed out a little before he was done playing since it was already 10:30 and we had to go to work the next day... Here we are posing for pictures rather than watching I-25... don't worry, Amy only looked at the camera for a second. :)

I'm so glad we made the trip and finally got to see Miranda in concert!

All Aboard the Alaska Railroad

My entire family and I took a day trip on the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage, through Whittier, down to the Portage Glacier, and back. I'd never been on the train here before, and it was a beautiful trip!

Here are the boats in Whittier:
My mom and me in front of the train:My dad and brother in Whittier:

Unlike my dad, I've never caught a gigantic halibut. Lucky for me, this wooden halibut was hanging around...

It's hard to describe how beautiful everything was -- you can't even portray it through pictures. One of the coolest sights all day was this waterfall:

Me waving - I'm a dork.

Alaska Botanical Garden

On July 11th, I left Denver (after only being home for a day!) and headed to Alaska to see my family. My grandparents from Colorado had flown up earlier in the day, and I was excited to have the whole family together for a week!

Today we all went to the Botanical Gardens. I loved all the wildflowers and herbs... who knew there were so many different types of mint?!

My grandparents and me:

Beware... lots of boring flower pictures ahead. I had a hard time narrowing it down, because I thought they were all pretty...

Giant cabbage:

South Carolina and Chicago (...sort of)

On Monday, July 7, I flew from San Antonio to Greenville, South Carolina. I'd never been to South Carolina (or anywhere on the East Coast aside from Boston & NYC!) so I was really excited. Since it was a work trip rather than a "fun trip", I didn't take many pictures. The truth is that I spent most of my time inside the Ernst & Young office and the Hyatt. However, I managed to get a picture of my rental car's license plate and a picture on my drive from the airport to Greenville.

Two days later, I was on my way back to Denver. I flew through Chicago, and took both of these on my phone. So pretty!