Union Station Denver

My hubby had a birthday last week.  He spent his birthday morning and afternoon skiing (how royally great to be able to ski on a random Friday off in May, which happens to be your birthday...because Mary Jane extended the ski season 2 extra weeks!), then we headed out for 24 hours. I planned our short adventure just 20 minutes away from our house at the newly renovated  Union Station in Denver.

 I thought it would be fun to spend our 24 kid-free hours checking out 

Union Station, because 4 years ago (can it really be that long ago?)

this was our view, for our first 5 months in Colorado.  .

 The Crawford Hotel is right inside the station.  Lovely!

The room we stayed in was so cozy, and it was fun to be staying

right were all the action was, since our trip was so quick.

 Terminal Bar had a wide array of local beers, cocktails and light fare.  

 We sat on the Terminal Bar patio for an hour, sampling beers 

(I still hate beer) and took in some amazing people watching.

 Shuffle board.

 The art deco details throughout Union Station were nearly too much

for my heart.  I loved every corner.  This is a snap of the bar

on the mezzanine level, just above the Terminal Bar.

 Interior of one of the many restaurants onsite, Stoic & Genuine. 

This restaurant was not an option for me, because of my fake

seafood allergy, but check out the sick interior.  In love.

There is zero chance you will leave Union Station hungry.

 After dinner, we popped into Milkbox Ice Creamery, inside 

Union Station.  They serve Little Man ice cream, which is

about the best thing ever (and we used to walk to Little Man, just across 

the river from our apartment that overlooked Union Station)!  

We took our ice cream outside and sat by the fountains. 

I quickly decided I need to plan a day trip down with the kids, 

via the light rail because they would

love to run through the water (the restaurants along the linear

fountains have towels for guests to dry off, perfection!)

 After ice cream, I marveled once more at the

interior design inside the station.  I also

contemplated ways to shove this chair in

my backpack.  I then wish I had packed

like Lane from Gilmore Girls, when she

headed back to Korea! See below.

 We headed to bed and I slept like a bug in a fancy rug

buried in all the cozy blankets that adorned the bed.

The next morning, we woke up and stumbled down

the stairs right into Snooze Eatery.  I mean,

could it get any better than that!  There is

always a wait at Snooze, but on this cool

morning, no one wanted to sit outside, but 

we kids with our Minnesota blood pumping, 

took a table out there and it was glorious!

 Zac and I shared the breakfast pot pie

(helloooo rosemary sausage gravy and 

puff pastry. Wanna get married?)

and the OMG! French Toast.

The mascarpone stuffed french toast was 

topped with vanilla crème, salted caramel, fresh 

strawberries and toasted coconut.  Ridiculous! 

We walked around downtown until the wind 

shifted and brought rain, but that was the

perfect excuse to go crawl back into bed until

we got the boot at check out.  

 

So...the short story is:

GO CHECK OUT UNION STATION DENVER!

xo.

Voodoo Doughnut DENVER

The entrance of the Portland shop.  My friend is holding up the classic

voodoo doll donut (raspberry filled, with a pretzel stick through the heart)

Gaaaaaaaw, I squealed a happy squeal when I read the following text from Zac yesterday, 'did you know a Voodoo opened in Denver?'  Gaaaaaaw, I am squealing again!!!

The legendary doughnut shop in Portland has branched out with the first shop outside of Oregon (me thinks thee ol' marijuana laws have quickly ushered them in.  Pot heads loooove doughnuts**).  Is it Christmas morning?  Basically!

Here are some pics from my last visit to Voodoo (in Portland) in 2008 (yikes, we need to get back to Oregon, that is ridiculous).  I cannot wait for the people of Denver to check them out, and quickly become obsessed with the tasty quirkiness of this shop. 

Pretty certain they were the first to roll out the bacon maple bar.  

I don't want to talk about it...

 The size of your face!

Still don't want to talk about it...

Okay friends, get excited.  Get really excited!  

GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION IS JANUARY 15TH, 

WHICH MEANS DOUGHNUTS FOR ALL!!!

Report back your favorites! 

** non pot heads love doughnuts too.  

Jack Johnson Tickets

I had a mild panic last week when I heard that Jack Johnson would be playing a small show in Denver this fall, all part of a small venue tour.  I had a moment.  I haven't seen him play for 5 years (the last time he did a US tour) and I haven't seen him play a small venue since 2001 (which is a crazy fun memory, I will share at the end of this post)

Okay, so I had a moment, but jumped into action in hopes that I would be seated in the Paramount Theater, come October, to see this show!  By jumping into action I mean: signed myself and Zac up for a chance to receive a 'slot' to purchase tickets...how crazy is that.  I also told a girlfriend to sign up, along with her boyfriend, just to up our chances of receiving a slot to purchase.  The girlfriend and I also decided this would be a girl's night out (if we were lucky enough to get a slot, it seemed like 2 tickets would be easier to get than 4) so the guys were just doing there part to help our cause.  So, we find out tomorrow if we get a purchase slot...but that doesn't really matter as I WON TICKETS IN ONE OF THE FIRST ROWS!!!!  omGEEZY. 

Yes, this is true, I won tickets.  Holy Toledo...I still get goosebumps at the thought.  Here's how this big win came to be:  Ltst week I dropped Lo off at summer camp and popped the radio on for my 3 minute drive back to the house.  It was meant to be that I heard a radio advertisement for a contest to win the tickets.  All you had to do, for a chance to win, was submit a picture of you on your bike (in honor of 'ride your bike to work day').  I flipped through my phone and found this picture of Zac, paying homage to the greatest bike movie ever, RAD, by popping wheelies like Cru Jones, in our driveway.  I submitted the picture, and went on with my day.

The next day I had a missed call, and assumed it was probably the company delivering our kitchen appliances.  I called them back and was beyond confused when the woman on the other line said said it was a radio station (this is how spread thin I feel right now, I didn't immediately think back to the day earlier when I signed up for the contest, I tell ya!)...she even asked if I might have won a contest.  I said no.

5 minutes later I remembered my online submission for the previous day and called back and told her I might have won a contest.  I did.  I had a moment.  I still cannot believe we will: A. be at the show B. be in the first few rows C. for free!!!!  Zac now thinks it is super funny to tell my friend and I that technically he won the tickets and he will scalp them to us.  Haaaa. 

Okay, so now back to the first time I saw Jack Johnson perform, back in 2001.  He was very new on the music scene and was doing a small show at  First Avenue in Minneapolis.  The show was sold out, but my college buddy and I decided to see if we could score some tickets outside the show.  I remember it was a colder than average fall day, and we got there early in hopes of bumping into someone who was looking to unload tickets.  We didn't see a soul looking for us to buy their tickets, and didn't have it in us to stand in the cold, so we did what anyone would do, WE KNOCKED ON JACK JOHNSON'S TOUR BUS.  You would do the same, right?  Well his tour manager answered and called me 'red' (because of the red sweater I was wearing)...I love that I still remember that!  Well he hooked us up with tickets.  The show was unreal.  After the final encore Jack came out to chat with all the people that were still in the building.  Man, I still love his music, as much as I did that cold fall day. 

Be excited for full report of this contest, come October.  YAY!!! 

A Room with a View

We just finished up our first week of sleeps at our new home in Golden.  It has been a whirlwind of a week (I do not recommend, if possible, moving with little ones...yikes!).  I am so excited to be here, and start nesting (and project planning for a new kitchen) and feeling out our little life as Golden residents (so far, so good).  I can't though forget the fun we had as urbanites living the last 4.5 months in downtown Denver.  We definitely took advantage of the scene (you know, walking to the children's museum...all that ragey downtown living you do with little ones!) and did lots of walking on the 16th Street Mall, took many a visits to Little Man Ice Cream (and the park across the street that we aptly named, 'ice cream park') and even got the chance to walk over and take in a ball game at Coors field (we could see the stadium from the windows of our condo). In spite of living 11 stories above the mass transit tracks (I will not miss that), I felt blessed every single time I looked out our windows at the Denver skyline (and Zac had 4.5 months of walking to and from work...not too shabby!).

The view from the living room of our 'summer housing', many thanks

to the company Zac took a job with for putting us up (and extending

our time there until we found our home) - So blessed.

It is hard to tell in the skyline picture, but Union Station is in the

foreground, and I loved sitting and looking out the window at night

when the sign was illuminated. 

Thankfully where our house is perched in Golden, we have many great views.  Zac saw bighorn sheep up the mountain off the front side of our house, when he was looking out Ben's bedroom (oh, Ben is the new addition...how quickly I forget that I am still the world's worst blogger, and that hasn't been written about).

The view from our kitchen, off the back side of our house...I am in love! 

I am really going to work my way back into blogging...for reals.  So, until next time...