"epic"

It is very rare with my job that I actually get a Saturday off, so when that occurred this past weekend I definitely made the most of it!

First off, I hiked my very first 2 14ers. For those of you not hip with the Colorado lingo, a 14er is a mountain that is higher than 14,000 feet above sea level. There are 58 14ers in Colorado. I hiked Grays and Torres, 2 14ers that are connected by a small saddle in between them. The hike went well. I went with Joel Baker, a friend from Calvin, and his older sister Ginni who moved out to Denver with my sister Sara. Ginni and Joel are both much faster hikers than I am, but since the trail was crowded, I did not feel "left behind". They would pause and wait for me at intervals on the way up too! The day was, as one of our fellow hikers put it, "epic". Not a cloud in the sky, the weather was perfect. I felt good after the hike - the altitude made my heart beat faster and faster as I climbed, and the way down was WAY longer than I felt it should be, but I'm so proud of myself for this accomplishment!

After the hike we stopped at Beau Jos for some great Colorado pizza. When I got back to Denver I was exhausted, but had a message that my sister and her fiancee were going to meet my brother and his friends for dinner. My brother had been in Denver from Chicago for about a week and I hadn't seen him yet, so I took a quick shower and met them. Turns out my brother's friend had an extra ticket to the Cubs/Rockies game that night, so I ended up joining them. What a great game it was! It was the only good Cubs game of the series, and it definitely made up for the horrible baseball that the Cubs had played while I was at the game Friday night. (Nothing can easily make up for Sunday and Monday's horrible games, but at least I wasn't sitting through them at the field.) The game Saturday was made all the more fun by the abundance of Cubs fans in the seats. At the end of the game we were able to sing "Hey Chicago, whadda say, the Cubs are gonna win today. Go Cubs go!" at the top of our lungs. It was such a great Cubs moment! Cubs fans are some of my favorite people ever :)

Now this week the family has begun arriving in town. My sister Sara gets married on Saturday here in Denver. Good times!