We Be Bloggers

Last weekend, some of my closest girlfriends converged on Boulder, and we spent the weekend celebrating my impending transition to married life. Robin was the first to arrive, and after a lovely lunch and a visit to the Boulder Safeway (yes, I know how to show visitors a good time!), we spent Friday afternoon hiking all the way to the top of Mount Sanitas.

More girls arrived, and we started the celebrations off posing with our new Quist doormat.

The weekend before last, my soon-to-be Mother in Law, who is about as fun as fun gets, threw a Spa Shower for me in San Francisco. I tell you what, I am a lucky girl!!

We stayed at the Marriott right in the heart of Union Square, and started with a fabulous lunch at a restaurant nearby.

Then we all headed over to the Spa to get pampered. The Spa Shower Program was clear: 1:30 – Be Ready for Pampering. And oh, I was, I was!

I was “showered” with gifts, some very special, and a whole table of fruit and tarts and sparkling juice was waiting just for us (“Samantha” the sign said!). The spa lady even had to chase away some spa shower attendees wannabees who were angling for the fruit! We had facials or massages, and we were so relaxed by the end of the pampering that it was hard to move.

But! We did move, and we got all dressed up and went out for an evening at Teatro Zinzanni, an acrobatic – dinner theater – musical show. Who knew it would be possible to hula hoop 12+ hoops, each at different heights, all at once?! It was fantastic!

And we were so close to the action that we had to move our dinners and drinks so the actors could prance around on our table for the finale. Yes, it was incredible. We shared a limo (yes a limo!) back to the hotel, and snuggled in after a truly FAB day.

Thank you, Beth, for a weekend I’ll never forget!

Nearly a month since our last post, and so much to say! Well here’s what we’ve been up to since last time.

I went on a stunningly beautiful hike all the way to the top of Mount Sanitas here in Boulder with my co-workers. I may have been the slowest hiker up the gigantic mountainside, but I was also the proudest when we finally got there:

I (Jake) took a road trip from CA to CO a few weeks ago. I decided to go the scenic route via Yosemite and Southern Utah. Here are some photos:

This past week, we got to hang out with Rocio, my Chilean friend who took a vacation from her yearlong exchange student experience in Davis, California to visit us. First we spent time together in Kansas…

And then we brought her home with us to Boulder! Here we are at the scenic overlook on the way home from the airport.

We took Rocio to our favorite ice cream spots (of course), with Caitlin we hiked to the overlook at Mount Sanitas, we toured Pearl Street and visited Chautauqua. Then this morning we took a bike ride out to the mountains on the Boulder Creek trail. It started to sprinkle on us, but we fought off the real rain showers with sheer willpower. Here we are being all outdoorsy and healthy:

On Saturday, I had quite the honor bestowed upon me: a 2nd high school diploma. I already had one from Topeka High — and now, after acting as the commencement speaker for THS, I also have one from the one and only… Google High!

The graduation ceremony was especially important for me since I’m the 4th generation in my family to have graduated from Topeka High. But! I’m the first one to get a Google High diploma! I couldn’t have felt more proud to have been asked to speak. 322 graduates plus their families makes for quite a crowd. This photo shows the graduates and maybe 1/3 of the onlookers.

I talked about working at Google, trusting your intuition, creating your own opportunities, finding value in failure, appreciating the now, and my really hot fiance (that last bit was everyone’s favorite part!).

I wore my most fabulous shoes in honor of the occasion

And the THS, er, GHS team had just the right robe with my Stanford cardinal waiting for me. What a special day.

Em and Ian visited us a couple weeks ago.

(Well, they had all kinds of stories about how they were here to see Colorado, look at grad schools, la dee da, but *I’m* pretty sure they came just to see us.)

Here they are looking all happy:

While they were here, we had a couple of lovely dinners together with them and I spent a Sunday in Estes Park, exploring the wild. Holy smokes there were a lot of elk!

Oh yes, and also a lot of rocks. Some of them super interesting. Fortunately we had Ian the geological engineering expert with us.