Sunday, September 26, 2010

Only about 6 weeks late...

The last week of July I went to Colorado to spend time with my family and celebrate my grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary.

My sis and I got to spend some rare quality time together.



Although most of the time we were busy planning for the big party, we were able to take part of a day to explore downtown Denver. We went to 16th Street and enjoyed "Your Keys to the City," which is basically pianos painted by local artists displayed throughout several blocks of downtown. The cool part is that they are on display for passerbys to stop and play. We stopped and played a little, but this guy was better than us.



This is grasshopper. He likes to hang out on this cherry blossoms piano. He wanted to be my friend.



Then we stopped for lunch at the hotdog place.



My sister had the wild boar. I was a bit safer and had the all beef, but decided to spice it up with the curry sauce. I love a good hotdog, and love some good curry sauce, but together....not so much.

(If it makes that picture any less gross, please know neither my sister or I were able to eat the whole thing). In retrospect I should've tried the Elk Jalapeno Cheddar. Oh well, maybe next time, or maybe not.

Of course, I also got to spend lots of time with my mom and grandparents.

This is the face my grandma gives me when I say something funny but inappropriate enough for her to want to smack me with her menu.



Saturday was the big day. Here is the happy couple celebrating 65 years.




And here they are with their offspring (minus a few) and their offspring's significant others.



The week ended when I had to rush away from the party to catch my flight home. The following day my friends Shawn and Lauren got married, and I was on the only flight from Denver to Fresno which would allow me to be at both the anniversary party and the wedding.

I have known Shawn since I was 8 years old, and have lived with his family for the last several years. We have shared enough water fights, your mama jokes, and bed head to legally be determined siblings, so there was no way I was missing his wedding.

Unfortunately, I had a layover in Phoenix.

And apparently July/August is monsoon season in Phoenix. Seriously, who knew?

With several hours of weather delay in Denver I knew the chances of me catching my connecting flight were slim, but I kept hope. As soon as our plane landed in Phoenix they let me get off first, and as I ran off the plane all the passengers were cheering for me and yelling out things like "good luck", "you can make it!", and "run girl!". (Seriously. We all got very close being stuck together in a tiny terminal for hours). It was like a movie.

Unfortunately though, it was not a movie, and I did not make my connecting flight.

After checking with several different airlines, I found that there were abolutely no more flights to anywhere closer to Fresno until the next day.

So I headed to the rental car place, and spent the next 10+ hours driving home in this peanut.



I left Phoenix at 10pm and arrived in Fresno at about 8:30 the next morning. I had enough time to shower, get dressed, and drive another 1 1/2 hours to the wedding. I made it with 20 minutes to spare.

It was definitely an adventure and I learned many techniques to staying awake (which include but are not limited to: driving 80mph with the windows down, blasting mariachi music, and slapping myself in the face). I will say that if you are driving through the Mojave Desert at 2am and you find an open gas station, keep going. I would rather take my chances on the side of the road with coyotes and cactus.

So that is how I ended the month of July and began the month August, and this is the first time I have had time to sit down since, or at least thats how it feels.

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