Berteliu Wedding Weekend

Two weekends ago we went to NYC for my brother's wedding.  We got in late Thursday night and started our weekend bright and early on Friday.  Eric rented a car and we drove around Manhattan - LES up to Harlem and back down - to show my Grandma the city.  Her family grew up in the city so she had a bunch of addresses we drove by for her to see. 

I headed to my hair appointment at Dry Bar in Tribeca.  I've never had a blow out before and really enjoyed my first one!  However it felt like it was impossible to hail cabs for some reason so I was constantly running around town.  We all met at city hall at 1:00 in the afternoon.  It was my immediate family, grandma, Orchid's parents, her friend Travis and his boyfriend Daniel, Eric's two college roommates Drew and David, and my cousin Chris and his wife Yvonne.  Orchid's friend was taking pictures of the event as well.  

Once we got inside city hall, we had to take a number  we were surprised at how long it took!  We were C755 and they were only on C735 when we got there.  It took about two hours of waiting in the building for the number to be called.  The first time they called your number, I think you had some paperwork. Then you had to wait again for them to call your number for your ceremony.

C755 was finally called! 

We all went in a quaint room and had the ceremony, which lasted about 3-4 minutes.  It was very intimate with only 15 or so of us in the room.

We took a few pictures around the building and then parted ways for a few hours.  We met up again a few hours later for dinner at Edi & The Wolf, an Austrian restaurant.   It was a beautiful venue and had delicious food! Although I'm never going to dislike anything Austrian!

Matt order spaetzle and I had schnitzel. Yum!

The next night was their big party.  They rented out the rooftop of a bar/restaurant and had about 70 guests. Before we went to Hotel Chantel, the immediate family went over to Eric and Orchid's apartment to eat some pizza and hang out beforehand.

Hotel Chantel was beautiful inside!  If only it was warmer the roof could have been retracted, but it was still very pretty to look at.  Just behind the bar was a beautiful view of the Williamsburg Bridge.

The next morning we all went to brunch and then flew home.  We were delayed 3 hours and didn't get home until 1am!  It probably took 4 days to recover, but it was such a fun weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend 2013

We spent Memorial Day weekend packing up our apartment and camping in the mountains.  Friday night we decided to bike to dinner.  It was a beautiful night in the 80s and we opted for a Mexican restaurant about 1 mile away.  We had never been to Lime before but their large patio was tempting on such a nice night. The next day I somehow realized that I drank too much the night before and opted out of yoga sculpt that morning.  Apparently a large margarita and 3 beers over 6 hours is too much for me to handle. I'm getting old.  It was probably for the best because we ended up packing about 10 boxes.  We're probably half way done with packing at this point.  I would like to pack up more stuff, but there is seriously no room to store the boxes!

Sunday we drove to Buena Vista, which is about 2.5 hours away.  It is a beautiful drive and actually very flat the last hour.

A friend of Matt's from college was staying at a friends cabin for the weekend and he invited us.  We ended up camping in their backyard for the night.  There were probably 20 people or so staying the weekend in the house, tents, cars, etc.  We tried a new hike, Ptarmigan Lake, about 15 min west of Buena Vista up Cottonwood Pass.

We got there around 11:00 in the morning and were shocked that we were the only ones in the 10 car parking lot!

We quickly realized it was so empty because there was 2 feet of snow....

Some spots didn't have much snow...

And in other spots we would sink and get stuck.

We turned around at about halfway in because we lost the trail and couldn't figure out where to go.  The trail was so snowpacked we couldn't see the trail and shoes were drenched and causing our toes to go numb.  Despite the snow, I was still in shorts and a tshirt since it was 75!

We headed back to the cabin and had some drinks in the sunshine.  Beautiful day!

We got up at 6:30 the next morning and packed up to make our way back to Denver.  Random weekend, but fun.  This week is full of packing and moving!! With a FOMR (Film on the Rocks - Red Rocks) tomorrow night! Back to the Future!

We're moving... 4 blocks away!

We've been living in our current place since I moved to Denver at the end of September 2011.  I came out here for my final interview in August and realized that was my "free" (the company paid for my flight) opportunity to look at potential apartments if I got the job.  My interview was Monday morning so I asked if they could fly me out first thing Sunday morning.  I rented a car and drove all around Denver going to different apartment showing appointments I had previously set up.

I ended up getting a pretty small place, but it was new, clean and about 5 blocks from the park.  It was only 575 square feet, but that was plenty of space for just me.  Then Matt moved out here.  And things got tight.   The first 6 months or so weren't bad but then we started to get really frustrated when we couldn't go to the bathroom/bedroom when the fridge was open because it was blocking the hallway, or I had to stop blow drying my hair and move out of the way for Matt to get to his dresser.

Last month in April 2013, I had my wedding shower back home and we brought all of our gifts back with us (so happy we were able to fit them all in our checked bags!).  I don't want to sound ungrateful because we were so excited about all of our new gifts, but we were pretty much busting at the seams at this point.  We have boxes everywhere and the dining room table is covered in random stuff.  Needless to say, we're SO excited to be moving in a few weeks!

We found a place on craigslist that was within our budget and surprisingly cheap for being that close to the park (0.10 miles) so I emailed the landlord right away.  We had an appointment two days later to see it in person. Within two hours of seeing the apartment, we had already paid the deposit and signed the lease!  Apartments go so quickly in Wash Park!