Sunday and Monday of our trip were spent skiing, which is something I haven’t done in about 17 years. I remembered being pretty timid the last time I was on skis, and since I’m still pretty timid with things that scare me, we decided that I’d take a half day lesson. I am SO thankful I did. The lesson was super helpful and reminded me of some things I had learned years ago. I was definitely nervous and would not consider myself a “good” skier, but we had so much fun! We stayed at Cooper, which was nice since it’s geared toward beginner skiers. The first day we were a Cooper, I took a lesson for two hours while Jake tried to teach himself how to ski again – he normally snow boards, but used to ski a lot when he was younger. He’s good at everything, so I knew he’d pick it back up quickly. He did! It was so much fun watching him.
Just waiting for my lesson to start. I was nervous, but excited to try skiing again.
After my lesson, we had lunch and a beer – the real reason to ski, right? This Coors Light hit the spot!
After lunch, Jake and I skied together a little bit. Well, I slowly made my way down greens while he waited for me. I felt bad for making him go so slowly, but he said he was just happy to ski with me. Best husband ever. We also got to see our dear friends, Dwayne and Bettina (and their kiddos), but I failed to take any pictures with them – dang it.
We were both pretty wiped out from skiing all day, so we headed back to Leadville to get ready for dinner. We met our good friends, Gina and Justin, at a new to us restaurant called “Treeline”. Holy wow. Everything was phenomenal! We shared a bunch of appetizers, all of which were delicious. I failed to take a picture of our dinner, but Jake and I shared a shrimp, noddles, and veggie dish that was amazing.
So thankful we were able to catch up with these two while we were in Colorado!
We also decided we needed dessert. Jake and I shared this berry cobbler and it was outstanding. Highly recommend Treeline if you’re in the Leadville area!
We stayed in our favorite hostel in Leadville that was not busy at all and feels more like a hotel than anything. We have stayed in this room SO many times for races in Leadville. It’s the Hope Pass room and it’s our favorite.
Ready for day two of skiing!I didn’t take a lesson on our second day, so we slept in, which was nice.
I had some work to knock out, so we headed to one of our favorite coffee places, City on a Hill, for coffee and breakfast burritos while I worked. I was extra thankful for the ability to work from anywhere!
I knocked out all kinds of grading, which felt really good. I try to always get assignments graded on Mondays and Tuesdays so my students have feedback before starting new assignments.
Since we were in Leadville, we HAD to stop and take a picture where Jake proposed in 2017 after crossing the finish line of his 100 mile race. He carried my ring in his back pocket the entire race. You can read all about it HERE. It’s my favorite story.
Leadville is gorgeous. The views never get old.
Day 2 on the slopes! I told Jake I wanted to do a couple little runs by myself to warm-up before joining him on the chair lift and tackling some longer runs.
I don’t think we could’ve had better weather. It was gorgeous all day.
Jake and I skied together ALL day Monday, which was so much fun. I gained a little bit of confidence, but still definitely need more practice.
About halfway through our day, we stopped at one of the bars at the top of the mountain for a beer.
We skied almost 10 miles! You can see my average speed of 4.9 miles…HA! I told you I was slow.
Slow or not, I had a blast!!
This trip was so wonderful. We hadn’t been on a vacation in LONG time, so it was amazing to get away and spend time together.
We packed up at the hostel before skiing because we were going to stay in Frisco for the rest of our trip. We headed straight to Frisco after skiing. It was national margarita day, so we had margs for dinner. We went to Ollie’s, one of our favorite restaurants in Frisco.
Another favorite restaurant is the Butterhorn Cafe. We had breakfast here Tuesday morning.
I had two meetings Tuesday, so I knocked those out, then we ventured out. We drove around and stopped to grab a beer at a brewery in Silverthorne. The brewery was Angry James Brewery and it was a super cool place.
They had the most delicious food truck there. Jake and I shared this bison, jalapeño, and cheddar brat. Holy yum. It was one of the best brats I’ve ever had. It was topped with all kinds of pickled goodness.
We sat by the window so we could soak up these mountain views.
Our last dinner out was at 5th Avenue Grille. WOW. We started with the tuna poke appetizer and I told Jake I could eat this every day of my life. It was out of this world.
We also shared a salad and their trout, which were both so good. The trout was covered with roasted pistachios and some amazing sauce.
We headed for home Wednesday morning, but not before grabbing coffee and breakfast burritos from Rocky Mountain Roasters – another one of our favorite places in Frisco.
We decided to just drive the whole way home Wednesday; it’s about 12 hours. I had one meeting, so we made sure I was in a place with good reception. It was nice to be able to still work while getting out of town.
Lunch was Qdoba, which is one of our favorites for fast food. I had their kid’s chicken quesadilla with fajita veggies. It hit the spot!
We got home about 1AM. We were both exhausted. I had lots of mail to go through, but couldn’t deal with anything until I got some sleep. HUGE thank you to Jake’s sister for staying at our house to watch our girls – they always have the best time with Chelsea.
I’m off to do ALL the laundry, clean our house, and try to get caught up on a few things!
Happy Friday Eve, friends!