Mara's Website

Jody after the Cubbies lost to the Rockies, but still happy to be having a Corona at the Rio afterwards

Will and I after enjoying margs at the Rio

Soon after Jody's visit my parents came for a long weekend in May. It was really great to have them out here. Their "excuse" for coming was a quilt show in town (and holy cow was it a large quilt show!) but we found all kinds of things to do including visiting the museum of art (where there was another quilt exhibit), wandering around the Cinco de Mayo celebration, meeting up for tasty food with my aunt and uncle, and just relaxing. It was wonderful having them out here!

The following weekend my two best friends from college, Rachel and Hannah, made the trip out to Denver (Hannah was here for a work conference so Rachel flew out to join us as well). We also spent lots of time eating (including breakfast with drag queens), but also wandering around Denver a bit, renting bad 80's films, talking about global warming and laughing out butts off as we bought cupcakes and a toilet plunger (no, not at the same shop). :)

Me with a plunger and Hannah with the cupcakes. What a great combo!

Rachel, Hannah and me Then, the first weekend in May, Will and I took a trip out to Fruita (western Colorado) for "Mike the headless chicken festival". Yep, you read that right. They have an entire festival dedicated to a chicken whose head was chopped off, but enough of the brain stem remained that he lived for an extra 18 months (his owner fed him with an eye dropper). Check out Mike the headless chicken festival link for the entire story. Anyway, this was a festival weird enough that we just couldn't miss it. :) So I ran the 5k "run like a chicken with your head cut off" race with Anika (Will watched and cheered since he had a marathon to run the following day in Denver). Then we watched the lawnmower races, which had many flavors (including pushing a rubber chicken with a hockey stick while driving your lawnmower (these were tractor-type mowers), riding over a large bump on your mower while holding a tray of plastic wine glasses of water without spilling, and, of course, the modified lawnmower/tractor race of "how fast can you go in a circle?"). It was really impressive!

After watching the lawnmower races we watched the peep-eating competition. Yes, lots of children tried to stuff as many marshmallow peeps down their throats in a certain amount of time as possible. There were many techniques, but this was one of the less-successful ones (but highly entertaining!).

Of course, after watching all those peeps get eaten, I had to have one!

Then that Sunday Will ran his second marathon in two weeks (yes, he's insane) and afterwards our friends Mike (no, not the headless chicken) and Jessica came down to Denver where we watched another Rockies game and then went to a local music joint where a band from Minnesota played and we rocked out and hung out for a while.

And the second half of May seems like mostly a blur to me now. I ranch-sat for my friend Cate (and had the pleasure of being there while the tornado that swept through Northern Colorado came through. I spent much of that day hunkered down in her basement with no power, three dogs and a cat (Anika was way way way fascinated by the cat), listening to the wind, hoping the horses outside didn't blow away. It was quite the adventure!). I also spent a lot of time at Will's place trying to get his house prepped to put on the market for sale since he had decided he wanted to move to Denver. Well, we got it on the market on a Monday (the last Monday of May), and he got a call 5 days later that he had a full-price offer which he prompted accepted! I am *way way way* excited that he'll be moving to Denver. I can't wait to have him close to me instead of having to drive. And, since so many people have asked (and everyone asked *before* we had talked about), yes, we will be moving in together! So 7 months after moving here, I am moving out of my apartment and into a house I'll share with Will (well, we'll find out in the next couple days if our application gets accepted. I assume it will be). :) It's an awesome house we'll be renting and LOTS of space, so now we'll even have a real guest room (unlike the inflatable bed in the office of where I am now), so please do come visit! :) I'm really excited. :)

We also got to go see Big Head Todd and the Monsters (a band) play at Red Rocks with my friend Kathy and her daughter, Shannon. Quite fun and quite a long concert since they played for 3 hours!

And, just so you aren't insulted when I don't write back to your emails for a while, the reason is because Will and I are off for a 2 1/2 week trip to Europe. We'll go to Berlin, Munich, Prague and Krakow (Poland). The trip was based around my friend, Carsten, getting married in Berlin. We'll also visit my college roommate, Jill, in Munich as well as do a hut trip with her, her husband and son to the Alps (how cool!). Prague will be a ton of fun (and hopefully I find the hat I'm looking for), and Krakow should be fun too including a trip to Auschwitz/Birkenau.

Ok, for now, I better get to bed. It's been a long day and I need to get up early to get some packing done tomorrow!

Love,
Mara and Anika