Bolder Boulder

This year was the 30th running of the bolder boulder 10k and my third in a row. Elise was working so I ran solo. It was a spectacular event as usual. 52,000ish runners, joggers and walkers of all kinds and ages dressed in all manner of costumes and such. My personal favorite was a young woman dressed as the statue of liberty complete with flaming torch. I was also passed at mile five by a man wearing a shirt that said " I'm 74 whats your excuse!".

Last year we finished just over 70min. so this year my goal was to finish under 60min. It was overcast and cool, I also had an early start time of 7:35 that had more runners and less walkers to avoid. I finished with a time of 59:45:58.

Paul's fishing lesson

Evidently, Paul had never been fishing before. (What kinds of summer camps did he go to, anways?!) So Tom gave Paul a brief lesson at our local reservoir. They only fished for about 30 min (Tom caught one trout) but I think they were both unscathed.

Kathee makes the BEST blue-corn crepes

The night before Paul & Kathee left, we had our (CPMG-hospitalist) journal club. It has been our tradition that Tom cooks for these events. Well, we had a double-bonus for this journal club: 1) Paul was our guest-expert (our theme was Hem/Onc topics), and 2) Kathee helped with the meal prep. She made this unbelievable dessert: blue-corn crepes, covered in fresh berries and served with strawberry icecream.
As a side note: the other dinner pictures did not turn out that great, but the remainder of the meal was excellent (as usual, thanks to Tom). We started out with a cheese platter, served with port-candied pecans; the salad was a roasted-red onion with blue cheese, and the main course was a pulled pork burrito bar. Mmmm, journal club!

Fern Lake Trail

We enjoyed an absolutely beautiful hike (Kathee's first!) up towards The Pool & Fern Lake.

Moraine Park

Moraine Park (which is a little valley on the east side of RMNP) has never failed to provide us with excellent elk viewing.

RMNP

We are always happy to go to Rocky Mt. Nat'l Park, and Paul & Kathee's visit gave us an excellent excuse to make the short trip. We started out at Bear Lake -- which is up around 9,000 feet. We were originally planning on walking around the lake, but there was actually enough snow on the trail to prohibit us from doing so. However, we enjoyed our lunch on some benches (at the lakeside) and took in the spectacular views.

Chautauqua Park

Although Tom & I have hiked at Chautauqua, we had never before taken the opportunity to wander around the "grounds." I had no idea that "Chautauquas" were actually started more than 100 years ago, in upstate New York (although Boulder's Chautauqua is the oldest continuously operating Chautauqua). There are cottages for rent year-round, as well as a visitor center, playground, park, small garden, and dining room/restaurant. They also have an auditorium which hosts awesome singers/speakers/acts throughout the year.

spring tulips on Pearl St.

Since Paul & Kathee were here for a visit, we took the opportunity to wander around Pearl St. They always have beautifully manicured flower beds, and this spring was no exception. I have never seen a breed of tulip like this: the flowers were ENORMOUS and the leaves were speckled. They were gorgeous.

pulled pork

Tom recently saw a couple of Food Network shows which featured pulled pork, in its varying splendor. So he was inspired to buy a pork shoulder (called the Pork Butt) and smoke it for about 12 hours. The result was an amazingly tender, fall-off-the-bone, mouth-watering experience. Happily, Tom 'harvested' several pounds of pork (some of which has been frozen for later use). For now, we are feasting on pulled pork sandwiches....

my birthday dinner and the fabulous fallout

For my birthday dinner, I requested fish tacos. YUM! Tom made seasoned tallapia with my favorite purple-cabbage slaw, fresh salsa, and all of the usual fixings. The best part is that it was the gift that kept on giving! We had leftover slaw, and Tom creatively made good use of it. We had seared sea scallops with a maple sauce (and my favorite slaw as a garnish) and then one night a breakfast-dinner: corn tortillas with cumin-scented black beans (another one of my favorites, thanks to Sherry) with a fried egg, salsa, cheese, and -- you guessed it -- purple cabbage slaw. Awesome.

N. St. Vrain River

Talk about Tom's Happy Place! The N. St. Vrain River connects the Ralph Price Reservoir to the Longmont Reservoir. All sites are very accessible: there is a fairly flat, wide, dirt road (pedestrians only, however) that runs beside the river for several miles. Today, because the hike is not very strenuous, we found it to be a popular family/Mother's Day spot to spend the afternoon. It was gorgeous!!

what a great week

Can you tell I've had most of this week off? What a great week it was: 3 really nice hikes, bookclub for me, and a gig for Tom. Doesn't get much better. Today's hike (the terrain, vegetation, smell of the air, etc.) reminded me quite of bit of walking around Lake Tahoe. (Minus a few thousand people, of course.) It was a gorgeous day, with blue skies, and a very pleasant trail around the lakeside. Today's hike I figure we went about 5 miles or so. Not bad at all!

rainbow trout at Longmont Reservoir

As we were walking back from the Ralph Price Reservoir, I was amused at Tom's comment: "I can't believe I only used to go fishing once a year. What a waste of all those years!" Shortly thereafter, we stopped at the next reservoir, and Tom promptly caught a very nice brown trout. A good day was had by all...

scofflaw Tom

Although Tom has a CO state fishing license, he does not have a permit for this specific reservoir. We found out today that they only sell 600 permits per year; this year, the Ralph Price Reservoir permits sold out in 3 days.

baking night at the Brown-Posts

Tom was making bread tonight, so I decided to join the baking frenzy. I chose peanut-butter chocolate chip cookies. Between the two of us, we used all of our cookie sheets, and both ovens. Happily, we had plenty of room in our over-sized kitchen!
The last photo shows the thermometer (from Tom's True-temp) in his loaf. He always bakes by temperature-doneness, rather than time. Of course, he always ends up with a perfectly finished product...

try that again...

I don't think the video-feed worked. here's my next attempt....

Tom's gig last night

OK, I'm never sure if the movie-thing is gonna work when I try uploading the film onto Blogger. But here goes.
This is about a 45-second clip from Tom's gig last night. He plays a fair amount with a group called Buckskin Stallion (yes, the logo is BS). I thought the gig was fun because, among other things, there were probably about 200 people packed into the bar. The band members, from left to right: John Macy is on pedal steel, Dave Shapiro is the lead guitar/backup vocalist, Troy Schonfelder is the front-man, and Harry Olson is on bass. (Of course, Tom's in the back....)
Since this clip is the last 15 seconds of the song, of course it's pretty repetitive. That's OK.