Thank you for the sweet comments for my birthday girl on yesterday’s post! We celebrated well and will continue to for the next two days. Lucky girl! This week has been pretty hectic between getting home from Colorado, jumping right back into school, and celebrating Hailey turning 5. I think I’ll be spreading the Colorado recap out into three separate posts because our trip was quite unique in that each area of Colorado we explored was special in its own way. Today, I just wanted to touch on the first 24 hours of our trip out West- Boulder!

Before I can really jump into any trip details though, I really need to express my gratitude to David’s mom and dad who took care of the girls for SIX DAYS while we were gone. 6 days with a toddler and a preschooler is no joke, but they didn’t just keep them fed, they created a full on Camp Mema and Grandpa. The girls spent that time away from us swimming, kayaking, petting horses, feeding ducks and having an incredible time. There is no way to adequately express how thankful I am to have family that is so loving and wants to be involved in our girls’ lives. I’m truly, truly grateful. 

So this Colorado trip… it really came about because David had to travel for work to Boulder. Colorado is pretty much our favorite state so immediately I started throwing out joking comments of how he was off to explore the wild west without me. Knowing that work travel is quite different from pleasure travel, I really never thought much about it, but a few weeks later David came to me saying “well, you know you’re birthday is around then so maybe you should come out and join me?” What started as a joke suddenly got super real and before I knew it I was booking my flight and figuring out a game plan to bounce around the beautiful state of Colorado!

I took the girls to Mema and Grandpa’s house Thursday, then Friday morning I drove to the airport, loaded the plane and flew out to Denver. David was still working, so I made my way to pick up our Silvercar, then drove the 45 minutes north west to Boulder to take myself out to lunch.

Despite my affection for Boulder, I don’t actually know much about it. Lucky for me, I have you guys, and reader Christina suggested I check out Dushanbe Tea House in Central Park right alongside Boulder Creek. Once I found a garage to park in, that is just wear I headed.

My phone was almost dead at this point, so I asked the waitress to plug it in for me while I rediscovered the joy of a solo lunch. Without a phone to distract me, I soaked in the sunshine and overheard conversations from neighboring tables while I sipped a white tea spritzer and devoured a plate of Thai peanut noodles. I couldn’t quite remember when I last had a solo meal out and it was rejuvenating.

I left lunch with a message from David saying to head that way, so I hopped back in the car and drove 10 minutes outside of town to Renaissance Flatiron to meet him. We changed and got ready for a night out on the town with some of his colleagues.

// // booties sold out- //

Our first stop was outside of town at Avery Brewery Company.

This brewery is an awesome spot with a full restaurant and tap room that serves over 30 craft beers. We wandered through the brewery then settled in at the bar for apps and drinks.

The cool mountain air solidified my fall craving and I ordered the Pump(KY)n not realizing it was 18.8%! Holy moly. It was delicious, but as you can imagine, quite stout.

From there, we took off to downtown Boulder, where I was thrilled to get to try the highly recommended restaurant, The Med. Our large party was seated outdoors, which would have been quite chilly except that had heaters on the ceilings and blankets available at request, which was perfect.

I love dining with big groups of adventurous eaters because we were able to order and split several small plates.

From bacon wrapped dates to caprese salad with burrata cheese to the above fried potato and olive plate, everything was as described- simply delicious! I was on cloud nine as we went on a culinary adventure, weaving our way through the menu.

After several hours enjoying The Med we all headed back to the hotel, which suited me well, as the time difference had just started to hit me.

Beginning the next morning, David and I were on our own. Our first stop was back downtown to try Snooze, a popular breakfast spot.

We arrived just before the crowd descended and snagged a sweet spot on the patio.

David ordered a breakfast burrito the size of his head. It came “Christmas style” with half green chili sauce and half ranchero. It was fabulous, as was my roasted vegetable frittata.

The excitement for our trip really started setting in here, as it was a cool 60-something degrees out, which felt incredibly refreshing coming from our North Carolina high 80’s. I cradled my hot tea as we planned out our next few days of adventure.

After breakfast we drove up a little to get a nice vista of the city of Boulder before we said good-bye to head to our first adventure- my first white water rafting experience!

More to come…

If you could take a five day trip somewhere right this minute- where would you go?