I like Colorado.

Here are some reasons why:



Cash incentives (and ego boosts).



Birthday brunches, complete with Sarah blowing out the candle on the traditional birthday pancake (and then devouring the traditional birthday breakfast burrito).



Walks in the sunshine with mini-me.



Spectating in the shade with the puppy.



Being the best babysitter of all time (I messaged this picture to Sarah while they were out to dinner).



Dress-ups.



Roastin' peeps.

Some honorable mentions (not pictured): going running at Red Rocks and not suffering a pulmonary embolism, a James McAvoy appreciation session with a good friend, dear sweet cousins forgiving me for not visiting (right?), and the long-awaited return of Sherlock. It was a fantastic weekend! And really, anytime you can say, "I feel outstanding about everything I've eaten today," you've pretty much won at life.

A visit from Twinsie.

Last week Christy (whose birthday is today!) came to town for a visit.  I was already excited for her to come, but I'd had a sort of rough few days leading up to her visit so it was especially nice to get to see her and do some fun things.  Christy is one of the nicest, happiest people I know and is generally a delight to be around.  We've been friends since we were probably 7 or 8 years old and have shared many things over the years, including a love of Lipsmackers sparkly chapstick and The Simpsons, driving lessons in the church parking lot, and sandwich bags full of Marshmallow Mateys during early-morning seminary.  The day before coming to NYC, Christy ran the Boston Marathon in record-breaking heat and lived to tell the tale.  She is a champ.

During the week, Christy explored the city on her own while I was at work and then we spent the evenings eating delicious food, reminiscing, and somehow never taking a picture of us together.  On Saturday we went for a run (which was a liiiiittle tough on both of us) and then hit the ticket lottery for Newsies on Broadway.  It's a pretty popular show right now so I knew our chances weren't great, but Christy's name got called for the last pair of tickets!  We visited the Waffle Truck in celebration.

The waffles are so delicious, you guys, I can't even talk about it. 

The show was awesome. So fun, and it made me want to watch the movie again. Basically the entire cast was wearing vests and leaping and punching the air. There was so much air-punching! It was awesome. The dancing was fantastic and there were at least four former So You Think You Can Dance boys in the show.

So that was fun. Come visit me and we will eat many delicious things and see fun shows and I will only maybe make you go running. Deal?

Spring fever.

March has been good to me thus far, and it just seems to be getting better. I don't get what Caesar was whining about, you know?

Like many places, we had a sudden burst of Spring weather a week or two ago. In New York City, this means that a population accustomed to surliness and the wearing of black is now dressing in bright colors and wandering the streets on balmy evenings acting like everyone just got out of jail.

I ran my fourth half marathon yesterday, and managed to barely hit a new PR (although I was a mere 4 SECONDS away from my goal--I laughed out loud when I saw my time). With how spastic my training, eating, and sleeping habits have been lately, I'll take it. I felt good and I got to see my friend Zach who was running his first (and totally killed it), so it was fun. Also, one nice thing about this city is that you can wear a space blanket cape on the subway and even if people didn't know there was a race, you definitely aren't the weirdest thing they've seen that day, so it's fine.

This is happening. Also happening this week? Company coming to visit, seeing The Black Keys at Madison Square Garden, Hunger Games coming out, and the long-awaited return of Mad Men. And I still have my space blanket cape, so I'm pretty much set for awesomeness.

Live from New York.

A few weeks ago, Karrie and I got to go see Saturday Night Live. Tickets to the show are hard to come by--you either get picked from a lottery (nearly impossible) or sleep out overnight for standby tickets, which don't even guarantee entry to the tapings. Being the hardcore fan she is, Karrie had tried the latter method a couple of times without success. Thankfully, one of my lovely clients was nice enough to get us in to the dress rehearsal, which they run through start-to-finish a few hours before the live show.


After messaging each other pictures of outfit possibilities back and forth, we met up outside 30 Rock and were led upstairs to wait in the hall with a bunch of other ticket holders. Soon, one of the NBC pages came through, pointed at us and a few others, and told us to follow him. We rounded a corner and the page leaned in conspiratorially: "I didn't want to tell you in front of everyone else, but you guys will be sitting on the floor." Obviously our outfit vetting had paid off and we impressed the producers with our stylishness. We were excited and I figured Karrie would probably have a heart attack. Then we passed through a back hallway and Seth Meyers walked right by me and I thought I would probably have a heart attack.


We ended up sitting on the center aisle, about 5 feet from the stage, so that most of the cast passed next to us going to and from the stage. I'm not even a regular viewer of the show, but it was really fun seeing how it all works behind the camera (the studio is relatively tiny and they just build up and break down sets in random corners in a matter of minutes). Zooey Deschanel was hosting, and there were guest appearances from Jean Dujardin and Nicolas Cage which were awesome. Also, Fred Armisen smiled at me which I'm pretty sure means we're BFFs.

After the show we stopped in at a Valentine's party some friends were throwing. We hadn't been there long when some neighbors from an apartment below came to ask us to keep it down. It was 11:30pm on a Saturday night in a New York City apartment. Sorry guys, I can be as curmudgeonly as the next person about noisy neighbors, but even I wouldn't be mad about that. Still, the music was turned off and some people started slowly trickling out. Then, around midnight, a few police officers showed up to tell everyone to leave. I hope the cops had a good laugh after the big group of Mormon kids were gone, leaving behind plates of sugar cookies and empty soda bottles, and they realized they'd just broken up the equivalent of an elementary school birthday party.

No matter! We took the after-party back to Karrie's where we baked (more) cookies, watched the live SNL show, and stayed up way too late. Not a bad way to end a night.

Fried stuff and milkshakes.

Based on my posting frequency of late, I've decided that from now on I might as well just blog once every four years. So happy Leap Day, everyone!

A couple weekends ago I booked a somewhat last-minute flight to visit Allison and her family in North Carolina. I had Monday off for President's Day and I'd been feeling like I wanted to get out of town. The winter blues always hit around this time of year, so I texted Allison, "What are you up to next weekend?" She enthusiastically agreed to let me come crash their party.

Once I arrived, Allison kept apologizing that she didn't have any fun activities planned. I pointed out that a) I had invited myself to come visit last minute, and b) I don't come to sight-see. I come to hang out with blonde babies and relax. And to eat at Cookout and Bojangles. Mission accomplished! I was especially excited to see Annabelle since since it had been 9 months since I'd last seen her and she's changed so much. Plus, she is just really cute, am I right?

Emaline continues to be awesome and is now super into cats, which I find hilarious. Above is a PSA she created that now hangs on their refrigerator. It's a warning we would all do well to heed. The girls both have headbands with cat ears on them that they wear all day, every day, and anytime Em draws anything it involves cats. (We had a contest to see who could draw the scariest animal and her giant cat that shot sharks out of a laser gun totally destroyed my bear.)

Allison still looks skinnier than me even though she's pregnant. She is a jerk.

A couple days before I arrived, I got a text from Allison that said, "We will have chocolate delight for our second course of Downton Abbey finale. First course is, of course, popcorn." One thing I like about my family is that they have really good ideas.

They are also good at making weird faces.

We had a great time playing outside in the sunshine, reading books, eating lots (and doing a 20-minute workout video!), playing Blokus, and checking out cute neighborhoods for their future house. I also bought two boxes of churro cereal at Wal-Mart to take back with me. And then on the way home, my topknot got a patdown by the TSA! All in all, a successful weekend.

Manhattanniversary.

Yesterday was my four-year mark in New York City. Aside from my hometown, this is the longest I've lived anywhere. (Technically, I lived in Utah for 5 years during college, but between summers home, an internship, and study abroad, it was actually under 4 years cumulatively.) It's strange to think that so much time has passed when it many ways these years have seemed to go by faster than any other period in my life.

I have waxed poetic about New York many times in the past and likely will again in the future, so I'll spare you that now. But I will say that I have grown to love this city that has become my second home. I remember during my first weeks here, leaving my apartment in the mornings and just feeling like everything was right. I didn't really have any friends and I was making $12 an hour at my job, but I knew I was in the right place.

Something about this year (unrelated to Mayan shenanigans) feels like a year of change. I don't don't really have any idea what that change is, but I'm excited for more adventures to come.

2011: An obligatory photo retrospective.

(Mostly because I can't let all of December go by without a post.)

The highlights:





Moved to Harlem. Welcomed Jess into the family. Said farewell to Harry. Climbed a mountain. Ran a marathon.

I also met a heartthrob and survived a hurricane.

There were some ups and some downs, but overall 2011 was not too shabby. Bring it, 2012.