Mount Sanitas

Last Saturday, Nikki and I went hiking with Tyson, Sean and Tasha.  We were in Boulder, CO again, but this time we hiked the Mount Sanitas trail.  It was a tiring day because Sean, Tyson and I had hockey lessons earlier that morning and were playing hockey later that evening.  So we ended up coming back down before reaching the top.  But we made it pretty far, nonetheless.  It was a gorgeous day; hardly a cloud in the sky and the temperature was great.

[More pictures from the hike on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/mparrish/sets/72157604640449894/)

Royal Arch - Chautauqua Park

We recently went hiking at Chautauqua Park in Boulder.  The park is beautiful and offers a lot of hiking trails.  We decided to hike to Royal Arch, which is a cool rock formation shaped like... wait for it... an arch!  The trail was about a mile long.  The weather was great, the sun was shining and the air was crisp.





The higher we climbed, the cooler it got, and with just a little bit more to go before we got to the arch we encountered some icy trails.  This definitely made our hike just a little more interesting.  I was pretty much on my hands and knees crawling up the trail.  Going down was a lot of fun.  We squatted and used our shoes like skis and just slid down the trail.

We ended up hiking for about three hours - we were so tired!  With all those calories burned we figured we had earned ourselves a big dinner.  We stuffed ourselves with pizza and chocolate mousse from Pizza Colore in Boulder - so, sooo yummy!  Tyson has a grand plan of us all hiking a different place each weekend this summer - we'll see how that goes! :)

For more Chautauqua Park pictures click here.

Lights Out

On Saturday, March 29th we participated in Earth Hour, an event started in Sydney, Australia in 2007.  The idea for Earth Hour comes from a desire to spread awareness about global warming, specifically the effects of coal-fired electricity.  For one hour, residents and businesses across Sydney turned off their lights resulting in a 10.2% decrease in energy usage in the city.  Not only was it a unique experiment, but it had an impact, and the idea spread across the world.  This year 24 cities participated in Earth Hour.




Several friends gathered at our place and from 8pm-9pm we turned off our lights.  We lit candles, ate brownies and played board games.  It was so easy and fun.  One hour a year is such a small amount of time to commit to, we hope to celebrate Earth Hour many times throughout the year.

The Big Three-Oh

On March 20th, my handsome hubby turned 30!  To celebrate this momentous occasion we went to dinner with a group of friends.  We went to a restaurant called Casa Bonita.









Casa Bonita is one of the most interesting restaurants we have ever been to.  While we didn't know exactly what to expect going into the evening, we had heard that the experience of eating there far surpassed the experience of eating their food.  Casa Bonita lived up to its expectations.




Throughout the evening we were entertained by flame jugglers, a dancing gorilla and entertainers cliff diving.  Light sabers were brought to our table for purchase, while we stuffed ourselves with an endless supply of sopapillas.  After dinner we wandered through Black Bart's cave and took a pony and donkey ride(on kiddie rides, not real ones!).




All in all, it was a great night.  We were all hurting a bit the next day from the food, but it was well worth it!




Check out more pictures from Matt's birthday here.