This weekend the weather was great here in Colorado, so Britton and I decided to take a bike ride from our house down the Poudre River Trail for a while. At one point we stopped as there were lots of cows crossing the river. They are so cute. If cows were smaller, we would so get one! 🙂
Moo-ve over the river
My friend Kelly and I were talking one day about a bike ride dinner that Britton and I had done a few years ago with our friends Melissa and Alan. It was a progressive dinner where at each stop there was a different course of the meal, then you would bike to the next one. She loved the idea and said we should do our own which I completely agreed! So we set about putting it together.
With a progressive dinner you can have between 3-7 stops. For the most basic three stops there would be Appetizers, Main Course, and Dessert. We had four stops so we also had a salad course. To add more stops, you could do Drinks, Appetizers, Salad, Soup, Main Entree, Dessert, Coffee/Chocolate/Cheese. Each stop is meant to be a “tapas” size stop except the main course which should be fairly filling.
Frozen chocolate banana appetizer
Our house was the first stop at 4pm where we served appetizers and drinks. We had frozen half bananas with hazelnut chocolate and slivered almonds, deviled eggs from our chickens and some chips and nuts. We also served kombucha tea from Celestial Seasonings because we thought our guests would get a kick out of it as we did. Everyone arrived and enjoyed this snack and then we saddled up on our bikes. I think there 11 or 12 of us who ranged in age from 12-50 years old!
Leaving to our next stop
Then we rode about 3 miles to our friends Matt and Jamie’s house where they served the salad course which was a nice pasta salad with veggies from their garden and a homemade tuna salad. They just got a couple chickens in their huge backyard so it was fun to check out their set up as well.
Next was probably both the most fun and also the hardest leg of the bike trip to Kelly’s house about 5.5 miles away. There was a lot of up and down hills and one very fast downhill part. At Kelly’s we had the main course of homemade pulled pork sandwiches and drinks and played with her adorable new puppy.
The whole group with all our bikes
Finally we rode to Gina’s house (about 4 miles) for a dessert of fruit and brownie kabobs which were excellent! Afterward, Matt and Jamie rode (treacherously uphill) back to our house under the full moon where we hung out and listened to music and sat outside for a while. It was a great day and a nice way to take all of our minds off of the usual. We all agreed that we should do this more often. It was sort of like having four parties in one with a quarter of the work of one large house party. Plus we had people ride along just for the fun of it without having to be a stop. It was great night plus awesome exercise. I am definitely feeling it in my quads!
This weekend has been very busy. Even busier than my three-day birthday weekend! On Friday night we had a visitor come to our house. My friend Ofelia told me about this man she met in Juarez, Mexico who is a curandero, or traditional folk healer and also a sobador – a type of healer who uses touch to heal -sort of like a masseuse. Anyway, she said he was coming to Colorado to do some sobaduras to various people and she had told him about me and how Britton and I would at some point like to have a child but were not, as of yet, able to. So he wanted to see us. So Friday night he visited with us and my mom as well and talked with us quite a bit in Spanish which I mostly understood correctly. A lot of his advice was spiritual in nature, but some of it was pretty down to Earth as well.
Then he basically gave each of us a chiropractic session popping my back and twisting my arms and legs. It was kind of awkward but also pretty interesting. I didn’t feel any differently after, just as I didn’t really feel any differently after 4 months of acupuncture, but what the heck! Worth a shot and he only took donations so…we thought it would be an experience. Which it was, if nothing else.
Later that evening we went over to a party for a little while. Saturday morning Britton went about building a fence gate for his parents at their house. After he was done with all that work for the day, we decided to go swimming at Centennial Pool which was so nice and refreshing since it was about 100 degrees and super sunny out.
With friends at the Moonlight Bike Ride
Saturday evening, though, we went to the 2011 Greeley Moonlight Bike Ride. We went last year and knew it was a blast, so we encouraged some of our friends and family to come out as well. My mom and her companion Anthony came as well as our friends Matt and Jamie and daughter. It was a long ride with a lot of uphill pedaling so we were pooped out by the end. Still, we ended up winning a gift certificate to the Texas Roadhouse and had free sandwiches at the end of the event. It was fun even if it was about a 13-14 mile ride!
Today Britton finished up the fence gate, we went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse, and then just hung out at home. We watched a movie, went grocery shopping and cleaned the house a little. It was a fun and very busy summer weekend! Now, back to work!! 😛
Summertime in Colorado is the best. It is warm, everyone is outside enjoying the weather, and the days are much longer. There are bbq’s and get togethers, concerts, bike riding, gardening. Everything is green and flowering. The chickens are laying lots of eggs. Everything is alive! It reminds me a lot of how Puerto Rico is every day.
We eat lots of fresh food like strawberries and lettuce from the garden
We go to concerts: Britton in downtown Greeley at the Blues Jam
Cassie outside the gates to Greeley
We ride our bikes everywhere
Chickens give us lots of food: Henrietta on an egg
Hooray for summer!