Our awesome friend Brad dropped us off at the St. Louis airport Friday morning and off we went as scheduled to Denver. Upon arriving excitement was rising knowing that all sorts of fun awaited us. We grabbed our luggage, was taken to our rental vehicle, and immediately went to go see our spectacular hotel room with a breathtaking view of the city.

Shortly after making ourselves comfortable we hopped back in the car and drove to Vesta Dipping Grill for one of the most unique meals we’ve ever had. The selections of dips were mind boggling so I just stuck to the chefs recommendations for each item. I think they did a great job of pairing the dips to the meats and cheeses.

Saturday morning we awoke bright an early to drive out to Boulder and take a two hour ATV tour up Colorado’s beautiful rockies. We both had a blast the the entire time and are now considering getting four wheelers ourselves or possibly some dune buggies!

On our way back we stopped off at Buffalo Bill’s grave and museum and saw many unusual pictures and antiques. We took all sorts of pictures and then proceeded back to Denver for our upcome lunch affair at The Cherry Cricket. Unfortunately an art fair was going on (with some jaw dropping pieces that I wanted) and The Cherry Cricket was too packed to get a bite for a significant period of time. We ended up eating at an Italian restaurant down the street and then returned to the hotel for a quick nap.

As soon as I awoke we got ready and went to eat at Beau Joes for the best pizza we’ve ever eaten! The odd thing about it (as if there was just one) was that they gave you honey to drizzle on the crust…honey…really?! We tried it and were shocked how perfectly that honey went with the dough.

I had a glass of wine to unwind from all the day’s activities. It did not go well with the pizza but I got a great buzz.

Shortly after that we headed back to our hotel wanting to get some rest before all of Sunday’s activities.

To be continued…

Every time he wanted to switch lanes he had to turn his head and rip my earbud out causing me to get quite irritated. After the 5 time or so I decided to get back at him and every time he ripped my earbud out I ripped his out right back. Hey he was being a butt munch and doing it like every 5 minutes! It became a little back and forth thing throughout most of the trip till the Sansa ran out of power and died.

We arrived at our hotel pretty early and discovered that the whole place was under construction and a bit noisy too. Reluctantly we checked in and by signing up for some e-mail program received 2 complimentary breakfast passes. We plopped on the comfy bed and debated where we should go for dinner. I browsed through our “100 Uniques Eats and Eateries in Missouri” book and finally settled on a little place called “Fritz’s Burgers”. It’s where your meal gets delivered to you by a train on the ceiling and lowers your meal to your table.

We get there and are promptly seated and told to place our order through the corded phone at our table. I could help but to snap and few shots of this unique place with bad food, yes you read right BAD FOOD. The food was a huge disappointment but the experience made it worth it. Shortly after we headed out to see “STOMP” and got very lost and ended up in the state of Kansas!

Despite out tardiness we were just in time for the show to begin and took our seats. I loved the performance and found it worth all the hassle and drive. Happily we drove back to the hotel where we watched a “Fringe” episode before turning in.

The following morning we came our of our room to enjoy a mediocre soggy breakfast and headed out to see The national World War I museum. It was huge and took us many hours to look through till finally I was so starved that we had to leave long before finishing. At nearly 3 pm we finally had lunch at a beautifully decorated Sushi restaurant. I loved my sushi and Chad seems to really enjoy his too. This all took place back at the Crown Center (a type of mall).

Afterwards we wondered around a bit seeing little girls dressed up as their favorite princess. Apparently a princess event was going on, it really was sooo cute seeing all the little girls with tiaras and sparkly dresses running around. We went to several stories of this place till eventually we came upon a chocolate shop that Chad could not resist and went in to try some truffles and turtles.

Not long after we grabbed some ice cream to go and headed back to O’Fallon making one stop to see a huge truck stop with it’s own Barber shop, theater, arcade, bookstore, restaurant, laundromat, and more. That concluded our trip of fun to Kansas City.

So this doesn’t count! See, when we describe having a “fun” year, we’re not talking about just good times. Rather, the mind wanders into a trance-like state as we contemplate all the unusual things life has to offer. So far, we’ve placed on our list:

Zorbing  (Scheduled in May)

Zip Lining (Scheduled in May)

Chicago (Scheduled in 2 weeks)

Kansas City (Scheduled in 3 weeks)

Flying a plane (Pending an agreement from Christy)

Ok, I have to admit. Zorbing sounds goofy doesn’t it? I mean, who sits around and fantasizes about what it’s like to be a hamster? I DO! That’s who! One of my biggest fears in life is to find myself on my deathbed lamenting the fact that I never got to experience being thrown down a hill at 30 mph in a giant, bouncy, hamster ball. No regrets remember? Thus we must zorb, if only in the name of having no regrets.

Zip lining also falls in the “exciting” category. Where else can you feel as if you’re smack in the middle of some action movie as you fly 100 feet in the air as you just miss crashing into the tree-tops? Sounds like fun to me!

In Chicago, we’re finally going to make good on a promise from 2006. To see the Blue Man Group Theater. Of course there’s plenty of other things to see such as teh Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry (Which happens to have the fully preserved Mastodon on display – Call it the nerd in me, but I cannot resist going to see an ice age creature that still has its skin in tact! Ever curious). Of course I’m sure we’ll stop by to see some of our old favorites such as Lou Malnati’s and maybe even go see the Miracle Mile. (Some of the most famouse shopping in the country here)

Kansas City made our list because Christy has been wanting to go see STOMP Live. I’m expecting a performance somewhat similar to that of the Blue Man Group, but I’m sure it’ll be a barrel of m…. Fun… Most concerts I’ve gone to see in the past were disappointing to be honest. But anytime you have something this unusual, if anything you walk away appreciating the creativity, talent, and hard work that went into the show. I’m sure it’ll be great. I expect that we’ll visit some great restaurants and other sites in the area while we’re in Kansas City.

Flying a plane has been on my radar for years. No, not some wimpy old plane ride. Anyone can do that! I want something a bit more tactile and engaging! Check this out:  http://www.fightercombat.com/

Doesn’t that look great? You get to take control of the plane after the instructor gets you into the air. I wouldn’t be so headstrong about doing this if that’s where it ended though. To spice up the flight a bit, there’s yet another plane circling, waiting pounce on you at any moment.  That’s right, a fighter pilot experience! Even if the idea of flying a plane doesn’t appeal to everyone, how fun would it be to learn how to do barrel rolls, dodge laser shots, and “shoot down” the opposing plane of death? (It’s not officially deemed such, but I think it just makes the experience sound that much cooler if we call it the plane of death. Humor me ok?)

Of course all of this is done with sophisticated lasers and targeting equipment, but to make the experience more authentic, the plane that gets shot down vents smoke, rolls over onto its side, and makes a free fall for a thousand feet or so – Just long enough for you to mentally celebrate your victory before it comes back around to try and exact its deathly revenge. (Please, let me have my fun?)

My take on this is that life is short, you work your butt off, why not try completely new, and off the wall experiences? Sometimes things feel lie the same old thing right? It’s nice to try things you’ve never quite imagined yourself doing. Seeing as how my current profession doesn’t exactly find me behind the cockpit of a fighter plane engaging in white knuckle duels 15,000 feet in the air, I think it’s high time I give it a taste don’t ya think?

It’s either that, or Christy just may find herself putting up with me sitting in the lazy chair with my fingers spread wide to simulate an airplane as I make “zooming” sounds to simulate air battle. Seeing as how I doubt she’d like to try her hand at explaining THAT one to friends (Hey, what’s Chad doing, and why is his imaginary airplane shooting at my face?), I think I just might get my way with this one.

So let the “year of fun” begin! I figured a corny blog post would herald its beginning as we prepare for our Chicago trip in 2 weeks. Can’t wait!

Our guest arrived just in time, I had finished putting down fresh linens on the guest bed, straightened up a bit, baked a gooey butter cake, got the wine chilled, and prepared dinner for 4.

Matt and Caitlin arrived all packed and ready to go along with a case of beer, a couple more bottles of wine, freshly baked cookies, and Matt’s favorite movie. We cracked open a couple of the beers and a bottle of wine to start the evening and shortly after started on dinner, and dessert.

At that point I invited Caitlin up to change into some jammies (I showed her my much loved penguin pants and was disappointed to learn that she was more into plain sweats and no novelties). I guess Caitlin just doesn’t know the fun of wearing weird prints to bed, some people just don’t get it ::sighs::, I’m not one though ::wink wink::

We started girl talking for a while, at which time the boys were playing a shoot em up game called “Battlefield”. It was fun doing jammie talk again. Soon after we both decided that we wanted more wine and to start the movie. Chad then came in and asked if he could use the black blanket at the foot of the bed to use while he watched the movie. I had no problem with that so Chad snatched it up and wrapped it around himself and over his head like he usually does looking like a nun or a monk. I grabbed Caitlin and myself blankets as well and proceeded downstairs to fire up the movie. I turned to Matt after comfortably being wrapped up in my warm blanket and meant to ask him if he wanted a blanket but instead of blanket I said “cloak”. Yep no one let that go unnoticed. I had the word “cloak on my mind since seeing chad all wrapped up in what looked to me like a cloak. Me and my weird brain huh…lol

The humor of the movie wasn’t quite our style but Matt and Caitlin thought we just didn’t get it, it was the sort of obvious and shocking humor that just doesn’t do it for Chad or me. When one of the actors was calling “Rain Man” a retard, I jumped in to defend him announcing that Rain Man just had a special condition. Caitlin couldn’t stop laughing over that and Chad just thought it was funny that Caitlin found it so humorous.

Chad and I not quite being the night owls that Matt and Caitlin are fell fast asleep halfway through the movie BUT awoke at the end to call it a night. Matt and Caitlin got to enjoy hearing Chad’s beautiful sleeping serenade for the first time that I’m aware of. Ahh my sweet noisy Chad! Both Chad and I knew the real fun would begin the following morning!

No surprise to find out that Chad was the first one up in the morning, followed by me at 7 am, and Caitlin at 7:30. Matt apparently didn’t want to budge till 9:30, meanwhile I showed Caitlin our cool big ol’ brain book. I wasn’t sure that she’d find it to her liking but quickly learned that she does enjoying learning and reading non-fictional books. We went through a good deal of that book before it was pounce on the Matt and wake him up time. Wow did he ever get ready quick, the benefits of being a man I guess.

He came down and chatted for a while before we left at which time Caitlin showed him the brain book asking if he could see the duck/rabbit image and the young lady/old lady image. He had no prob with the duck/rabbit but he wasn’t quite seeing the old lady right away so I tried to help point it out but didn’t succeed at first. When Matt wasn’t seeing or agreeing with seeing what we were seeing Caitlin loudly burst out “DO YOU WANT THE BOOK OR NOT!”. Matt’s eyes widened with confusion and humor at the randomness of the question and not knowing that Caitlin had been considering getting a copy for them at their house. Matt was mentally left in the dark, and the confusion of it all was quite funny.

We set the book down and dashed out to fill our hungry tummies with more tasty foods. The drive was short and we were there before we knew it. Upon walking in I noticed that the buffet tables had been removed which meant no more all you can eat… Not cool at all! Portions where skimpy and prices too high but the food was still good and Caitlin and I ordered mimosa’s with breakfast while Mr. Matt ordered a Poinsetta which was also a yum!

We where told while eating that we could take our recipes that day to their store down the street and receive 10% off a wine purchase. Caitlin seemed to get pretty excited about that prospect and wanted to go there right after our meal. I figured it being such a beautiful day and all that we should walk for a while and visit the cute little quaint shops down the strip.

The first stop was basically a nick nack and junk store and pretty hilarious how the owner was so into his merchandise. I loved how he told the guys in the back that he had stuff for them too, military, police, and betty boop figurines…betty boop for guys? wrong genre for men as far as I’m concerned…but hey I could be wrong right?

A stop at Picasso’s hit the spot for me, the great coffee was well worth the wait and we took more pictures in the crowded little coffee shop just for our blogs. Didn’t quite get a smile out of Chad but I was close!

We walked along the riverside for a short time enjoying the view and the nice breeze stopping to read up on the history of the Katy Trail we were on till it got too chilly and we walked back to the strip. A few more stops at some decor and spice stores pretty much sums it up. Me showing Matt norky things I tried to jokingly convince him to buy and a few pretty or fun objects as well. The Flower Petaler was one of Caitlin and my favorite stops and we finally convinced the guys to take one last photo with us strictly for our blogs so here it is:

To finish up our outing we went to Little Hills Winery shop tasted some wines and both purchase the yummy ChocoVine wine and headed out to see one last spice shop and grab a bite to eat at Talayna’s Italian Pizzeria. Moderately good food, scalding hot pizzas (painfully so…I have first hand experience), and slow service. Altogether we had a great time and more memories to blog about, it was awesome seeing Matt and Caitlin in the daytime and we look forward to a repeat event sometime in the near future. You know you want to Schulte/Voght!!!

Take a look at the changes…

Our bedroom is coming together quite nicely with the nutty beige walls and coffard ceiling and our new comforter set that pulls it all together. Now I’m just iching to finish the master bathroom and livingroom. For the livingroom we hired the same painter to come in and do the whole thing over, I mean everything from ceiling, to walls, to baseboards! We even went as far as to hire a company to custom make contemporary drapery for us! Those won’t come in for another 6 weeks but I’m beyond excited for it to happen!

Bedroom went from lavender to nutty beige

So many changes taking place and I can’t help but smile at all the wonderful progress being made in our lives. Business is going well, house is looking better and better every week, enjoying great friends, and fun times, oh and let’s not forget great food! Whelp that sums up January and February… till next time!

But I’m not here to wax philosophical. I’m here to talk about the holidays of 2009. Funny how the idea of hosting a Christmas party popped up out of nowhere while driving in the car: “Hey, we should have a Christmas Party this year and invite our closest friends.” Christy said “ok” and my part of the planning was done.  Haha. Gotta love it…

I have to admit she did a great job making everything look festive. When Friday rolled around (The 18th) I found it difficult to get much work done, so I didn’t really try after about noon. Instead I helped clean up and put the decorations up.

Hanging the garland that framed the entrance to the dining room was particularly interesting since halfway through,  we found that this thing was at least 500 feet long, and we could wrap it around the house a few times if we wanted.

But creative ingenuity won the day and I promptly took the remaining 485 feet and wadded it into a large Christmasy ball and tossed it behind the cat litter box so no one knew the difference.  Ahhhh… Tiss the season to be deceptive…

Unfortunately at the last minute a few friends we were hoping could make it had to call and cancel, so to be honest, I was expecting the worst since it had begun to snow, and many were driving quite a ways. But around 30 – 45 minutes before people started showing up I walked down the stairs to see how beautiful everything looked with the dining room table softly lit and packed full of snacks, drinks, candy and even party poppers for the guests.

It was perfect. Even if every last guest cancelled, we could still enjoy the evening with a table full of holiday cheer. Around 6:00 – 6:15 guests began to trickle in. Brad, Amber, Bob, Matt, Dad, Janice and her son, Rob and Sherri, Matt and Caitlin, a few others.

It was starting to look like a lot of fun, but I had to cut out early and run upstairs to host a Pre-Training phone call for around 30 – 40 small business owners since I had stupidly scheduled this call a week ago. Bob and Rob followed me upstairs to listen in.

It turned out to be a great call, and Rob absolutely loved the information. After this call was over with a headed back downstairs to begin grilling hotdogs and burgers. It was cold and snowy outside, but who cares right? When people are hungry, people are hungry! I’ll admit to feeling a bit cave-manish running outside every 2 minutes in the snow to manipulate dead animal on the grill… But Rob, Matt, Bob and the other Matt came outside to help so that helped.

The food was good, the party poppers were fun, and we played plenty of Pictionary Man for hours after most people left. Bob, Matt, Caitlin and the other Matt stuck around for more games. At this point Caitlin was out like a lightbulb though. But we still had plenty of great chats, and everyone had a great time.

Bob and Matt stayed the night since it was around 1:30 a.m. at this point. Overall a great evening and yet another holiday memory. Things get stressful in a hurry these days, so you can never have too many pleasant memories to bring with you.

I wore myself out that morning trying to get everything done before 5 pm. When I say worn out I mean aching back, legs, and especially the feet! I had woken up early to get started on all the sweeping, scrubbing, decorating, vacuuming, and setting up Christmas lights. By the time it was 5 o’ clock every little detail was perfect in my mind and I was done being stressed knowing that I did my best. I put my whole heart into it and wrapped each guest’s present myself with a loving touch and placed them under the tree.

As people started showing up the snowing began, it had me a little worried but apparently that worry was for nothing because everyone showed up and we had a blast. Since Chad accidentally scheduled his webinar on the night of our party Bob and Rob went upstairs to listen in. Those nerds loved it and went on and on about it. That cracked me up.

I busted out the Pictionary Man to keep everyone occupied while Chad was hosting his webinar. It was a real hit, lots of laughs and giggles could be heard from anywhere in the house. I’m sure it was heard from where Chad was at but that really couldn’t be helped with that many people.

Shortly after Chad’s webinar ended our last guests Matt and Caitlin showed up. We then fired up the outside grill for hotdogs and burgers. Chad was a real help taking food orders from everyone and taking care of most of the main coarse. Everyone seemed to enjoy all the food and appetizers.

As everyone was enjoying their food I realized I just couldn’t wait any longer! I then rudely interrupted our guests and had them pick a party popper. I took pictures of each person as they were pulling and tugging to preserve as many special moments as I could. Decks of cards, magnifying glasses, yo yo’s, and mirrors were in each of the poppers. Some of the guests (the males) happened to get the compact mirrors and happily exchanged them with the females lol. Chad got 3 compact mirrors in a row which had me laughing uncontrollably.

I let everyone finish up with their food before busting out the big surprise with Chad, the “Naughty Bag”. Everyone was all laughs as Chad brought in a big red bag stuffed with all their presents and on it in big letters said “smile if you’ve been naughty”. Everyone with phones or cameras asked me to hold it up while they got a picture of me smiling with it.

I handed out each of the gifts while Amber took pictures of everyone’s smiling face. Before the night was over many guests asked to see the infamous Tuke and/or Puff before leaving. Sometimes I feel real lucky to have such a manimal in my life, emphasize on “sometimes”! The last ones to leave were Matt and Caitlin, real night owls if you ask me lol. Bob and Matt stayed over for some serious fun the follow morning. And that concludes our Christmas Party for 2009 one of my most special memories for the year.

Dad and Roy came over a little after noon on Christmas Eve with a few unwrapped presents (good thing we have an abundance of Christmas wrapping lol). So of coarse they asked if they could wrap the presents here, I led them to the blue room with all the trimmings one could wish for to wrap anything and some festive steaming hot cocoas.

Once they were finished the real fun began. Chad went first, opening his present from Roy which turned out to be the newest and fastest firing Nerf gun out on the market. They quickly loaded it up with double D batteries and did some test firing. Boy did Chad’s face light up and Roys too! So next I asked dad to open his presents, first he opened the vaccuum and acted all silly and excited. Next he opened the pre-lit Christmas tree we got him and was shocked. He said he’d been looking at the after Christmas sales at Target and thinking about getting a tree for himself but he didn’t want to spend the money.

Apparently after that it was my turn, I ripped open my present from Roy and revealed a  box that said something about fried chicken. I wasn’t sure what to think at first but had a good laugh once I cut open the box and saw a lantern looking decoration with a delicious smelling candle. It was a nice gift  from Pier 1 Imports. Dad then said I couldn’t open my other gift till Christmas because it would spoil the surprise, I didn’t give it much thought and shrugged my shoulders while watching Chad open his last gift. He was so happy seeing his new electric razor in a pretty blue casing (he’s been suffering from bad shaves till now).

Lastly was dads stocking stuffer with one special item in it… gummy army men! He got a kick out of them and took a couple out right away to play with. We then called Outback Steakhouse to reserve our table and thank goodness we did because it was packed when we got there. I figured our food would take a while since they were so busy so I brought our new pictionary man game.

We were seated almost immediatly and after ordering a couple drinks we started to play. Dad guessed Roy’s drawing almost right away which was “stargazing”. Don’t know how he got that one, all Roy drew was a star and a pair of eyes. We all took our turns having fun and wearing our Santa hats (all of us except Roy).

We each had a delicious meal and returned home with full bellies and ready for games and movies. Altogether it was a wonderful day and I’m glad to have gotten to experience it with the man I love.

1. 3 advent Christmas homes
2. set up and decorated the multi-colored tree in the kitchen
3. Christmas Tree plate made at the painted pot
4. box of chocolate caramels
5. Dairy queen blizzards
6. set up and decorated the silver and white tree in our bedroom
7. box of assorted Christmas hot cocoas
8. home-made st louis style pizza
9. petite cheesecakes
10. box of crab ragoons
11. Visited musical light-up house
12. Total Recall book
13. Visited Historic St. Charles
14. pocket knife
15. Leather Jacket
16. successfully baked the perfect pizza
17. beanie cap
18. snow gloves
19. Avatar movie
20. Christmas Party
21. XBOX 360 live setup

I had no idea how to accomplish something like that so I went to big and beautiful Costco to search for some help (ahh my wonderful Costco can solve almost any dilemna I might have). I picked up the 3 advent calendar homes to stuff a different chocolate from around the world for each day counting down till Christmas. On top of that I figured that food was mostly the  way to go to make the holiday season bright. Here’s what we’ve done so far:

1. 3 advent Christmas homes
2. set up and decorated the multi-colored tree in the kitchen
3. Christmas Tree plate made at the painted pot
4. box of chocolate caramels
5. Dairy queen blizzards
6. set up and decorated the silver and white tree in our bedroom
7. box of assorted Christmas hot cocoas
8. home-made st louis style pizza
9. petite cheesecakes
10. box of crab ragoons

Now there’s 14 days to go and this weekend we plan to go to Historic St. Charles where we’ll witness actors and actresses dressed up in oldtime garments from Christmas’s long ago. We’ll also be creating glass Christmas decorations for our home. We won’t be in any shortage of fun this weekend! Also I can’t wait for the yummy foods to come! I’d give you a sneek peek but I don’t want to ruin the surprises (yes that word is plural!). One of the yummies I can share is that crab ragoons are definitely on the list!!!