Colorado Travel Recap: Vail, Breck, Lake Dillon, St. Mary's Glacier

Ohhhh, hey there big beautiful mountains that make me semi depressed about living in flat Ohio. At least we have lakes here? We've got that goin' for us!

Time for round 2...

After exploring Denver, we woke up early and headed to Vail. Actually, that is a fat lie. We did not wake up early...we were hungover from our night out (#oldladiescanthang) but we did make it there and we did a hike so that counts for something. On the way, we stopped and hiked St. Mary's Glacier. It's more of a beginners hike (which ended up being good for the hangover situation, ha) but was still a great workout and has stunning views!

See what I mean? 

People were hiking to the very top of that glacier and cliff jumping into the water! I'll have to add that to my list for the next visit. ;)

After the hike it was a short drive to Vail and Vail was pretty much love at first sight for me. Walking around in Vail feels like you're in a painting, as weird as that is to say. It's just so charming! We stayed at Lodge Tower, which completely exceeded my expectations. The view from our room looking over all of Vail Village was on point! 

Vail Village was literally a 30 second walk from our hotel, so our time spent in Vail was just exploring, lots of shopping, and eating yummy food! I would go back in a heartbeat for just a relaxing long weekend trip. How could you not enjoy a town that looks like this? 

And I miss it already.

When in Vail, we enjoyed lunch/beers at Red Lion (live music!), coffee in the morning from Loaded Joe's, cupcakes from Mountain Cupcakes, and a yummy dinner at Tavern. All delicious! Complete with girl talk, many laughs, and losing my favorite Ray Bans somewhere in the village...

The two stops we made on our way back to Denver were to Breckenridge and Lake Dillon. We weren't planning on stopping at Breckenridge, but we had more time than we thought so we said what the heck, let's do it! And I'm so glad we did. We were only here very briefly, but it was nice to be able to see it. We shopped and took a gondola ride!

That picture from the gondola ride actually doesn't do the beauty much justice, if you can believe it. It was even more breathtaking in person!

Lake Dillon was on our way out and is a must-stop type of place. They have a little beach area that you can lay out, have a picnic, and do a lot of fun water activities like kayaking, paddleboarding, boating, etc! The views around the lake are STUNNING...

(I had to get that cute doggy in the pic!)

(this is not the top I was originally wearing-I bought this top in breckenridge and got cold so just threw it over top my other one)

We all loved it here. Great place to spend an afternoon!

Before we made it back to Denver, we stopped at Tommy Knocker Brewery in Idaho Springs for lunch. The atmosphere was really cool (food was good too-I had pork green chili for the first time, which I guess is a really popular thing in CO?), and we even got to try some pumpkin beer as they just added it to the menu for the fall season! 

Thank you CO for beautiful weather, an excellent stay, and convincing me that sometime in my lifetime I need to live by the mountains. Oh, and thank you to my cutie cousin Natasha for hosting an amazing girls trip that we will never forget! Anddd that's a wrap!

*If you're traveling to Denver (or any of these other areas we visited), feel free to email me for rec's or tips! As always, thanks so much to those who gave me suggestions as you played a role in making my trip so good! :)

Things That Make Me Go "Woo-Hoo!"

Did you come here expecting colorado adventures part 2? (part 1 here) Me too. Turns out I need a littlleee more time to finish it. promise it'll be here tomorrow!

It's been WAY too long since I've done a life update type of post. Oh...where to begin, where to begin?

+We have our first family vacation (Cam's first time flying!) in less than 2 weeks! We are really looking forward to having a full week all together. If anyone has any tips for traveling/going to the beach with a little one (other than the feeding during takeoff), please send my way! Especially if it has to do with packing or what to bring/what not to bring. Also, I bought a lightweight umbrella stroller to bring with us but am starting to wonder if I will want our BOB with us? Which will be best?

+For the next 10 days before we leave, me and Billy are doing a big detox! It's actually a free guide from Steph's company-you can read about it here. It's two shakes per day and one regular meal. So, we will have the shakes for breakfast and dinner then lunch will be on our own (there is a list of approved foods you can have/make.) It's designed to be for 14 days but since we leave sooner than that, we are just doing 10. Even doing it for a week would be extremely beneficial! I was so excited when Billy told me he will do it with me so we can motivate each other AND because this means I don't have to cook dinner for 10 days! Yessss... 

+We had an awesome date night last Friday to celebrate our five year anniversary-a delicious dinner at Rigsby's Kitchen and some drinks after at Forno (LOVE both of these places if you visit the Short North often) It was a great night with my love. Our vacation was sort of our anniversary gift to ourselves, but Billy spoiled me with 3 dozen of the most beautiful roses...(and new Lulu shorts and this bar necklace that I've been lusting over!)

+In the past few years I've gone from not liking Taylor Swift at all to absolutely loving and adoring the girl. She's officially converted me. Her newest song/video Wildest Dreams? Yes please. All of it (looking at you, Scott Eastwood.)

+I'm feeling crazy emotional lately about how big Camden is getting. He is almost 8 months old (and is such a busy little one!), has two teeth, is eating 2-3 "real" meals per day, and the other day we realized he will only be on formula/bottles for another 4ish months! After that, he's like a little boy and then I'm practically sending him off to college. 

+Speaking of baby meals-I would really like someone to make it so that in grocery stores there are aisles dedicated to approved healthy baby foods and nothing else. All in ONE place. Shopping the entire grocery store for a handful of quality baby food is seriously time consuming (for a newbie like myself...I'm hoping it gets better?!)

+I found the perfect drapey tee from Target the other day (see-I can't stay away for that long.) It's so soft and will be perfect for the fall to layer under cardigans or to wear with leggings. I bought the teal wave color. I thought about going back to grab a few more colors, but then noticed they are on sale for $9 online right now, plus an additional 10% off for labor day. #timetostockup

+Kids personalized Christmas jammies...already thinking of ordering Camden a pair because well, it seems every other parent on instagram is doing it. Is it normal to order them this early? Either way, I have no problem joining in on this because...so cute. so cute. 

+A lot of my favorite items from the Nordstrom sale are BACK on sale. If you missed out on them then, now is your (second) chance. My picks: this cardigan (only $28), this striped top (perfect for now & fall), and this Nike half-zip (obsessed with these colors!!)

+Below Deck on Bravo-huge fan. Captain Lee has a serious case of permanent resting bitch face...don't you think?

I feel "out" of it in blog land lately (the good news is I'm feeling a little better..thyroid wise..) so if you're reading, please leave me a comment letting me know what you're loving lately! 

Colorado Travel Recap: Denver / Boulder

I'm so excited to be able to share another trip recap with you guys. I was taking pictures like a crazy person the whole time I was in Colorado-it's just too pretty not to! Colorado is definitely somewhere I can imagine myself living. It's so green, lush, and beautiful! So many great hikes, bike baths, and outdoor activities to do. It's pretty much paradise for outdoorsy loving people! 

And then there is the mountains...there is just NOTHING not to like about the mountains. That's all there is to it. It sounds silly, but even the air smells so fresh in CO...I swear it has it's own lovely scent, ha! Someone else has to feel the same, yes? Maybe?

Anyway, we stayed in downtown Denver at my cousin's for most of our trip but we also road tripped to Boulder, Idaho Springs, Vail (we stayed overnight here-wait until you see these pics! stunning!), Frisco, and Breckenridge. These cities were all semi-close to each other (Vail being the farthest from Denver, which was about 2 hours away), so it was pretty easy to hop from one to another. Plus, when you have scenic views such as this out your window at all times..you don't really mind being in the car for short periods of time!

I'm splitting this recap into two parts, otherwise you might hate me. Part 1 (ahem-now) will talk about everything we did in Denver and Boulder and then Vail, Breckenridge, our hike, etc. will be included in Part 2 (hopefully posted on Weds!) Also, I might miss a few details from this trip because we literally saw (and ate at) so many different places in the time frame we were there. I had an extremely long list of restaurants I wanted to eat at that my cousin decided to make an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them - no joke. Crazy or not, it worked out perfectly. Planning ahead definitely pays off!

So, let's chat all about...

DENVER:

EAT
+Root Down-where we had dinner the first night! It's one of the more popular restaurants in Denver-think farm to table style with a large outdoor patio and yummy cocktails
+Avanti-cute place for drinks, has a huge outdoor patio with views of downtown
+Snooze-brunch, definitely try their pancake of the day (ours was cookies and cream-to.die.for), bloody mary's/mimosas, and I loved the breakfast tacos
+Denver Bisquit Co.-brunch/lunch, we got 2 of their bisquits to go and they were SO WORTH IT!
+Osteria Marco, great Italian place for dinner downtown-the food (and prices) are excellent! we are still talking about how much we loved the calamari and the pizza we got!
+Coopers Lounge-we just went for happy hour, it's inside Union Station and is beautiful!
+Linger, dinner/drinks-rooftop views of downtown so this is a good spot to go either before dinner or for dinner (the food looked good!)
+Pinche Tacos-dinner, delicious (killer!) margaritas and tacos

SEE
+Larimer Square-we went and "bar hopped" down here one night and it was so pretty!
+Union Station
+Red Rocks Ampitheatre, the ONLY sucky situation we ran into was that when we went-it was closed! They closed early for the day so we could only take pictures around it. It was a bummer but every other part of our trip was so amazing/went so smoothly we didn't care too much. Definitely seeing it next time I go!
+Tour one of the any breweries!
+Visit Boulder (BELOW :))

BOULDER:

Since we just spent early morning-late afternoon one day here, I don't have a ton of rec's but this was our plan...

-Shop/Eat at Pearl Street Mall
-Go for a hike at Boulder Mountain Park
-Walk around the campus
-Get a Rush bowl for a quick snack/mini lunch (think acai bowl but so many options-we loved them, they were so good and perfect if you just need something quick)

Part 2 coming soon! If you haven't been to Denver, add it to your list! I really liked being there not in the middle of winter, even though I do eventually want to go back sometime in the winter.

Who's been to Denver? What are your favorite parts?!