Colorado Part 2:

Alright! Here is part two of our Colorado trip! I may have gotten a little picture happy, but if you know me, that is no surprise. (this is not even close to all of them) 

Saturday C and I wanted to do the Incline in Manitou Springs. Several inches of snow was NOT going to stop us! This was my first time doing the Incline, but not C's. We did about half of it, which I am really happy with. If I end up back in the Springs for the next year and a half, I will be making a habit of doing the whole thing. 

Now, C started of with something that should have been indicative of how the descent would go... Falling. Falling like the ground was a slide. 

This is the very bottom. You can see we where not the first to go up this morning, and I am seriously inspired by all of the people we came across..including a super nice guy from California, who was also out doing it for the first time, we had a nice chat with him. (I later came across him in the incline hashtag on instagram and am happy to report that he made it to the top!)

That is honestly one of my favorite things about hiking in CO, we always meet someone, and every one is always so nice.




We aren't quite used to this white fluffy stuff anymore.



Worth the view!




This is where things get hairy. We forgot the pair of yak traks in my parents garage... and while my shoes (trail running shoes, thanks MIL) did super well, my husband's did not... he might as well have sat on his butt and slid the whole way down, at least it would have been on purpose that time.



We celebrated a job half done by going to my favorite bar in Palmer Lake. They have THE best wings, and you can even grill your own steak there. I have been going there since shortly after High School.


The wings. Yum!

This is a sticker from the 309th Fighter Squadron, the squadron right across the street from C's squadron at Luke. We got a kick out of seeing it at a place I have spent so much time at for so many years!
Next time we will take a Top Hats sticker (DTK!)

Colorado Part 1:

Since we are stuck in AZ waiting for a reassignment, we had the opportunity to go back to my parent's house for Thanksgiving. I am super happy about that, I've really needed my family over the past two months. 

They live in Colorado Springs, which is where I graduated high-school, and eventually where I met C. 

This is Maximus (yeah, Gladiator) Max for short. He is such a sweetie, we got him when I was in high-school. He is one of my favorite hiking buddies. 

This was not the coldest it got, when we checked, the lowest we saw was 12 degrees, but we did appreciate the fact that this was 100 degrees colder than some of the hottest days we have in PHX. 

Obviously this is our Thanksgiving dinner. My Dad brined the turkey with brown sugar, smoked it for several hours, and then finished in the oven to retain the moisture in the meat. Seriously, My Dad has smoked a turkey for so long, it gets better every year. C had his first smoked turkey with us, and it's his favorite now. When he and I have Thanksgiving that is what we fix for ourselves. 

We missed the snow, obviously. 

We went to our FAVORITE pizza place ever Beau Jo's, where they have C's favorite beer, and a great snapchat filter (JNMainsqueeze).

Honey Cheese Bread, stay tuned, we are going to try and replicate it, 

This is a Canadian Bacon, Roma Tomato, Artichoke Heart and Smoked Gouda pizza. 

Mountain style pizza means honey on the crust!

Moose was in heaven the whole trip with Pop-pop loving on him!'

The next post will cover our ascent and decsent on the incline and O'Malleys. 

Hope y'all had a great thanksgiving! 

Photos with the Mistress:

It's no secret that a fighter pilot's big love his Jet. Our house is full of F-16 paraphernalia. That isn't all my husband though, growing up I was absolutely in love with F-16's. One could argue that I loved them as much as I love the BUFF. So much that I got a tattoo of one of them too, and not just because my husband flies them, seriously. Growing up, my favorite part of air shows where when the Thunderbird's came out to play. The jet noise is basically the soundtrack to my favorite childhood memories.
Being stuck in Phoenix gave us an opportunity to be around for when the squadron pulls out a jet and let's the families take photos in front of them, on them, around them.

The photos are by Kim Billington - KKBmedia@hotmail.com

Rain in the Desert:

We went out on a hike in a local town called Verrado today! It was a great hike. Probably around 3-4 miles round trip, the first part is very flat and more of a walk, the last bit gets a little steep, but nothing too crazy! The squadron did this hike last year as a group, I missed it because I had work, but I am glad C remembered where it was!

He Loves sticking his head out the window!

    

The local Snapchat filter. (JNMainsqueeze, if you want to follow me)

The view from the top! It rained the whole way up (as you could probably guess from the title) and was a little chilly...60 degrees in Phoenix IS chilly! It was so beautiful though, and we loved seeing all the rain storms out in the distance!

Got to try out my new Oakley's (latch). I always have problems with my Ray-Ban's sliding off my face when we are out and hiking, resulting in many chipped lenses. I wanted something that was a little lighter and less likely to fall with a bang, and also ideally, stayed on my face.
These are awesome, and super comfortable, and made for guys apparently. That does not matter much to me though!

Mr. Moose Lee at the top!

When we got back to the truck we turned the heat on...Phoenix has softened us to the cold!

Since we don't think we will be together for Christmas we decided to decorate our small tree, to enjoy it as long as possible. Of course my favorite ornament is my SR-71, it's extra sneaky, since the tree is black!