the stanley hotel.

After getting the chance to spend the day with Crystal when she was in Colorado, it was great to have Micah's parents out to visit us that next weekend.

We took them all around town (made much easier in that they rented a car that was able to get us places quickly). But, we also went up to the mountains, to Estes Park. It too is your typical mountain town with the tacky t-shirt and salt water taffy stores. The scenery though is quite beautiful.

Estes Park is probably most know for the Stanley Hotel.

It is the inspiration for Stephen King's book and the location of the movie The Shining. Which is a horror book/film, and therefore the reason for why I have never read/seen it. However, I could just imagine how scared I would be if I were to.

Just being in the lobby was creepy enough for me.

There's a long history of the hotel, too long to be summarized here. But, if you're interested, you could go here to read up on it.

I know one thing for sure, I would NEVER stay there overnight. There's no doubt in my mind that I would not sleep one bit. And, why on earth would I want to put myself through that torture!

and, a happy alabama football 1st-game-of-the-season day to you!

blueberry muffins.

Tuesday I had the hankering for blueberry muffins.

And not just any blueberry muffins, but the perfect blueberry muffins. I got the recipe from here, and it didn't let me down. The only thing I changed is that I did not use lemon zest (only because I didn't have a lemon on hand). I'm sure they're great with the lemon addition as well. I also put too much butter in and then tried to compensate by adding a little bit more of some of the other ingredients. It didn't have any drastically negative affects.

Ingredients:

-5 tbsp unsalted butter, softened (yah, so, I used a whole stick {8 tbsp}...oops)

-1/2 cup sugar

-1 egg

-3/4 cup sour cream or yogurt (I used greek style yogurt, because it's yummy and that's what I had)

-1/2 tsp lemon zest (again, they were great without it)

-1 & 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

-1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder

-1/4 tsp baking soda

-1/4 tsp salt

-3/4 cup blueberries (I used frozen & they worked great...but, I did not defrost them before adding them to the batter)

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees & grease muffin tin.

-Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg & beat; then the yogurt (& zest, if you're using it).

-Mix together the dry ingredients & sift into the wet ingredients little by little. {note: the end result will be VERY thick, thick & sticky. I was worried that I had really screwed up, but they turned out great.}

-Fill muffin cups to about 3/4 full. My batter made 12, but I also tweaked some of the ingredient amounts. The recipe is supposed to make 9-10.

-Bake for 20-25 minutes. Mine were done at 20, but I still haven't figured out how altitude affects baking.

-Let cool on a rack for a few minutes and then eat them for dinner. At least, that's what we did Tuesday night. Nutritious, right?

Visit to Manitou Springs, CO.

A few weeks ago, Micah and I rented a car for the day and drove south to Manitou Springs, outside of Colorado Springs. Even being there just an afternoon, it was apparent to me that it is a different world down there. It might have made me appreciate the fact that I'm living in Denver a little more.

Micah's younger sister Crystal was in town for a conference (don't even get me started on that...suffice it to say, I would most definitely do bodily harm to myself or the speaker if I were forced to attend. That or, I would just walk out).

It was nice spending time with Crystal though. It's strange being thrown into a new family, you know. It most definitely helps that I've felt welcomed with open arms. But, it's still a whole new system that you have to figure out, that and you have to some how meld yourself into it as well. Therefore, it's good to have a little one-on-one time, or in this case one-on-two time, I function better in those situations.

The three of us went to the Garden of the Gods, which is basically a magnificent rock park. Gigantic slabs of rock towering over you and jetting up into the sky. It's a little Land Before Times-esque (the 1st or 2nd, not the 8th or 9th). How many of those did they make?

I saw the kissing camels. I'm pretty sure the excursion could have been counted as a fail, if I hadn't.

We also hung out in Manitou Springs' "downtown;" mountain towns are famous for their western main streets. If I'm not mistaken all of them consist of shops were you can buy bear statues, and salt water taffy (is this perplexing to anyone but me?), and t-shirts that say things like "Mountain Dude" with the logo of Mountain Dew. But, Manitou Springs had something even better to offer, and that was frozen custard. And, it was darn good.

Not quite sure why I'm squinting in this picture. It wasn't sunny out. It was cold though, which is why I'm glad Crystal and I are close enough that I could borrow her jacket!