February

February was full of little fun days all month long that kept us sane and going.

So this was John's favorite Christmas present this year...and a beard experiment that didn't last.

The beautiful cactus I got for Valentine's Day last year that waited to bloom until February...which meant we didn't miss it over the Christmas break which I was worried about.

Valentine's Day is my favorite!!! I went into John's internship on Monday before work and set up his desk for the holiday on Tuesday. I forgot pictures, but his desk was full of army men, robot paper hearts and snickers. I received lovely red tulips from him and found notes everywhere throughout the day. Going out to eat is special for us, so I asked John where he'd like to get food that night. His request was a restaurant that he could get free chips and salsa with his meal. Easy enough, we tried a Mexican restaurant that hit the spot for both of us...nothing excessively romantic, but perfect for what we were looking for. John even made a chocolate strawberry shortcake for us to have for dessert! So yummy! Then we closed the night with a viewing of "Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines". I had heard of it, but hadn't seen it before. It proved good entertainment for the night. I love when Valentine's Day is meaningful, simple and sweet!!!

~

Saturday the 18th was the multi-stake women's conference with Barbara Thompson. Some details are in the previous post. One of the pieces I orchestrated was for a vocal soloist and I had the intimidating task of conducting the orchestral accompaniment for her piece. I just couldn't look at the 1400 women in the congregation as I walked up to conduct. It turned out so well and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. John even got to sneak in and watch since he wasn't able to see the rehearsals. I got to attend two sessions of the conference since I had just received a new calling as the secretary in our ward's relief society presidency. There was a session for the women invited from 9 stakes and a training meeting for the relief society presidencies of those stakes. It was a very neat meeting and it means a lot being further removed from the availability of Salt Lake.

John and I have awesome home teachers here! One of our home teachers had extra vouchers to the Museum of Nature and Science so we had a fun date this past Saturday. We went to the 3-D IMAX that was about chasing tornadoes. It was a fun one to watch in 3D.

Once again, we're glad to have a way to be able to attend events and explore the sights of Denver. Sometimes we really enjoy being part of the town. It's a beautiful skyline, although you can see how far away the mountains are from us, because those are big mountains.

A fun filled Saturday included our ward's chili cook-off. There were 20 entries for chili and it was a very fun event.

I made my mom's chili recipe. We took my lucky number 17 place and named it Amy's 2 in 1 chili. It is so-called because my mom has two recipes that she makes her chili from. She's never written it out to be the correct one recipe and whenever I'd help her make it, there was always a lengthy set of explanations to go with the two recipe cards. We received the price for most ingredients which I found ironic, since it does have two recipes worth of ingredients, but the prize was awarded by a taste vote. I think next year it'll be John's turn. Maybe we'll get some Kentucky spaghetti chili out of him.

January

So, January was a whirlwind of a month and flew by us faster than we could have hoped. We went from nothing to do in December, to crazy busy in January. I guess not ever as busy as we were in Logan though...because we've still been sleeping at night. We got back from the holidays and I started my new job working about 30 hours a week as an assistant/book keeper for an accountant. He is an LDS man who runs his business from his home and I work with 4 other employees although some of them are part-time or very part-time co-workers. It's a stretch for me, not so much of what needs to be done, but how to do it...but I'm learning. John found the month long break to be a little bit too much of a vacation and getting back into school was a little rough. His classes this semester are a lot of community based classes, something that is good to know, but not where he wants to end up in his career. It's a lot of policy and program learning as well as observing and advocating for different groups of people. John's more like me. Let me have someone one on one and I feel like I can make a difference with their playing. He feels the same way about being a therapist.
Once again, thanks to John's internship, we were able to attend a sporting event. I personally have a hard time with professional games sometimes, just because the crowds aren't as invested in it...and this game wasn't worth being invested in, but from the ticket above you can see the seats were. Club seats worth $115. Don't think we'll ever get that opportunity again.
John received two new callings in January. He now gets to learn who the adults are in our ward instead of knowing the kids in the nursery. He has been called as a stake auditor and the Sunday school president. So while those callings have been keeping him busy, I had a little fun of my own. The woman who runs the music studio I teach in is the Stake Relief Society president of the Boulder Stake. She asked me if I would be willing to orchestrate some pieces for their women's conference. The Boulder Stake was hosting Sister Barbara Thompson as their guest speaker for the conference. Because a representative of the General Relief Society President would be attending, eight or nine stakes were invited to participate. They have always tried to put together good music for their conferences though, and this one would be no exception with a choir accompanied by as full of an orchestra as they could have in a the chapel. (no brass, percussion) We only had 2 1/2 weeks to orchestrate them before the first rehearsal. I orchestrated three of the songs for the conference (but more on the conference in February's post). It's sad to say that John and I are already wishing for another vacation and planning what March's break may give us.

December

December was so fun for us! John was out of school the whole month, and although his intership kept him going, we got a lot of play time together. The beginning of the month started with a visit from Steve and Carol. Unfortunately, and I think I said before, I stopped taking a lot of pictures for some reason and we have no record of their stay...John was in his intership most days they were here, which meant they got the Denver experience Aubrey style. We got to explore even more of downtown than we did with Sarah and Rob, and for the first time, were down there not on a Saturday. This meant we got to do a tour of the Denver Mint. Pretty cool, although I walked out of there with a ton of questions. The free sample was worth it. It was good to have close family here and show them a little what's been going on here.

Our first Denver holiday experience was the Denver light parade. It was so fun, but the first (and possibly only) days that I commented to John that it was "Logan cold". Downtown was lined with people and it was so fun to see a parade that wasn't filled with little girl drill teams, pick-up trucks with advertisements and each individual's city royalty. I love my small town parades, but this was a completely different experience. The parade is after dark, and every float/band/group is covered with lights or lit up in different ways.

The first parade I've been to that had the balloons. And there were four of them! It's so close to the ground because of the lights.

One of my favorites, just because it was a light up nativity. They were the best lit up costumes of the parade.

An example of a lit up float. This one Nutcracker themed.

Santa! I was completely like a little kid. I guess you watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV, and see the spectacle of Santa in a parade affecting kids on movies like Miracle on 34th street or a Christmas story. And this was the first time I got to be part of it for myself. John just laughed at me and thought I was completely silly.

Denver's major downtown buildings all have this style of lighting on them for Christmas. So fun!

So, the second week, we got done with church on Sunday and drove downtown for the free "Tuba Denver" concert. Tuba Denver is a nationwide happening, where Tuba/Euphonium and other horn players order the music and there are concerts all over the country. You just show up and play. I knew it would be entertaining, but I didn't expect it to be as beautiful as some of the pieces were. John has some of the videos on facebook, it wouldn't load here.

Straight from the tuba concert, we headed to DU for the free outdoor carillon concert. I had never heard of a carillon, so I was excited to go. The Richie Center is DU's athletic venue for basketball/hockey. The gold-spired tower holds the carillon. A carillon is really a bell tower with something like sixty bells controlled below by a type of keyboard. DU has a doctorate level for the instrument. If you don't check out the tuba video, make sure to check out the carillon video on John's facebook. It was amazing! There are Sunday concerts in the summer we're excited to picnic to.

The thing that kept me busy during December was our ward's Christmas party nativity production. It was so fun to put together, and I have costumes ready for the rest of my life. I took old sweaters/t-shirts/blankets...basically anything I could find to make animal hats, as well as putting together the rest of the costumes.

Since we were on stage helping the kids, I didn't get pictures during the party, but John's donning the Donkey hat. We figured out how to move the curtains and lights on the stage and just pinned the stable and stars onto the background. I think it turned out really well.

Mr. and Mrs. Claus at the party

We were very blessed to be able to see a production of A Christmas Carol with the McMurtreys. It was our first production at the Denver Performing Arts Center, and I wish we could afford to go to something there every week. It was such a feel-good experience for me to be able to see a show for Christmas.

Since Lance and Brittney were in town for the holidays, we spent Christmas Eve with the McMurtreys. Good food and company and I brought my costumes along to help their nativity. John and I were prepared for a Christmas Eve alone, but it was good to be in a full house for the holiday.

Since I was in charge of the Christmas program...and Christmas landed on Sunday this year, we stayed in Denver Christmas morning. I like waking up Christmas morning in our home with John, and the program went so well. Right after church we packed up the car and left for Utah. It wasn't until four hours into the drive that we realized that we had left the bag with everyone's presents in Denver. Not the brightest thing we've ever done...

This time the Keisel's got the pictures and my family didn't. We had an awesome Christmas party Monday morning. John and I dominated this stacking game...even though we struggled immensely in some of the other rounds.

Candace always puts together a good party. And the house was filled with presents. We were lucky to be able to spend so much time with both families for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In Logan, we enjoyed being there for when Taylor and Bryce got engaged. (Not there for the proposal, but the after-partying) We fit in visits with as many friends as we could while still getting to party hard with the family. It was so good to spend time with Kristi and Kelly, as well as getting some good old fun time in with Ashley. John was excited to see Tyler and Jesse. We were completely spoiled and it was harder to come home this time, but life moves on and school started again with a new job for Aubrey waiting. But more on that in January's post.

November

November in Denver...Awesome. The weather is beautiful, and although I mentioned it before, there's actually a fall here. November kept us busy especially with John's first semester finishing up. 1/6th of the way done. It doesn't seem so bad right? Our visitor for November was cousin Sarah and her awesome new hubisand Rob. Our learning curve did not increase a lot from the Whitesides' visit, and we once again failed to be the tour guides we should have been...but the good news is, we're getting better. Our December post will hopefully show that we're starting to get on the inside of things a little bit.

Sarah and Rob stayed a weekend with us and while John was (unfortunately) pounding out a final term paper, we went exploring Downtown. It was the first time I was actually able to get around there without too much interruption. (We still marched with Occupy for a little while by accident.) It was a wonderful weekend with some of our favorite people!!
Mile High

Part of my lack-o'-blogging is my lack-o'-picture taking. For example...this is all I took from Thanksgiving. We drove out Wednesday night and actually had Thanksgiving with the Keisels this year...with no pictures. It was so nice to be back in Utah and so great to be with such good family and with such good food! It also provided me with my first (and last) Black Friday shopping experience. Since stores were starting their deals at 10pm, we decided to try it out for size. Carol, John and I were dropped off at the doors of Wal-mart where we walked to the back of the store, panicked, and walked back out. Apparently other branches had it a lot more under control, but the one we visited had people scalping DVD's, teenagers racing to different departments of the store and shoulder to shoulder traffic that could not in any way be honoring the fire code. I am all about a good story to tell though, and I'm glad to have a good one to tell.

Up in Logan, it was good to see family and friends and we had a great time being part a Cache Valley for a weekend.

Driving home through Logan Canyon, this guy was eating some roadkill off the side of the road. When we turned around to get a picture he flew up to this tree. So cool even though the picture is way zoomed in...

Clouds hovering above Bear Lake.

A good sign, for both of us, was as we drove through Downtown Denver coming home, we both looked at each other and said that we had sort of missed Denver. And that was the greatest sign of all, that coming home is something we relate to Denver now.