My 40th birthday!

I know this post is going to be very long because I have so much to share that I am not really sure where to start. If you didn't know already, I recently celebrated my 40th birthday. It turns out my husband and one of my best friends were planning a surprise vacation for me for my birthday. I didn't know this till one day, my husband came up to me while I was doing the laundry and said,

"I've got 2 problems. Something-something (I forget what it was now--I meant to write this post a really long time ago, but couldn't find the time, sorry), and you".
 
"ME?! What did I do?!"

That's when he tells me he has been trying to plan a surprise weekend getaway vacation for us and our two friends (no kiddos!) and that now its all falling apart (babysitting issues on their end),and he is just too busy and stressed right now to try to do this secretly, that he needs my help if its going to be able to happen.

What?!

Aaawwwwwwwww  :)

I'm so touched, I actually get tears in my eyes. What woman wouldn't be totally thrilled for her husband to plan a surprise trip for her?! Its like a dream scenario (at least for me it is). Its exactly what I've always wanted to happen some day but figured it never would because I am the one who always does our vacation planning (I even surprised him with tickets to a trip to Sea World several years ago for HIS birthday). But I never dreamed he would actually do it for me. And I guess "technically" it didn't work out, but he did START it and I'm still totally excited about that! 
So he explains that he has already set the weekend (of my birthday) and he already made arrangements for his parents to watch our kids. We are going to meet up with our friends, Chris and Marlenes, from Colorado. Originally I guess we were going to go to San Antonio and while the guys golfed and caught a game, we were going to get spa treatments and go shopping. But after we had taken our summer family vacation there just a couple weeks prior Dan had decided it was too hot and wanted to head to CO instead. This is where it lay: probably going to CO, not sure if its Aspen or Telluride yet, need airline tickets, hotels, spa&golf reservations, AND a new babysitting plan for our friends' daughter because their arrangements were appearing to fall  apart.

So, I call Marlenes and tell her that Dan spilled the beans and its no longer a surprise anymore and she should give me the 'lo-down' on what's going on so I can make airline arrangements on our end (Dan is now officially out of the planning process to his delight). She then explains to me that this was going to be set up where Dan was going to tell me we were going somewhere and I was to pack. I wasn't going to know where we were going until we boarded the plane. Then we were going to spend our first night alone in such a romantic way (oh yea! Dan would have been getting lucky for sure!), and the next day Chris and Marlenes were going to show up and surprise me even more(!), then we would spend the rest of the weekend doing spas/golf/shopping.

Aaaawwwwwwww! :)

Can you imagine, being told to pack and not knowing where u are going. Then getting there and having a totally romantic dinner and night with your spouse, then the next day 2 of your best friends show up and surprise you too!???!!!   Wow, its just a totally amazing plan, and even though it didn't exactly happen as planned, I was totally touched and in awe of the whole thing.

So we get talking, we narrow it down to Aspen, we get our flights, she arranges everything else (such a blessing, even though I made airlines reservations I wasn't 'responsible' for our happiness on this trip because I didn't arrange anything else!)  (If you haven't guessed by that comment, when you are the person who makes all the sole arrangements for a vacation, it can be a bit stressful hoping everything works out so that no one is mad or disappointed in the results. i.e. crappy flight plans, dumpy hotels, bad car rentals, etc. Everyone wants the plans to be perfect, but when u haven't been to a place before, you are taking the word of what you find on the internet, and sometimes, let's face it, websites are a bit misleading). So anyway, I was pretty excited that I didn't have to plan anything else, my awesome friend Marlenes did it all, and it was WONDERFUL! We had a fantastic condo (GORGEOUS!), that was in a perfect location, and the spa we went to was just heavenly (more about that later).

Well, then we run into a bit of a snag because Dan's parents decide to drive to TX that weekend to bring back their RV that his mom had been using while staying in Texas for her cancer treatments (just ONE of the stresses my husband was under). So my AWESOME friend, Jen, comes to the rescue and offers to watch our girls until his parents get back in town. WOW! Hip hip hooray, Jen saved the day! Meanwhile, Marlenes gets HER babysitting situation worked out, so we are all a 'go'.

We fly to the town they live in Friday morning(all the while with me joking and saying to Dan "so where are we going? The ocean? The mountains? Hawaii? what will the weather be like? Is it warm? cold?  ha ha--I had to at least pretend that it had worked out as the original plan had intended, which was for me to be clueless and totally surprised)   Then we drive with them to Aspen (just 2 hrs). Before we even go to our hotel, Chris takes us to Aspen Highlands (a ski area) where we catch a short bus ride up the mountain to a hiking area they want to take us to (only residents are allowed to drive up that road, so the bus gets you to the trailhead.) We take a hike towards Maroon Bells (which is the name of two mountains I guess, based on their shape) and pass through lots of beautiful aspens, including this funny curved one.

Do you see how crystal clear that lake is behind us in this picture? Wow!

Look at the size of the dandelions we find on our hike!

That's Maroon Bells behind us. Can you just see the joy and excitement on my face?!  I am so completely happy! This trip was awesome, and this was just the first few hours of it! The hike was lots of fun. Great weather and great views, and great picture-taking opportunities. You'll have to visit my snapfish or facebook account for the full album, but I'm going to try to post many of them here if blogger will let me :)

I really loved the hike. I've never really done it before and always assumed hiking entailed walking through un-plotted terrain (which some people do DO), but this hiking was actually on visible trails so there wasn't much of a chance for getting lost. It was really cool and really beautiful! I LOVED it! Plus I loved it because it was healthy, but still fun. (I love being able to get a workout in without actually having to do a 'workout'. That's why I love biking, snowskiing, and waterskiing so much. Well, now I love hiking too!)

After our hike we arrive at The Gant to check in to our condo, and are completed impressed. It is beautiful. Sort of low-key on the outside, but the condos are awesome (granite, knotty pine, feather comforters, just beautiful!) on the inside.

This is a view of the kitchen area. Small kitchen (but we weren't going to cook so that's ok), but the granite is the same granite we have in our gameroom at home, and its gorgeous, I loved it.

This is the master bedroom, you can't see the armoire and granite built ins with flatscreen on the left, but believe me its gorgeous. The other bedroom had two queens and was just as great. We also walked right off our patio to one of the pools. It was a great location.
That night we went to a restaurant called Ellina for dinner. It was definately gourmet. The type of gourmet you see on Top Chef (I love that show). It was also expensive, but remember its my birthday, so all caution is thrown to the wind :)  I saw an appetizer on the menu that said,

"Braised artichoke heart Bruschetta:

organic poached egg, shaved black truffles, creamy parmigano"

It was $24.

I had to try it.

It was amazing!

Overpriced, but amazing.

It was actually meant for one or two people to share, but we shared it between all four of us. On Top Chef I've seen numerous chefs who have used poached eggs atop an entree or appetizer and I always that that was so bizarre and kind of gross, but the judges always raved about it so I was sort of intrigued. I figured this was my chance to try it. So I did. I'm glad I did. It tasted awesome! Can't even begin to describe how all the flavors just worked so well together... except for the truffles, which to me were really unnecessary (and probably only there to make it more fancy and expensive). But now I can say I've tried truffles as well. :)

Next I had the Palisade Peach Salad "greens, fresh peaches, candied walnuts, cambozala crostini, maple vinaigrette"  (are u drooling yet?) It was yummy.

My main course was the North Atlantic Haddock "sweet corn polenta, salsa verde, heirloom cherry tomato and avacado salad". I've enclosed a picture of this (because my friend Mindy's pictures of the French food she enjoyed while in France inspired me to whip out my camera and take a shot before anyone saw me).

It was divine! I ate every last drop!

Aspen is really cute, it has lots of shops(expensive!), and neat cobblestone streets. I took a picture so you can see the pretty view of the mountain in the background. While the guys were driving into town they noticed a sign that read "Icey conditions may exist"  (this is a ski town in the winter :) you know), but someone had added a "PR" in front of it so it now read "PRICEY conditions may exist"  LOL It was very true.

Notice the bicyclist on the street. Aspen is full of super healthy people (I saw not a single overweight person while there!), they all bike or hike (and usually with a large dog) everywhere! Very inspiring and refreshing.

***I know this is a very long and detail-filled post, I commend you for reading the whole thing-thanks***

So the next day is our spa and golf day (the guys golfed, while Marlenes and I went to the spa.) It was called The Aspen Club and was in walking distance from our condo (I enjoyed every single walk/hike we went on). If you get any spa treatment at this club you get a free day pass to use the club. It is a huge sunlight-filled gym that even has equipment to practice skiing on (very interesting). So before our massages we went to a pump class. It was really good. I noticed something though, in the class and in town in general, bright colors are not the norm. Of course, I was wearing a bright yellow and striped tank that day so I stuck out like a non-local immediately (ha ha). Everyone wears earth-toned or dark clothing, even their gym clothes. Plus what would be considered hip and stylish here (think The Buckle) is too flashy there. Evening clothes are very sedate and casual (think of a Ralph Lauren ad), but day clothes look as if they must ALL be purchased from the Columbia store (ha ha), that is if they even are wearing street clothes, half the people you see are still wearing their biking shorts/shirts/helmets. Like I said, its a very active, healthy lifestyle. I really liked it.
Anyway, back to my spa day. It was a great massage, but the most amazing thing was all the amenities supplied at this club. After our massages, we lounged in a 'lounge area' connected to the massage section of the club. It had water, coffee, tea, trailmix, and fruitmix for us to nibble on while relaxing in comfy chairs by the fire. We probably sat there in our robes for almost an hour just chatting and relaxing. It was divine :)  The locker rooms (if you could call it that) are incredible. Not only did they supply us a locker with key and our robe, but also flip flops to wear around. The showers not only had huge dispensers of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, but also shaving cream and disposable razors! There were several vanity areas for people to get dressed/done up after showering which also provided hairspray, spray deorderant, lotion, mouthwash, brushes, blowdryers, q-tips, makeup wipes, tampons, and of course tons of towels. It was such a pampering treat it was incredible. There was also a steam room, hot tub, and sauna for us to use in there. The club also had a boutique and a salon inside. Like I said it was amazing.

That evening we walked into town to partake in Aspen's First Annual BBQ Fest. They had BBQ vendors set up along the street, selling different kinds of BBQ. I have to admit I was not excited at first. The only BBQ I really like is Albert's (who is a friend who goes to church with us) and most meat doesn't interest me... especially when its displayed in its whole form...which I would like to show you here because I took two pictures of the whole roasted pig they had on the table from which they were slicing from, but I've tried twice to upload the pix and its not working, so we will have to skip that picture. However, I was happily surprised when I did try 2 of the vendors. They were delicious. One was on a toasted hoagie bun with sliced brisket, a wee bit  of sauce and a dollop of mango salsa. Yum. The other, which was our favorite, was from the pig vendor and it was finely chopped pork loin inside a flour tortilla with a little bit of sauce and a scoop of coleslaw on top. These BBQ tacos were great! In fact we liked them so much we bought some for lunch the next day before we left town :)

When we were done eating we rode the gondola up the mountain ($50 per couple! told you it was PRICEY). When we got to the top we took lots of great pictures. The mountains in the background were beautiful with a red tinge.

These were some of my favorite pictures. Me and my lovey hubby! xoxo

We also took a small hike while up there and came upon some bear scat, that's poop for those of you like me who might not know this. So, yes, a bear had been right where we were walking. Eeek! That was the only thing that was a little bit scary while hiking, if I let my mind go in that direction I'd get a little worried about happening upon a bear. Fortunately we did not. That night we ate at a fancy italian restaurant, but unfortunately none of us were too pleased with what we ordered. I liked Dan's (gnocchi), but didn't like what I ordered or any of the appetizers. Bummer, because they had a really yummy looking entree on the posted menu outside with mushroom risotto but when we got the menus inside it wasn't listed. Bummer. Anyway, the next day, Sunday, the guys golfed again in the morning before we left and Marlenes and I went for another hike. We hiked up to this beautiful lake that must have had a waterfall hidden on the other side because we could hear it but could not see it. I wanted to climb the boulders around the lake to try to find it, but Marlenes said she would only watch me and not join me :( so we didn't go that far. It was still beautiful though and again we took lots of pictures.

Here  the picture shows the lake we hiked to. I hope you see two pictures here (I do when editing, but when I viewed the post one of the pix was gone, not going to mess with trying to figure this out bc I've probably posted enough pix already ha ha).

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That bright green area touching the shoreline to the left across the lake is where we think the waterfall was.

It truly was gorgeous there and I really loved the whole trip. The weather was in the 70-80's and just great. We had a great time with great friends, we ate good food, got some healthy exercise in, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves (sans kids ha ha). I really liked it. It was the best way to celebrate my birthday and what a way to usher in '40'. The funny thing is, I didn't even realize it until Monday night (my actual birthday) when I was tucking my youngest daughter into bed and she began to sing happy birthday to me, that we never really had a traditional celebration at any time during the weekend or on my actual birthday of singing a song and eating cake. The girls however, did buy and wrap me candy bars which they immediately gave me when they saw me Monday and I promptly opened, but besides that there was no 'normal' celebration. I did not miss it though. This weekend was the greatest ever and I am so thankful to, first of all my husband for doing it for me. But also to my great friends, Chris and Marlenes, Jen & Matt, and Dan's parents for helping to make it all come together and happen. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
It was the greatest birthday present ever! Thank you!