I flew to Denver this weekend for Lisa's 30th birthday. It was a great weekend but way too fast. Because of a scheduling mistake on my part I only got about two and a half days with her. Fortunately it was quality time. I got in at midnight Friday night which was lucky as the flight scheduled before us (also going to Dallas) was cancelled and there were delays galore. I was only an hour late. The next day we started off with breakfast at Village Inn because Lisa loves the Belgian waffles. After that we packed up from her Mom's place and headed to the Cherry Creek Holiday Inn Select where I had a room reserved. We usually spend at least one night at a hotel when I come in to town. The room was nice but the elevators seemed to be suffering from gremlins. On the way to the hotel we stopped at the Shane Company first, where I picked out and purchased my wedding ring. Lisa was excited and relieved. She was sure I was going to end up with a twist tie-wrapped around my finger for the ceremony. It's a nice ring, very understated and simple. I was pretty excited too. I'm really looking forward to being married.
After a little nap at the hotel we headed off to the Tattered Cover, an impressive bookstore in Denver. There are actually two of them and I could get lost there forever. Lisa's sister Jennifer bought her a book called The Decade of the Wolf by Douglas W. Smith & Gary Ferguson about the effort to return wolves to Yellowstone. We went to see a talk by Gary Ferguson. It was really interesting and moving. Mr Ferguson was an excellent speaker, and Lisa was excited to get her book signed. After the signing we headed to Lisa's sister's house. Jennifer had construction paper signs with "Lisa's 30" printed on them, hanging everywhere. We had some cheese, fruit and wine (I had Red Stripe) and Lisa opened her gifts, than it was on to Pasquini's, one of Lisa's favorite restaurants. She loves the Pesto Penne with pine nuts. I had the spaghetti with Italian Sausage against my better judgement. It was delicious but I was suffering with heartburn the rest of the night.
Sunday, her actual birthday, we went to see "Eight Below". Boy what a great movie. I welled up and Lisa cried (and she never cries at movies). She had seen it before but really wanted me to see it. After that we headed down town to Old Chicago for dinner. Jennifer had got Lisa tickets for Christmas to the NHL team, the Avalanche for her birthday so we were going to eat and walk over to the Pepsi Center. As we were walking to Old Chicago we noticed everyone headed to the game. We thought it was kind of early but before we could order the game came on t.v. The tickets said 7:00 o'clock but the starting time had been changed to six! We settled up and headed over. We had a great time even though the Avs got the tar knocked out of them 5-2 by the Minnesota Wild (whatever that is). Jennifer arranged to have the ushers sing Happy Birthday to Lisa, she was embarrassed but a good sport. The fans sitting in our area even joined in. After the game we finally got to Old Chicago for dinner, a little late but better than never.
Next month I'm hoping Lisa will make it out here to Arkansas for my home leave, but it's going to be hard to top this one.
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