January in Colorful CO

Happy last day of January!

January used to be my least favorite month of the year. It is always so gray and seems to drag on forever. However, this January was a great start to 2016. It was filled with a lot of adventures and fun! Here’s a quick recap:

New Years: We started out in Denver for New Years Eve with friends. It was great to catch up and was one of the best New Years to date. The place we went wasn’t too crowded and had great music. We then headed up to the mountains to play for a long weekend. I snowshoed on Saturday and went snowmobiling Sunday. I had never snowmobiled before by of course my adventurous boyfriend insisted it would be a great time…and it was! It was a lot less scary than I thought and it was a beautiful way to explore the mountains. 

Back country Skiing:

We grew up taking cross country ski lessons and skiing with our parents, however I had never gone back country skiing. We rented some cross country skis and drove up the Poudre Canyon and went skiing. It was SOOO pretty and fun! There were no groomed trails so you just went on the snow covered trail. I think I enjoyed it more than snowshoeing. We covered about 6 miles on our skis. On the way back the weather got a little dicey! The temps dropped and the wind picked up which created a lot of blowing snow. I was not dressed appropriately and Matt broke a ski, but we survived!

Courage to Risk Conference:

Last weekend, I was able to attend the Courage to Risk Conference in Colorado Springs with some girls from work. This is a special education conference held at the Broadmoor Hotel. The hotel/grounds were beautiful and the conference had great topics! I think we will try to go again next year. It was a nice change of pace and was a refreshing start to the new semester.

Lastly, the month ended by staying in town and enjoying some of the local breweries. We had planned to go skiing this weekend but are supposed to get a huge storm today. I didn’t want to be stuck in the mountains or traffic, so we decided we would wait until next weekend. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to get out and ski before I forgot all my tips from my lessons in Michigan. However, this ended up being a great way to end a busy month. The weather was really nice on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We decided to take our bikes out for a spin around town. However, the snow started around 6, so we took a cab home! We covered around 11 miles. It was so nice to be outside and enjoy the warmish temps!

P.S.: My roommate last year found that cruiser in the dumpster at our apartment. We washed it and gave it a little TLC. 

Workouts: I’ve been much more consistent with working out now that I’m finished with grad school. I’ve been going to Bodypump one time per week and am trying to get back into running. I can run about 2 miles now. I just got a new pair of running shoes and they are oh so pretty. 🙂

Xoxo Rachel