Well, its been over a year.

   Normally, I would post about New England life and travel but this post I'm going to go off in a bit of a different direction, catch you up on everything that has happened this year, since I haven't posted in over a year. Being said its been quite a year. The life I thought I knew is gone and I took ahold of a new, adventurous, happy, loving life.
   I am still working the same job(s), but my love life has taken a whole knew direction and I couldn't be happier with this amazing man. Not only has he shown me love, compassion and loyalty, he, like my family, has shown me things in life I didn't think I could do, not without a bit of a push too.
   This past year I have been to five new states, some of them twice. I got to show someone who has never been to the Northeast, all around my home area.
   I have gotten to meet a bunch of new people from his family in Michigan to his work colleagues.
I have tried wines, traveled around some of eastern Colorado and northern Lower Michigan to the different vineyards. He helped me find one Italian wine I thoroughly enjoy, unlike the group of red wine drinkers who didn't care to show me variety of wines.
   And not only has my palate been widened but my thirst for travel, to explore the different areas and cultures my own country has to offer.
  

McGee

   To put the year in perspective, McGee and I moved from Lakewood to Golden, early December 2013. Into a 3 bedroom townhouse with two great people. I began dating a man, who to is not a Colorado native. A man with one of the greatest smiles and most beautiful eyes. His name is Gordon.
   Gordon is from Michigan and loves to travel. He has moved all over and ended up in Colorado, and well, I am definitely glad he did.
   Gordon invited me to Las Vegas with him and his family three weeks later. Vegas is definitely what I expected, with tons of people from all over. Its big, loud and dirty (some places are real nice though). Walking through the hotels and casinos it was so funny to watch people, especially the older ladies playing 5 slots at a time, cigarette hanging out of mouth, in their stretch pants. Sorry, that's really stereotypical of me, but its so true... ha ha.
   Gordon and I spent New Year's eve together in the Denver international airport, in one of the only restaurants open that evening. Glad they had a TV in the bar to watch the ball drop.
   In February, he took me to Michigan, in February! It was great to see his home, meet more of his family and friends, but the snow and cold had fun with us.
   In March, his friend from Virginia came to visit, we had a lot of fun and even went snowshoeing for the first time on Mount Evans. Then his mom and brother visited and we took them around the Denver area.

   In April, we drove to Grand Junction, such a cute little area with neat shops and close to the Colorado National Monument, where we did some hiking. We also, took a drive into Utah, we drove over to Moab and went to the National Park and (carefully) climbed to the Delicate Arches. On the way back home to Denver, we drove around Palisade (where the Peaches come from) and stopped at a few different vineyards. We stopped at one vineyard called the Carlson Vineyards Winery and usually vineyards limit how many tastes you can have but the woman who served us was one of the owners and she was so nice and let us try as many as we wanted, I think we came home with 2-3 bottles? This month I also, moved back to Lakewood and in with Gordon.

  In May, we went to San Diego. We got a Living Social deal for a neat hotel near the bay. We toured the USS Midway, which was really cool, seeing how life is and was living on the ship. We also, visited the San Diego Zoo, like everyone else, probably the real reason people go to San Diego. In my personal opinion, I wouldn't ever go again, for the price and disarray the place is, I don't find it worth it. But we did find some great food there, within walking distance of our hotel.

   In June, he took me to Chicago for our 6 month anniversary. It was really cool. I'm from the middle of nowhere, so this place was a BIG city. Denver has nothing on this place.  Tall, tall buildings, lots of traffic, tons of people, dirty. It had one of the biggest Macy's I have ever seen! We went up the Hancock tower at night and sat at a window table, had a couple drinks, what a view.... Gordon also, surprised me with a Architecture tour. Which you take a ferry down the river, while a narrator tells us all about the different buildings. We went to Maggiano's for our anniversary dinner, the original Maggiano's. Had to got there since I was on the opening Maggiano's team in Pointe Orlando. We stayed at an amazing hotel, across the river from the Trump building. We had a Presidential suite, and we were the first people to stay in that room!


Navy Pier

   Late June/early July, Gordon, a friend and I went to New Orleans. What a bit of a culture shock. Everyone we met was so nice! Great southern demeanor :) Every meal we had there was amazing! We still talk about it to this day. But while we were in NOLA, we were in an accident. I was the only one hurt. At this time I can not go into details, but when things have settled, I will be sure to post the details. But made for not such a great birthday trip.

   The rest of July, and early August, was pretty low key, with what happened in NOLA, we had to stay around home. Had to get things back in order.
   Mid-August we had Gordon's mom out again, but this time she brought his cousin. We took them to Moab, UT. We did the climb (carefully) again to the Delicate Arches. We did some fun things around Denver as well. I even took his cousin to Film on the Rocks (Red Rocks amphitheater) to see Top Gun.
   In September, I took Gordon back to my home. The first day we wandered around Boston, then went home to Western Mass, we toured around Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, along with visiting my family and friends. In the middle of the month, we went back to Michigan, surprised his mom and he took me camping in northern Lower Michigan.
   In October, we went to San Francisco. What a neat city. Beautiful bridge, lots of tourist places to go, Alcatraz was my favorite. You get a handheld device that you listen to as you wander around on your own. Its has stories from former inmates by those former inmates, that were held there before it closed in March of 1963.

We went to Ghirardelli Square for chocolate and ice cream I don't know how many times. We had a good time. But on the way home, I don't think the San Francisco airport really knows what they are doing. each terminal is through a different security line? And how many times did they make us change gates, in different terminals? oh my.... 

   This month I also applied back to school. I applied to Metropolitan State University in Denver. Taking full time online courses, Social Work and Criminal Justice (as of now, never know what may happen) Also, I became a Volunteer Victim Advocate for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.
   In November, we stayed home, the only trip we took was up to Estes Park, we stayed the night at this cute place Murphy's Resort at Estes Park (which I found for a deal on Living Social) and had a great BBQ dinner at Smokin' Daves. The next day we wandered around the downtown area.
   And finally, in December we went not only back to Vegas but San Antonio. We met Gordon's mom and another cousin in Texas. We toured the Riverwalk area almost everyday, checked out the shops and eateries. One of the days, Gordon and I went to Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. You drive through this huge enclosed park area and see all different kinds of animals, which you can feed from your window, such as zebras, llamas, lots of different kinds of deer, bulls, ostriches.

 

They also have a small petting zoo for petting and feeding baby goats, they were so cute.

 

 

    Now we have come to 2015. We spent the New Year's eve evening with friends having drinks and snacks, and playing different board games.
    School starts in a couple days, and we are looking into buying a house this spring.

Until next time....