February 2010

Phil and I started off February slow (except for a fun Super Bowl party at a friends home) and uneventful with no pictures taken until Valentine's Day weekend came along.

We planned a little getaway to the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs. The kiddies were able to come with us since the Broadmoor is a pet-friendly resort. Gator and Ali are very excited!
Friday after work, we packed our bags and the kiddies and headed down to Colorado Springs. It took us close to an hour to get there.
They were not kidding when they said that they were a pet-friendly resort. Gator and Ali got their own envelope of check-in information with dog tags that read "official guests of the Broadmoor."
They also each got a pet bed, a food bowl, and a welcome gift bag with gourmet doggy biscuits.
The Broadmoor is nestled at the base of the Cheyenne Mountain and the resort has a beautiful golf course that holds PGA and LPGA tournaments. The weather was too cold for golf, but I already know that we will be back soon with our golf gear.
Here, Phil is trying to figure out where things are and what to have for dinner.

We went out in the brisk night to check out the grounds of the resort. It is hard to see in this picture below, but I am standing right by the lake that separates the main building and the West Wing, where we stayed.
We walked around and found a small theater, a nice fitness center and pools, spa, restaurants, tennis courts, and many shops. We couldn't figure out what to have to dinner, so we ended up having room service the first night.
The next morning, we woke up to a beautiful day.
The picture above is taken from our balcony and the building straight ahead is the main resort building. The white snow filled ground is the lake that I mentioned earlier. We decided to check out the fitness center and the pool in the morning, and got our workout in.
We went out in town to find something yummy to eat and stumbled across this Italian place called, "Mollica's Italian Market". I had the most yummy sandwich that I've ever tasted.
Afterwards, we headed towards the "Seven Falls".

We drove into the park, but we u-turned right back around. Apparently the falls are all frozen and the only thing open is the giftshop at the top. So, our back up plan was to head to the zoo that is nestled right in the Cheyenne Mountain.

I have never fed giraffes before at a zoo. You can buy three crackers for a dollar and these giraffes will come to you with their long tongue out for those crackers.

We also saw two fighting zebras. It was interesting to see so many animals that I always thought needed the hot African climate to survive, living in a zoo in Colorado Mountain.

This one zebra kept going after the other and head butting him and stuff. Finally the other one kicked his back legs up and taught the other one a lesson. We were watching the entire thing, it was crazy! This was definitely the best zoo experience I've ever had. We saw so many different, and unique animals. I'll just post some more pictures of them.

We took so many more pictures, but I won't bore you more with all of them.

We had passed by some Mexican restaurants earlier and since Phil LOVES Mexican food, we decided to stop at one for dinner.

As you can see Phil is very happy with his order of Fajitas.

And, I am very happy with my order of a gigantic burrito. We gave this place a two thumbs up approval.

You would think that was a really good Valentine's day, but there was one more thing waiting for us when we got back to our hotel room.

This was part of the Valentine's day package deal.

We wish all of you a belated Happy Valentine's Day!!

The next day morning, we slowly got ready to head back to Denver.

But first, we went down and had an amazing Sunday brunch. Now that I'm writing this blog, it feels like all we really did was eat during this mini vacation.

The kiddies got to take a final walk around the resort grounds before we left.

Thank you Broadmoor for the beautiful weekend. We had so much fun, that I'm already planning when we are going to return back.

Nothing else very exciting happened for the rest of the February, except we went downtown one night to celebrate with one of our Oral Surgeon friends who just took his board certification exam.

Congratulations Jeremy!

January 2010

It is a Korean tradition to make and eat "dduk guk" on the morning of New Year's day. The only problem was that I didn't know how to make it. I asked my mom and she told me that I needed to buy some ox tail bone and boil it for a few hours, and then cool it off to skim off the fat, then repeat it again for a few days until the water becomes a milky color. Well, that just sounded too complicated for what I wanted to do. So, I asked for a short-cut version and this is what it looked like:

As you can see, the broth is not a milky color at all, because I used beef broth instead. However, Phil did not know the difference and enjoyed it just as much as he would have enjoyed the authentic version. Maybe, next year, I'll prepare for it ahead of time to have the correct version of "dduk guk"

January was not too busy for us. Kiddies are always on one of us like this and sleep most of the time. They have the easiest lives ever.

We went to another Nuggets game in Jan. Thanks to many specialists who give us free tickets to these sporting events, we get spoiled.

Here is one of our favorite players. His name is Chris Andersen, but he is better known as the "birdman". In this picture, he doesn't have his signature hair-do, though.
I know it is not nice to make fun of people, but at this game, there was this security guy who was totally stuck in 60's or 70's with his two sizes too tight uniform and his John Travolta in Grease hair-do. It was too funny to pass up the photo op.

Here are pictures of Gator and Ali chewing on their raw hides. They love these things.

The last weekend of January, I traveled down to Dallas, TX to see my best friend, Leslie. She lives in this really cool, contemporary apartment where she could simply call the concierge to go up to her apartment to walk her dog if she is out and about. Isn't that so cool?
Tucker is Leslie's baby. I hadn't seen Tucker since Dental school and boy he looked healthier than I remembered and so well behaved. I was very impressed with this new Tucker.

Leslie and Steve took me to this Tex-Mex place.
Very delicious!!! Apparently Tex-Mex is what most of us think Mexican food is.

Here is the happy couple.

December 2009

The first week of December was the coldest it has been since we've moved to Denver. There were days where the highest temperature only reached mid 20's and the lowest temperature went down to -10 degrees.

This picture was taken around 4pm in the afternoon. Burr...

Not knowing how cold it was going to get, Phil and I signed up to run in the "Colder Boulder" the first Saturday of December. Leslie gave us some good advice on cold weather running gear, and we braved the weather and headed to Boulder.
I think the temperature was in the high 20's or low 30's. Once we started running, we forgot how cold it was. We were glad that it was only a 5K, and I was happy for the free Chick-fil-a sandwich at the end.

The next weekend, we went to downtown Denver to watch the "Parade of Lights". We stayed for only about 30 minutes and then chickened out to find a place to eat dinner because it was so cold.
We also saw Rocky, the Nuggets mascot. He is really funny.
Next year, we think we might plan ahead and book a hotel room to enjoy the show. We found out that the Brown Palace (one of the oldest hotel in Denver) allows dogs and they also have a pet pampering package where they bring in a portable pet bed and special Brown Palace pet food and bowls. Doesn't that sound great?

As a Christmas gift to my staff, I took them to a show downtown called, "Girls Only". We laughed so much and had an amazing time, that we all decided to do a "Girl's night" every month from now on. I strongly recommend this show to all ladies out there.

Phil and I went to the Nuggets game again. Phil is really good at finding good tickets last minute.

Here are close up pics of Carmelo and Chauncey.

Troy and his son, Henry came for a visit just before Christmas. Troy wanted to take Henry to his first NFL game and we were able to get awesome club level seats to the Broncos vs Raiders game. Too bad that we lost, but it was a great way to watch the game.

The kiddies enjoyed the company of Henry and Troy. Ali is usually not so friendly to our visitors, but she loved Henry.
Merry Christmas Everyone!!!
I'm sure most of you have already seen this picture. When we took this picture, we meant for the kiddies to be looking at the camera, but for some reason, they decided to stare at each other. It was too funny and we decided we had to make this one our Christmas picture.

Gator does not like wearing clothes. He gets all sad and usually goes into his house. He wore his "Christmas sweater" all day though and was mostly happy.
Ali, on the other hand, loves wearing clothes. It must be the dry winter weather that causes a lot of static and it causes Ali's hair to go in all different directions.

Christmas morning started with waking up, making Cinnamon pull-aparts (monkey bread), and then opening presents. Christmas morning monkey bread has become one of the Johnson family traditions.
Obviously, I did most of the opening of the presents. Don't worry, I did let Phil open couple of them. The kiddies were very curious as well.
OMG, what is this? Santa got me an Edward doll from Twilight. I love it!!!

After all the presents were opened, Phil and the kiddies are back on the recliner.
We got invited to my boss's house for Christmas dinner. The kiddies were also invited and had fun playing with Bernie (their Bernese Mountain dog).

Here are two pictures of Gator and Ali sleeping.
Gator is usually on the bed by the fireplace, but Ali loved to sleep underneath the tree for some reason. Aren't they so cute?

This was taken the day after Christmas day. Can you see something that's different? That's right, the kiddies got a brand new bed and it is more fluffy and comfy than the old one. They seem to love it, don't they?
Happy New Year Everyone! We hope that 2010 will bring much joy and happiness to all of you.

November 2009

Wow, I have been really behind in our blog updates. I am really sorry. I blame it all on the Twilight Saga that has taken away a lot of my free time. Now that I have read the Saga twice and watched the first movie enough times to memorize all the lines, and have seen New Moon, I finally have found the time to put together all the past blogs.

November was the month of visitors. My parents came up and stayed for one week. Then they left to go see my sister and while they were gone, Phil's parents came for their first visit. My parents then came back for another week before they flew back home to Florida.

My parents came in right after our biggest snow storm and luckily, the weather warmed up very quickly, melting almost all the snow right away.

Of course, we took this opportunity to hit the golf course. 6 of the 18 holes still had snow on the course. I was glad that we were able to play golf at least one time, especially at my favorite course.

Phil's parents came right before another big snow storm.

We took them to a teppanyaki place for dinner. The chef was really funny and the food was very delicious. We had a great time. Take a look at some of the great action pics we took!


It was also mom Johnson's birthday, and to celebrate we all went to see the broadway show "Wicked".

Don't they look so much alike? Phil says when dad didn't have any gray hair, people thought they were brothers.

We all really enjoyed this show, and would highly recommend it to everyone. We had so much fun. Mom Johnson liked it so much she bought all kinds of Wicked stuff!

My parents came back just when all the snow had melted. They could not have planned out their trip any better.

We went out to eat at the best Korean bbq restaurant in Denver (according to us), called Seoul BBQ. We were so hungry, that we totally forgot to take a picture of the food before we ate it all! It's hard to tell in this picture, but there is a grill right in the middle of the table, where we grill the meat (or meats) of our choice. We also get unlimited side dishes, about 10-12 different kinds of fun stuff. If you love Korean food, this restaurant should definitely be on your list of places to visit in Denver.

All the visitors left us just before Thanksgiving, and I was not motivated to do a big Thanksgiving dinner for just the two of us.

It took us no more than an hour to prepare our meal, yet it was one of the most delicious meals we've had on Thanksgiving. Thanks to Honeybaked Ham store, we had the most yummy ham and turkey. We finished this meal just in time for the highlight of the night.

The Broncos Game!!!
This was our first Broncos game at Invesco field at Mile High and my first NFL game I have ever been to!!! It was so exciting, especially because we won!

Here is our new young coach, Josh McDaniels, in his two sizes too big sweat shirt. :)

Here is the final score board.

Thanks for visiting our blog. I'll make sure to update the next blog on time.

October 2009

We had a very mellow month of October. Week days are usually uneventful with our normal routine with work and coming home to our cutest little dogs.

On the weekends...

This is usually how you would have found me, on a couch with my Twilight book.

This is how I usually found Phil on Sundays, eyes fixed on NFL football. Thanks to Direct TV's red zone channel, Phil doesn't need to change channels between games. It constantly shows football, with no commercial breaks, jumping from game to game.

Of course, on Saturdays, we continue to cheer for the Gators. All wins so far this year!

This month, we decided to dress up our garage a little bit. Our neighbor talked us into this garage floor coating. This is suppose to help it keep it nice, and to help keep it clean.

It does look really nice. It is too bad that we don't spend more time in the garage.

I came to realize that Halloween doesn't mean a whole lot unless you have young children. However, this year we had an excuse to dress up for Halloween. An event coordinator from Aspen Grove Mall asked my office if we could put up a booth for the "trick or treat street".

I dressed up as a tooth fairy and Phil was a ghost buster. We handed out more than 1000 tooth brushes and toothpastes. Many parents appreciated receiving something other than candy.

To end the month, we had the biggest snow storm of the year and the biggest snow storm I've seen yet. It is really pretty to watch it snow, but it is the opposite of fun to drive in it.


The best thing about Denver is that right after the snow storms, it is back to blue skies with sunny weather. It is the most beautiful place I've lived in.