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.