My First Visitor!

This past weekend I had my first visitor, my sister, come out and stay. For those of you who don't know, she's three years older than me and lives in Lincoln. We are identical yet polar opposites in so many ways, it's pretty funny, so trying to schedule a weekend we would both enjoy was quite the challenge. I like to be outside doing stuff, she'd prefer not to. She likes to go shopping, I get bored quickly. Don't get me wrong - I looooooove to shop. But somewhere between high school and now, my ability to just shop for hours for nothing in particular just left my body. I like to get in and out and move along with my day. So.....I wasn't sure what to do with her - because the hostess in me (which is not much) wanted to make sure she had a great time while on vacation.

When she flew into town Thursday, we went to Beau Jo's pizza. Before I even moved out here, I heard about this place all the time. This was my second time visiting and it left me as stuffed as it did the first time. I definitely recommend it - and for those of you who like the challenge....there's a 14-pound pizza you can try, if you dare!!

Friday, while I was at work, Mel walked around the 16th street mall and then I met up with her and some friends for dinner at Sonoda's for sushi. It was my first sushi attempt in Colorado - and I still love it! We were both pretty exhausted afterward so we decided to head home. Before we did, though, we went to the Tattered Cover, a bookstore in LoDo to check it out. Condoleeza Rice was speaking there that night - and although we didn't actually see her or stay for the speech, it's still pretty neat to say we were there (regardless of which side you're on).

Saturday I had quite the day planned for her. We got up early and hiked Castle Rock. This was going to be the biggest challenge of the trip. Castle Rock is only about a mile hike, but my sis wasn't feeling it. I can't believe she actually went! But she seemed to enjoy it (once we got done and were heading down) and maybe, just maybe I'll get her to try a longer one next time! Here's proof that we made it, with Devil's Head (or the Sleeping Indian) in the background:

After the hike, we did some quick shopping at the outlet malls and then headed north to Hammond's candy store. I read about this place online. Apparently it's supposed to be really popular, although every Denverite that I talked to and had never heard of it. They had free tours, and we both like candy so figured it was a win-win. The tour, however, wasn't that impressive - but we did get to see how they make candy canes! And this place makes 1,000,000 candy canes every year for Christmas time! Unfortunately, we didn't get to see them making any of their chocolate, but that's what we both went home with after the tour - and it's very yummy!!!! Here is stretching the white part of the candy cane. Interesting fact: the white actually starts at as a dark amber color, they stretch it on these machines and it adds air and makes it turn white.

After the candy factory we went back down to the 16th street mall to kill time before the hockey game. Little did we know, Denver was doing their zombie walk that night. I had never heard of this before (even though, apparently it's very common) and I will for sure be avoiding it from now on! Denver was trying to beat the record (set in Chicago at around 3,400 people) and I'd be shocked if they didn't get it. It was definitely entertaining but based on some of the zombies we saw, some people are very disturbed! A lot of people took red jello, pretended it was brains and were eating it - gross! My sister loved it - but I will be having nightmares for the next couple of weeks....thanks.

This one was probably my favorite. Mary Poppins: Zombie. She had the costume down perfect!!

To end the night, and the weekend, we went to the Avalanche game. My sister is a hardcore hockey fan - even does fantasy hockey - so she was in heaven all night! Especially because my friend April, hooked us up with awesome seats in the 4th row for the game! The Avalanche lost, but it was still a great game to watch and my sister loved it - which is really all that matters. Thanks April for the awesome tickets!!

All in all, it was a great weekend and I got to experience a lot of new things in Denver along with my sister! And we got what is turning out to be one of the last weekends in the city before we start to freeze our butts off - yay! So who's coming out next?!