"I thought the Rocky Mountains would be a little.....Rockier"

Meet Boulder...

Ever wonder why the Rocky Mountains were named Rocky?
This is the other side of Boulder/Louisville/Denver...
Now that's more like it!

To answer your questions, YES. Colorado is everything we thought it would be.

Below are some things I have learned (or confirmed):

1. It's true. The people here are very outdoorsy. Example: We were eating dinner with some people in our ward and Tim said, "I like to hike, I'm just not one of those people who goes to REI every week." One of the guys said, "Yeah, It took me two years of working at REI to get my equipment."
2. They are also very organic. Example: Tim and I stopped by the Louisville Farmers Market one Saturday and ended up talking to the people who deliver milk straight from the farm. Real milkmen. We weren't opposed to the idea except that it was about twice as much as milk from the grocery store. While we were with our neighbors from our ward, Tim saw that they had that same milk in their fridge. Oh, and we ate hormone-free, other-stuff-free hamburgers for dinner.
3. Boulder is a diverse place. Example: in Tim's anti-harassment class on campus for being a TA, they said you must be very considerate on calling someone a "he" or "she" if "he/she" is in the process of changing their gender. It's a delicate subject.
4. There are a lot of people who stand on the exit ramps holding weird signs. We wondered if they have to unofficially rent them out. Example: On our way to Estes Park we stopped at an intersection in the middle of nowhere. A man with an arm sling held a sign saying "Wounded soldier. I need to get home to my daughter in Texas." Yes this sounds sincere, but he was on the ramp to go North. ?
5. Everyone rides their bike. Example: I got mine out and rode to the library yesterday. I haven't ridden in two years, but I figured if everyone else did, I needed to, too. My bum is sore today.
6. The weather here is wonderful! It gets warm during the middle of the day, but the evenings are perfect! We don't even have air conditioning.
7. Dogs are citizens in the city of Boulder. For example: Tim was sitting in class and a dog walked in. A girl went in after it, and instead of apologizing, she said, "wrong classroom" and proceeded to take the dog next door. Example #2: I was going on a hike with the neighbor from church and she said, "Can you believe dogs aren't allowed in REI? They can go in Marshalls next door but can't go in REI?"
8. Yes. Subarus are very prevalent in Colorado. Have you ever seen Catch and Release? Its not a very good movie, but it takes place in Boulder and they drive a Subaru Outback. They did a good job of portraying the population.
9. Colorado is BEAUTIFUL! For example: see my post coming next week.
10. The kicker: Marijuana is legal for "medicinal purposes" in the city of Boulder. For example:

and:

Though I didn't take these pictures, I have seen these signs in person. Don't worry, I'm not interested.
I hope you enjoyed my orientation to Colorado.

Tanaya on Tour

We've just started settling into our new home in the Rocky Mountains, but before I do any Colorado posts, I wanted to share pictures from my fun trip with my family. A few days after we arrived here, I left Tim behind (he had Math Camp) and went on tour. To family, I mean.

I flew into Salt Lake City and stayed with TJ for a few days. I FINALLY got to meet my new niece Hailey! She's getting so big, but she's adorable...I spent lots of time with Kate and Jonas. My parents came up for our cousin Kristen's wedding and they brought cute gifts for Kate and Jonas. Jonas got a tool belt and Kate got a princess outfit. I don't think either of them took the outfits off for two days straight! We went to Golden Corral and the waitresses smiled and said "Look at Handy Manny" to Jonas.
On Saturday morning I was running around Santaquin and I realized they were celebrating some kind of fruit days. I ended up joining the 5K (it happened to be on my route...and there weren't many places to run in that town), then I saw them getting ready for a parade! Once I got home, I made everyone get ready so we could watch. It was one of the highlights of my trip! Jonas had a hard time picking the candy up with the cool tool belt my parents got him!
Watching the parade!
I also took Kate and Jonas on a Treasure Hunt to find gold from Costa Rica!
Friday night was my cousin Kristen and Rocky's wedding. It was in Dale and Jennalee's back yard and it was beautiful! There was some crazy wind and even some rain, but everyone's faith held strong and the weather ended up being beautiful for the Ceremony and Dinner. I also had fun seeing family I hadn't seen for over two years!
I drove to St. George with my parents and they surprised me by getting tickets to Tuacahn's Tarzan! I went with my dad and had a really great time!
It was a little strange having the entire ensemble as gorillas, but they did some awesome tricks. Some of the actors in the Playbill had the role of "acrobat." I didn't take any pictures, but I stole some from the website...
I continued my tour on Tuesday driving with my mom and Ben to Phoenix to visit Mindy's family. As you can tell in the pictures, Makayla and Will received the same "outfits" as Kate and Jonas and looked just as adorable! We had to stay indoor most of the time because it was Phoenix in August, but we did manage to go to the splash pad!
The biggest part of my trip to Phoenix was, again, meeting my new nephew Henry! He's a little chunker, too. He's only two days older than Hailey, but almost twice as heavy! I love nieces and nephews!
I had to do my treasure hunt at the splash pad because it was the only place outdoors that we could handle. This is the kids looking for an "X"
Ben was a good sport all week. These kids just love him, but I think he was worn out by this picture. (You can even see Bruiser sniffing his feet)
Another wonderful trip with family!

Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio

We spent a few days in Quepos, visiting in and around Manuel Antonio National Park. The park had a few shorter hikes through the rain forest, but it is known for it's beautiful beaches.(Notice the monkey behind Tim in the picture above)Monkeys there are like squirrels in the United States. They are everywhere and are so cute!
Our hotel situation was crazy the entire time. In Montezuma, we went to a place we had reservations for and there was a guy sitting out on his porch without a shirt on. He talked us into NOT staying there. We didn't want to anyway. In Quepos, we got to our rooms late at night and had to HIKE up a huge hill into a yucky room with no a/c or hot water. We upgraded the next day and got a two bedroom suite with a kitchen. We ended up cooking our own delicious meals!
And back to the beach for some boogie boarding!

I sure do love the beach!

I had heard about the Villa Vanilla, a spice plantation nearby. We were to cheap to go on the tour, but we did visit their "store" -a cabinet with lots of spices. The guy there was really nice and gave us the mini-tour in spanish. Tim translated and we ended up having a good time! We even saw cocoa beans growing on trees!After a nice stay by Manuel Antonio, we drove back into the city and realized how Americanized San Jose was (although we were glad for clean rooms and regular food by then). We saw some beautiful scenery on the way including crocodiles.We stopped on the way to eat lunch by a harbor in an even more Americanized community.



I don't really have any pictures of San Jose, but we just relaxed for the last night. It was a great experience, but we were glad to be in the good old USA!

Montezuma and Tortuga Island

Costa Rica Part 3: Finally! After a fun time by Arenal, we took a detour to Montezuma to take a boat tour to Tortuga Island. The detour ended up being a bit longer than we were expecting and included a ferry ride...
After the ferry, we ended up on some crazy dirt roads with a few unexpected guests...It was a little scary.
As was the town of Montezuma. It is a total hippie town with a lot of partying going on...Kind of like the Boulder of the US, but we'll talk about that later.
I had to steal this picture of the dreds from Amelia because it was just so great!
Montezuma did have it's pretty partsThe next morning we took off on our boat adventure to Tortuga Island. I absolutely LOVED the boat ride and the scenery was incredible! We stopped for a while to go snorkeling then the tour guys made us a delicious lunch.
We spent the afternoon on Tortuga Island basking in the sun...and shade. It was hot! The picture below is also courtesy of Amelia. Apparently her camera made things look a lot prettier than mine.

Arenal and La Fortuna

After an exciting drive through mountains, over bridges, and around other crazy drivers, we arrived in the town of La Fortuna. The area is famous for having an active volcano called Arenal. This was actually my favorite stop in Costa Rica. It helped that we had a cute cabin...

The town with the volcano right next to it

The first thing we did was take a hike through the rain forest on hanging bridges.

There were some amazing views!That evening we went to some hot springs. This particular site had about 15 pools. Each were different temperatures. We ate dinner there, but not in the water. Take a look at the top left picture. The bar stools are in the water!

On our second day in La Fortuna, we hiked to a better view of the volcano. It was crazy because some of the hike looked like desert and other parts were rain forest. I liked this hike because Tim and I got our first taste of Costa Rican monkeys! We saw 5! (Pictures to come)

We also did a short hike to a huge, beautiful waterfall. Jon and Tim got in, but the water was freezing-No thanks!