Category Archives: Travel

Weekend Recap

Good Grief.

Jon hate’s it when I say that. He says it’s an ‘old person term’.

I don’t care. That’s how I feel.

We left fresh faced and full of energy for Minnesota last Friday morning in a clean and washed Aviator with a brand new bike rack attached to the back. Full of excitement and anxiousness we set out for a scenic drive through Wyoming (a way we’d never taken) and on our way pointed excitedly at all the beautiful scenery and wildlife. We had an expertly packed cooler full of healthy snacks like olives, orzo salad, cherries and blueberries. The world was our oyster.

Well.

We arrived back in Denver yesterday feeling exhausted and mentally unstable. Jon’s car was thickly caked in bugs, guts covering the windshield, with a broken bike rack pathetically hanging on the back. We drove through Nebraska (the way we always drive) and if looks could kill every single stinky cow we glared at would be on its way to the chophouse. The car was sloppily packed, our suitcases full of dirty clothes and wet swimming suits, and the cooler was empty except for a warm brick of cheese.

Minnesota whooped our butts.

It’s true, Minnesota did completely drain us, but not because it wasn’t fun. In FACT it was one of the most enjoyable trips back I have ever had. The weather was uncommonly wonderful and every day we woke up and pinched ourselves because we couldn’t believe it was happening again. We must’ve spent upwards of 10 hours a day on the boat and in the water for 8 of the 10 days we were there. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Minnesota lakes scene but when you combine that amount of sun with a constant supply of beer, mimosas and cocktails as well as skiing, wake surfing and boarding PLUS late to bed and early to rise for 10 days…you’re a hot mess by the end of it.

I shot upwards of 800 photo’s (…I know…) in those 10 days and have a chore ahead of me to get through them all. This might be the longest multi-day weekend recap of all time, but that’s the way it’s gonna work. I’ll be throwing up sections of our week in Minne here and there over the next week or two with some of the regularly scheduled programming appearing as well.

Let’s kick it off with the more ‘fresh faced’ end of our trip…the day we left.

Jon has had an obsession over the last few years with checking Mount Rushmore off of our ‘before we die’ list.

I have had an obsession with avoiding this at all costs.

Well I finally lost the battle when we decided to take a different route home that took us literally right past it. The drive was FAR more beautiful than the one we normally take and we saw tons of beautiful wildlife and scenery so I had a hard time complaining. By the time we were close to Mount Rushmore I was finally on board and at about 35% excitement to Jon’s 100%.

I will say this about the monument…the people watching was extraordinary.

The monument itself? I can’t say the same.

It’s checked off our list, which I am happy about because we can finally stop talking about it, but I’m gonna go ahead and say if you haven’t been there…you’re not missing much. When we got into the park, I noticed some faces in a hill and said to myself “huh, that must be a replica at the entrance to prepare us for the full scale giant noggins in the giant rock on the giant mountain waiting around the corner“.

Nope.

I think if you’re 6 and your parents bring you as an educational experience that it would be great and seem really huge and amazing! But when you’re 27 and have had this in your mind as being a certain way, it’s a bit disappointing. Being the supportive wife that I am, I only laughed and pointed for about 4 minutes before strapping on my ‘I’m on board’ boots and going into full on tourist mode. I snapped the required photo’s, looked at the required information, stared at the lunatics wandering around for the required amount of time before we headed back to the car for the rest of our drive.

I have evidence:

LOOK at those two ‘mericans! So patriotic : )

Weekend Recap (the best kind)

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Memorial Day weekend at Pelican Lake 2012!

Several weeks ago when Jon and I realized we hadn’t been home in almost six months, we looked for and found some perfect flights for the weekend over Memorial Day. We don’t typically go home to the lake that early in the year (brrrrr) but he was beginning to see how homesick I was getting and we had high hopes for the weather.

Minnesota, like Colorado, had an incredibly mild winter so we decided we would take the risk. He told me we would wait and see what the weather did and if it looked nasty we’d cancel our flights and re-use the fares at a later time. I told him he could enjoy a nice weekend alone in Denver because I was going even if I had to walk.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who won that battle and last Thursday we packed all of our winter/spring/summer clothes as we prepared to visit Minnesota, no matter the weather.

What I realized about Memorial weekend is that there are many things that need to get done with it being the ‘first’ main weekend at the lakes. Luckily for us we got there early on Friday and the weather was average so we didn’t feel so bad dedicating our time to getting everything all set up!

One of the main things to be done was to move the boat lifts out further from shore due to the water being so low this spring. Have to have lifts in order to have boats! All the boys were thrilled to jump into the lake for some manual labor.

A shot and a beer to numb the pain : )

Slingin’ some boulders before moving the lift. You know, normal stuff.

Nice job looking on the bright side!

Way to use team work!

Excellent use of the ‘if looks could kill’ face!

Great delegating!

Way to try and look busy!

Nice job looking warm, dry and happy!

They eventually got it moved, grabbed the rest of the Jameson and hit the sauna.

When the weather is sunny and beautiful at the cabin, life is simple. Boats, beer, sand bar, tubing and skiing. On. The. Lake. At all times.

When it’s significantly chillier, cloudy, rainy and windy – it’s time to get creative. Apparently our version of creativity is competing with one another.

Heidi and I had a ‘who can find the largest stick’ contest.

Livi and I raced everywhere we went.

Chad and Megan whooped our butts and took all our money at a dice game.

There was a shooting contest, dirt bike races, a beer pong contest, and a Zorbaz dance off.

I don’t have photo’s of all of them (lucky you) but here are a few (50).Larson for the win!

And now…onto the MAIN EVENT!

Jon, read us the rules…

“All ages can play, 21 and up can/must drink beer, may the best man win.”

Due to the delicate nature of having minors playing, we had only water in the cups and those of us legal held our own beers separately. This game was more for sport than it was drinking. I can’t say the same of the other more ‘late night’ games.

Yes, I realize he doesn’t look legal. Sadly, that just means we’re old and don’t know what 21 looks like anymore.

Jon and I made it a couple rounds…nothing to sneeze at.

A Brandt, Kinkade and Hendrickson. Family : )

Ty’s got a lot at stake for at this point he’s on the verge of losing to his 13 year old little brother!

The eventual 2nd place team!The 13 year old “Beer Pong Champ” aka “Juice Box Champ” Beginners luck some say but I credit it to his wicked victory dance skills — the T-rex.

It was a rainy Saturday, but we made the most of it. I was so happy ‘my side’ of the family came out. My parents were actually celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary that day!Please pardon the lovely garage decor.

Two of my brothers had to work : ( Luckily Greyson still made it out!

Along with my family came Miss Livi of course and she LOVES all the action at that lake. She was certainly a busy girl this weekend.

Let’s play ‘Two Words’ for these upcoming random shots shall we?

Tooth Less

Crystal ClearEvery NightAirplane Ride

Airplane Ride?Sisterly LoveSisterly love?

Tiny Babies
Doing WorkVery ScientificMama BearParty StartersDock ViewGood Boy
No ThanksSpeed DemonGathering PlaceJungle Gym?Manly MenCousin CooporationLake CeilingOnly ColePure HappinessNew BabyPelican Lake

Goof BallSir SamuelLittle RascalBush BudsBest InventionFamily Overload?Lake FoodQuietly ContentThe following are some photo’s I took of Livi in the most beautiful evening light imaginable.

This was Jon and my first trip back to the cabin as ‘married people’.

I guess I hadn’t really thought about it beforehand.

I didn’t really think about it right when we got there either.

But slowly, throughout the weekend, I began to realize that this is my family. All the people in all the photos above.

I started spending time at the Hendrickson cabin when I was 19. Afraid to get out of the car and see this boy who I had met and meet his family. T.J. was around 7 years old. Livi hadn’t even been born yet.

I’ve been coming to the cabin every year for almost 10 years (yikes!).

Now I’m family. It does feel different. It feels really good actually. Jon and I met and fell in love there and I feel very fortunate that we get to return at least once a year and be reminded of that and of those feelings. It’s the best part of being there…being there with him. It’s like a recharge for us and our relationship and now marriage. I love it there, I always have, and just like every time before it was a weekend and time very very well spent.

V’s Weekend

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A few weeks back I packed up for a trip down South to Texas. My best friend Vanessa and her fiancé are living there while he finishes up his Ph.D. at Texas A&M. Vanessa wanted to show all her girls where she’s living so we threw her a good old fashioned bachelorette party in San Antonio.

There were six of us, which if you ask me is a perfect number, and we all slept comfortably in a beautiful condo at the even more beautiful resort which was gifted to us for the weekend by some family/family friends.

We started out the first night in true bachelorette party fashion with exorbitant amounts of wine, lingerie and laughter.

Oh yeah, and corn.She was NOT comfortable handling lingerie. Love you Gina!

Drunk dialing is ALWAYS wise.

While everyone else was treating Vanessa, I decided to give Andrew a little something. You’re welcome Andrew!! You to V : )

Well one thing lead to another, and by ‘thing‘ I mean glasses of wine, and we decided we should probably break into the pool.

That’s all I can show you for the sake of modesty. We eventually tired of the pool, except we couldn’t figure out how to get out of the pool area. Security came and we thought ourselves quite convincing when we told him we had gotten there when it was still open, stayed there all along, and then whoever closed up locked us in without telling us. Brilliant.

The next morning we took full advantage of another awesome feature of the resort (legally this time)…a lazy river situated on a beach. We must’ve floated around that sucker 50 times.

It was perfect weather, a great way to get to know each other, and the catalyst for a fun night out for dinner and drinks on the River Walk.

Sorry for the signed profanity. The guy behind us was a creeper extraordinaire and wouldn’t leave us alone until we allowed him to buy us a shot and take a photo with us. He proceeded to give V his e-mail so we could ‘send’ him the photo. Oh yeah, he had a gray scraggly pony tail that went down to his ass sticking out the back of that hat. Dreamy.

I then got to spend the next couple of days in College Station with Vanessa, Andrew, their two roommates and 3 dogs. I was prepared for chaos but it was actually wonderful and I am now the proud goddogmother to Riggins, Tebow and Summer. While there I got to help nanny V’s little miss Belle, walk the dogs, help V try on her wedding dress and be part of a celebration during which someone became a Doctor. It was jam packed and really fun.

Hawaii Part 4 – Kauai!

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Welcome to the Kauai portion of the program. Please do not be alarmed by excess amounts of beauty, skyline, ocean, and spoiled rottenness.

See? It’s SO lush and green here it borderlines on too much. I’ve never been so close to sensory overload in my life. We were really excited to see Kauai and spent a lot of time trying to decide which part of the island to stay at. The decision was basically North shore vs. South shore and North won for many reasons, mainly because we wanted a change of scenery from just beaches. We had a hankering for some jurassic park style greenery and boy did we get it.

Well. THAT greeted us not 15 minutes after we stepped off the plane. To put this into perspective, that my friends is higher than Niagara Falls.

Alright fine. We’ll stay out of your dangerous waterfall and instead proceed North to our cushy hotel. We decided (on occasion of the delayed honeymoon) to spoil ourselves and Jon surprised me with a stay at the St. Regis Princeville. The whole drive up from the airport we told ourselves that the hotel couldn’t possibly be that nice, we’ll probably be disappointed, let’s manage our expectations and anticipate it being pretty average.

Ahhhhh what a bunch of dummy’s. AFTER we got through the winding road lined in flowers and beautiful tree’s, past the gorgeous homes, multiple fountains, and pristinely managed golf courses. After Jon told me to stop gaping out the window with my mouth open because I was embarrassing him…we were shown to our room. To say our expectations were exceeded is a bit of an understatement.

It’s basically a hotel made out of windows with absolutely breathtaking views of the Napali coast everywhere you look. It was spectacular.

Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson, we have upgraded your room on occasion of your honeymoon, please allow me to hang your lei’s and open this complimentary bottle of champagne while you enjoy the view.

You should have seen us trying to keep our cool until he left. At which point we started dancing and squealing and jumping on the bed. And by we I most certainly mean me. Just me.

There was a flipping lei hook in the room for goodness sake.

The amount of times we said “are you kidding me” on this leg of the vacation is pretty high. I mean – look at that photo?! It looks fake! This was the view…from our room…it’s essentially a living postcard.

Nothing was overly showy. It was all in the details at the St. Regis combined with the most world class service I’ve ever seen. Really fun to experience. All that and we haven’t even stepped outside yet!We got in the pool, turned to each other and said ‘weird…it’s the most perfect water temperature of all time’.

Then turned around and said ‘weird…it’s the most beautiful pool view ever’.

Saw these guys and declared “weird…that’s the coolest boat I’ve ever seen”.

You get my point. Everything was amazing.

We took a seat under some cabana’s to gather our thoughts and be brought delicious cocktails by a very friendly waiter. You’ll notice the difference in lighting in a lot of these pictures and that’s because it goes from cloudy to bright sun to sprinkling and back all in 15 minutes.

The waiter brought us our drinks, pushed a magic St. Regis button and just as we took our first sip, after thinking we had soaked it all in…this happened:ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! I stood up and said ‘I can’t take anymore, I need to go to the room and lie down to process this’. I opened the door to our room and the bed had been turned….down….for….me. At this point I decided to pretend to be the queen of england for the remainder of the trip and not be surprised by anything. Even if they offered to chew my food for me. Let’s move on. Stunning. Not me…the view. I’m obstructing the view! How dare I tarnish such a spectacular sight.Jon enjoying his ‘crown and pog’ (his favorite). We brought along some of our own drinks because along with tipping every person that even looks at you, you also have to deal with things like this:Oh hey! $16 for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s brought to the room + tip? That’s not so bad. Wait what? You’re telling me that’s for 2 ounces in a glass? Ummmm…go to hell.

Jon told me to settle down and informed me that we’re spoiling ourselves while in Kauai. So we enjoyed our hotel, swam in the pool, drank lots of drinks and ordered the most ridiculous sushi dinner from room service. I would like to be able to adequately express how delicious this food was…but I can’t. I just can’t with the food.

After enjoying being spoiled for two days we decided to FORCE ourselves to leave the hotel and go on a hike. Thank the gods we did because it was…you guessed it…ridiculous.

On our way to the take off spot for the hike I forced Jon to pull over because I missed the hotel too much and I thought I was going to have a panic attack. “WHO’S GOING TO OPEN ALL THE DOORS FOR ME? WHAT IF I NEED SOME ICE? WHERE WILL I HANG MY LEI? WHO WILL FAN ME WITH A FERN?!?!” Jon slapped me in the face and luckily we found a glimpse so I could get my fix.

Bye hotel….see you soon my love….

Then I opened my eyes and looked around and remembered we’re in absolute paradise.

From here we drove to the trailhead for our hike. I’m going to TRY and let the pictures speak for themselves.

It’s amazing to me that more people don’t meet their deaths on these beautiful hikes simply from looking around. The terrain was rocky and wet, not to mention one wrong step and you’re tumbling down hundreds of feet into the rocky ocean. There is so much to see that you have to stop every time you want to look around or else you’ll definitely trip and be dead. Here lies the destination of our hike:

Sweaty and muddy as hell. It was intense.

After our hike we rushed back to the hotel to get changed for our ‘every book says you should, you can not miss it, you must do this while in kauai or you’re a moron‘ helicopter tour. This is when things started to unravel.

We arrive at the helipad only to find that our helicopter tour was cancelled due to predicted rain that afternoon. We knew this was a possibility. The center of the island is the rainiest place on earth. Literally. That’s a fact. Google it. So we weren’t exactly surprised and made plans to reschedule. Well it did rain that afternoon. The thing is, it never stopped. It did not flipping stop for the rest of the trip. We made due the first 24 hours. We actually sat outside in the hot tub with an umbrella determined not to let this ruin our trip.

Turns out the helicopter tour could not be rescheduled. “That’s ok” I said, “we’ll go on the boat tour instead!” Nope. Cancelled. “That’s ok” I said, “hopefully Jon will still get to golf at the brand new world renowned princeville golf course”. Nope. Cancelled. Very sad husband.

It was tough to take. In my mind that just means we have to go back! : )

To numb our pain…we ate. We ate THE MOST incredible brunch that exists on the planet. I’m convinced. It was a whopping $60 a person (not including drinks) and after seeing the spread we did not bat an eye at the price. It maybe should have been more. I took a few photo’s but didn’t want to be super embarrassing. Turns out I was anyways because I didn’t stop eating for like 6 hours. These in no way fully explain what the hell was happening at that brunch, but I’ll throw em up anyway.

Meet Aloha Mary. She was delicious.Let’s asses. Waldorf Salad, duck gnocchi, fresh ahi with avocado, fried rice, incredible fruit, honey glazed halibut, crispy bacon, and parmesan and prosciutto wrapped asparagus. Shut. Up. My mouth is watering again. These items are approximately 1/100th of what was there. No lie. It was impossible to try everything, but try I did.

Not only was everything world class, fresh, and indescribably delicious…but it was all beautiful as well. Brunch will never be the same again. Nay. Food in general might not ever be the same again.

Don’t make me talk about the desert table. I just don’t have it in me.

Meanwhile, THIS was happening while we were enjoying our delicious brunch on a covered patio. It may not look in on the computer, but those waves are ENORMOUS. The storm had arrived. Let me try to get this through to you. These were monsoon conditions the likes of which the island hadn’t seen in 30 years. On our vacation. : (

It was raining two to three inches per hour for over 48 hours. People were stranded. Stranded at the St. Regis but STILL. We barely made it to the airport and if our flight would have left several hours later we might still be in Kauai. Don’t believe me?

Those are pickups. And not the worst of it. It was an adventure, but we were glad to finally take off after 48 indoors.

At first it felt like two days of our vacation/honeymoon were a waste. That’s just not the case. Looking back over all the photos and experiences has truly shown me how lucky we were to be able to do ANY of it. It’s been really fun to share our trip and (for those that haven’t) I hope you all get a chance to experience Hawaii someday. It’s so beautiful and everything the books tell you it is. I just wouldn’t recommend visiting Kauai during peak rainy season, unless you hate the outdoors and sunshine.

This FINALLY concludes the Hawaii recaps. Thanks for reading and for all of you that have already said such nice things about the photo’s – to me, to Jon, on Facebook or wherever – thank you so very, very much.

Hawaii Part 3 – Wedding Day!

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Hi everyone! Here are Jon, myself and a stop sign waiting for the party bus to take us to the wedding. Aren’t our outfits lovely? You can almost see all of them. : )

Just reiterating what I said in the last post about every disastrous photo I am in.

I digress.

HERE IT IS! The wedding post. But first, another note about the photo’s before we begin. Out of respect for the beautiful couple getting married, I’m only going to upload a few (a bunch) of my favorites from the ceremony and keep the rest just for them, at least until I get the go ahead from them and I’ll do a later post.

The day was perfect, even with the appointed resort photographer bossing everyone around and being as cheesy as is humanly possible. He was the butt of everyone’s jokes for the rest of the night. He also allowed me to appear completely competent, sane and totally awesome. : )

Taylor and Amy were so gracious with wanting me to help document their day. I really got my first taste of shooting a wedding and it was really really fun and addicting. I was thrilled that they were so relaxed about the photo’s because it took a lot of the pressure off. I tried to get the images I would have wanted were it my wedding while remaining as discreet as possible.

A few things I do realize:

I realize that I know them both, most of their friends and have met their families. This makes things easier. I also know that they are both attractive people getting married in Hawaii and that it’s pretty tough to mess THAT up. What ELSE I realize (bear with me I’m about to compliment myself and it’s very hard) is that I have an ability to anticipate a shot and can wait to click the shutter until it counts. I used to work for photographers who would shoot thousands of photos at a wedding, almost like a video, to be absolutely sure they didn’t miss anything. To me, that’s not talent. That’s risk management. I am trying to believe in my talent. For some reason it’s so so hard for me. But I am so grateful to them for giving that tiny bit of belief to me.

Enough about that. It’s wedding time.

The best part about this wedding is how relaxed and unpretentious it was. Above we have Taylor’s beautiful sister Chelsea applying their momma’s makeup…on the bus…on the way to the hotel. They’re both so adorable (love the yurman btw chels)!

The groom on the way to meet his bride. Nerves? Heat? Both? Who cares (have to give this photo credit to Jon…I had a horrible angle) it’s sweet.

Entourage.

Andy modeling like a pro in MY FAVORITE chairs from Restoration Hardware. Love it.

I’m going to pretend they’re not talking about business. : )

That handsome guy? He’s mine. Sorry ladies.

Here we go! Walking to the ceremony site…

My legs must look HORRIBLE for the amount the ‘photographers’ cut them out.

CUTIES! Love them.

Ugh. We’re truly less mental than this ‘looking every which way’ photo. Sorry girls.

Here comes the Maid of Honor…

…here comes the bride…

It’s official!!The wedding took place a little way down the coast from Kaanapali in Wailea at Makenna Point. I thought it was great they had the ceremony up on a bluff rather than your typical island wedding in the sand. It provided such an amazing backdrop for their sunset wedding.After the ceremony we headed over to Duke’s for a intimate wine filled dinner with FABulous food. The mens…as Leah would say.Oh weird! It’s blurry and I’m in it!

Sister Love : )Amy’s beautiful sister giving a beautiful speech.Jon – Ryan – Taylor – Nick – Mark – AndyBonnie – Ali – Kelsey – Amy – Chelsea – Lauren – Leah – Janna

There we have it! It was a great day with close friends that took place smack dab in the middle of an unbelievable vacation. It was perfect. Jon and I were so happy to be there with everyone, but we had some plans of our own that involved us flying out of Maui the next morning to visit Kauai for the first time! Check back for some pictures of the MOST BEAUTIFUL of the Hawaiian Islands as well as the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

Aloha~

Hawaii Part 2 – Maui Continued…

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Before we delve right in to part 2 of Hawaii, I have to make a note. I had SUCH a blast with my new camera on our trip. I was worried that I would spend all my time behind the camera and miss out on the vacation but that was certainly not the case. It was so much fun to be able to shoot quality beautiful photographs that I couldn’t wait to get behind the lens. I loved every minute of my time in Hawaii whether I was taking photos or not. However, there is a downside to being the ‘photographer’ on the trip. I am actually in less than 15 photos and most of them are sort of awkward, that is if they’re not super blurry. No offense to Jon or anyone else that used my camera to get me in a photo because being handed a giant nikon and loads of pressure is no fun. I only mention this because going through these posts I’m hard to come by. It’s half really nice (because nobody likes being photographed) and half kind of a bummer (because who would know I even went). I’ve decided to be better about asking for what I actually want in a photo as well as training Jon on how to use my camera.

ANYWAY…

As it is with a lot of weddings, the night before there was a hosted grooms/rehearsal dinner for all of the guests in Hawaii. It was in Wailer’s Village and was really relaxed and fun. We began the night at the condo some of our friends were staying in and ended the night with a few of the group skinny dipping in the ocean. I’ve been quite selective about which photo’s I’ve included in this post : )

Mix Master RyGuySee what I mean about photos I’m in?

How many Mai Tai’s did we consume on this vacation I wonder?

Siblings.

Awww…so cute Nick and Leah!…see what I mean…again?

It was so fun to watch Taylor and Amy the night before getting married alternate between glowing bliss and giggling disbelief. Adorable.

The morning of the wedding Jon and I took some time for ourselves to visit a couple of our favorite places from the last time we visited Maui. It was an overcast day which provided amazing lighting for some fun landscape and close up shots. We started the morning searching for a rumored blow hole that we didn’t find the last trip…or this trip. Luckily the search takes place in some amazing places so we didn’t mind too much.

This photo can’t be blamed on anyone/thing except the camera self timer. LOVE this photo of the waves. The blue’s were so subdued that day.Favorite. Framing It.Another favorite. It’s so cool to see the splashes of orange in red in the sea of black rock.After our hiking in flip flops adventure we headed over to Honolua Bay so Jon could do some snorkeling in his favorite spot! I was worn out from being in the water all week so I stayed on shore and…snapped photos!Jurassic Park.Obsessed with the trees at Honolua…One of my favorite shots of all time. This little guy and I danced around for about 15 minutes until I snagged these shots.There you have it! We’ve still got the wedding and Kuaui to get through…whew. Think I can do it in two more posts? Thanks for reading!