Butterflies and Beers

We’ve had an interesting weather pattern here in Colorado lately.
Every other day has been gorgeous – high 50s and sunny, and the next day it snows. When it snows, I start cooking.
My daily breakfast – a hot boiled egg, my recently baked (on a snowy day) Whole Wheat Sugarless Banana Cake Bread (subbed dates for raisins) and copious amounts of coffee.
I also made some raw oat date bars from this recipe but added chocolate chips and dried cherries to the mix. MASSIVE pain in the ass to make, but definitely delicious and probably worth it. Note: do NOT try to make this in your Vitamix! I burned out the engine and ended up needing to chisel all of the oat/date cement out of the bottom to transfer into a food processor. Luckily, the Vitamix lived. Le phew!

Yesterday turned out to be a nice day, so my bestie Michelle and I met up in Westminster at the Butterfly Pavilion!
I’ve actually been here once before about sixteen (holy crap, I’m old) years ago. It was one of the designated field trip locations for all of the local schools, and still is. We were surrounded by little halflings who were running around and shrieking at everything they saw.
We wandered into the big bug room first, glancing into all the cages and letting out our own little gasps of, “Ewwwww!” and “Look how big that one is!” and “EWWWW!”. We resort to ten year old status when we’re together. I love that about her.
Then we did what we haven’t done in sixteen years – WE HELD ROSIE!!!
We even got the traditional “I Held Rosie” sticker and wore them proudly for the rest of the day.
More squeals and gasps from us.
“It moved when I touched it!”
We went through the double doors into the butterfly section where it was a balmy 80 degrees and humid.
And now commences too many pictures of butterflies, flowers and other animals.
They have a glassed off section where all of the chrysalises hang protected.
Then it was time for the daily release of newly emerged butterflies. We joined the gaggle of kids to learn a little more about the flutterbys and watch them fly away.
Ah, Alex. So majestic.
After the release we headed through the gift shop where picked up necessities – cheap plastic friendship butterfly rings, honey sticks and glittery tattoos. I’m proudly sporting one on my wrist as I type.
Then we I pretended to be a spider. Just because. Oh, and that thing on my wrist?
That’s my early birthday present to myself! A FitBit Force. As I type this, I’ve walked 5,274 steps, burned 953 calories, climbed 4 flights of stairs and walked 2.37 miles.
When we finally emerged through the doors to the outside, it had started to get a little chilly, so we headed across the way to Tuk Tuk Thai (an old spot I used to go to when I was in middle school after seeing movies with my friends) for some hot Tom Kha Gai.
Then it was time for beer! Big Choice Brewing is located in Broomfield, my old hometown.
We brought in some Beef ‘n Cheddar sammiches from Arby’s cuz we’re healthy like that, and spent the rest of the afternoon sampling all ten brews, reminiscing on old times and laughing about our crazy current lives.
I ended up going home with a growler of their #42 Poblano Stout – rich and roasty with all of the smoky flavor of a Poblano chile without the spice. I tried this for the first time back at the Gnarly Barley Festival and absolutely adored it. AND I got to carry it home in this awesome Christmas present from Michelley!
She knows me so well! We parted ways and I almost made it home before the chilly rain turned into snow and coated our ground yet again.

Have you ever tried out any fitness toys like the FitBit? It might not be accurate, but it’s still fun!