Jan!

Jan, one of Julie's friends from college, came to Colorado in early July to visit us and play with our baby!  We had a full schedule planned, and my mom agreed to take the kid so the three of us could have a fun day doing fun adult things.

We took Noah to his first ever baseball game, and it was even more fun because it was Jan's first AAA baseball game.  She was excited that we could sit so close to the action, and we even got the cheap seats.  After the game we went to a restaurant that Julie has been wanting to try for a while now, called the Wines of Colorado.  It is up Highway 24, just a little bit up Ute Pass, and they let you try all sorts of wines for free, then get some dinner afterwards.  Julie and Jan enjoyed tasting all kinds of wines, and afterwards we all had buffalo burgers and enjoyed the cool mountain air.

The girls and the kid

Noah isn't great at pictures yet

Ready for dinner!

The next day we dropped the kid off at my mom's house (thanks Nana!) and made our way up to Golden, CO so we could check out the Coors brewery tour.  Normally we drive right up, get on the shuttle, take our tour and drink our samples and that's the end of it.  Unfortunately this is their busy season, so we had an hour wait for the shuttle, so we let Jan do the tour (which is self-guided in the summer, lame!) and and we met her down in the tasting room.  We had to hurry a bit because we had an appointment to make...an appointment with whiskey!

At Coors enjoying our samples

That's right, Colorado whiskey made by Stranahan's in Denver.  They are a fairly new distillery and they make their own whiskey right in the factory and they give tours a few days a week.  You need reservations to go on the tour, fortunately Julie signed us up weeks in advance, because it filled up completely.  The tour is pretty standard, you see the facility, check out the barrels they age it in, and talk about whiskey. The tasting was really nice, the guide gave us a shot, and we sipped it once straight, then added some water and tasted it again, the flavor completely changed.  We bought some souvenirs and went to find some dinner.

The girls at Stranahan's.

The tasting room, the whiskey is all set up for us

The three of us in front of the huge tanks

This won't be ready to drink for a few years

Julie checking out all the barrels

The bottling room and an empty

Out front

Fortunately Breckenridge Brewery is right down the road in Denver.  Even though they are named Breckenridge, most of their beer is brewed in Denver, and even better they have a BBQ restaurant attached to the facility.  We ate some great BBQ, picked up our kid and went to sleep.  It was a great day!

Getting ready for the BBQ

Jan unfortunately left the next day so Julie and her hung around the town while I went back to work.  We had a great time, and hope we get to hang out with Jan again soon!