Spring Break

We spent another fun spring break in Colorado earlier this month. Allen really wanted to come up and hang for the week so it was a little bit shorter than usual (he usually drives me up and flies home to work for the week and then flies back up to drive me home). We still packed in lots of fun though we didn't get to everything on our list. We drove up after work on Tuesday night.

Wednesday:

Slept in a bit and then headed to the Littleton Historical Museum. This is a must do every time we go to CO and my kids love it, just like I did growing up. We got lucky this year and were there right when they milked the cows. The kids all gave it a try (I looooove having adventurous kids!)


I gave it a go and the the kids were thrilled and surprised to find that Allen is an expert milker. He hand milked cows twice a day all growing up and he has not lost his touch! The workers were even surprised at his skill. Who knew?

In the children's museum:
We spent the afternoon visiting with our CT friends, the Crocketts. Somehow I never manage to get pictures of us together. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and had a fun time catching up. That evening I went to RS Enrichment with my mom, who is the leader in her ward and had fun seeing old friends!

Thursday: we headed into Denver and had lunch at Cafe Rio and then went to the Denver Natural Science museum (it has a different name now). I knew we had to get the traditional T-Rex shot at the entrance and I was laying on the ground for this one.
They had a special exhibit on reptiles there that we spent a lot of time at. This is Emery's newest funny face. She does it all the time and we have no idea where it came from!
With the boa:
This huge lizard LOVED Addie. It stayed this way the entire time she stood there. When she moved, it moved. We even had her walk away and come back a few minutes later and it did it again. It was a little unnerving but fun and she loved it.
We could have spent the entire day there and in 3 hours we only saw 1 of 3 floors. We will definitely be going back this summer when we visit again. My kids were in heaven!

Friday:

Allen got a special delivery first thing in the morning. Do you think he was a little excited?! I'm not much of a tech junkie but the new iPad is awesome! He got it so we can FaceTime while he is WA and we are here but we have already had so much fun with it.

We found out some college friends were in town for a wedding and the Partridges squeezed in a couple hours to see us in the morning. Awesome to catch up and especially fun to let our kiddos play together. We cruised with them in 2010 but our kids haven't seen each other in years.

After the Partridges left my parents kicked us out of the house to have an overnighter while they kept the kids. It was the best! We didn't do anything fancy but went out to lunch, did tons of shopping - mostly new work clothes for Allen but we also hit Ikea and a few other stores. I was planning to do A LOT more shopping but now I will have all the stores I need in WA so I mostly made lists of stuff I need/want and will pick up once we get there. That evening we met our friends the Howells for dinner and had a grand time catching up. Afterwards we went to a late night movie. We slept in until 10:30 the next morning and then got a quick breakfast before heading home to our kiddos. They didn't miss us a lick. My parents spent hours at the neighborhood park with them, took them all out to dinner on Friday night (brave) and then took them to see Irish dancers on Saturday morning. Grandparents are the best!

Saturday:

We took the kids to see The Lorax in the afternoon which I wasn't that impressed with but they loved. Our leprechaun, Lucky, dropped off some goodies overnight which the kids loved. Here they are all dressed up in their St. Pats garb:
(this pic is SO getting framed and put up next year! I love it!)

We made these fun rainbow cupcakes:
We had our traditional St Pats dinner of corned beef/potatoes/carrots/cabbage and Irish Soda bread, which the kids gobbled up!
Just a funny picture of Emery. She thought this wig was hilarious!
Sunday we went to church in the morning and then drove home in a horrible wind storm that afternoon. It was bittersweet coming "home" to New Mexico for the last time. We had a blast but it is sad to think we will not be able to jump in the car in come to CO anymore. Thanks to my parents for a grand week!