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!

Colorado Trip

We spent two glorious weeks in Colorado in June while Allen held down the fort here at home and attended to his many Young Men's responsibilities this summer. My sister was also able to meet me there for 10 days and we got to relax and play and enjoy being together. It was a really relaxing trip and we didn't do a ton of BIG activities but we managed to squeeze in something fun every day and lounged at the pool every afternoon. I also read a couple books, did some shopping and caught up with a few of my favorite CO friends. It was really nice to get out of the desert heat and enjoy my parents amazing lush, green, beautiful yard. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Emery meeting her aunt and cousins for the first time:LOTS of swimming at the pool:{including the kids performing various stunts and making the moms rate them}Visits with "old" friends:{My kids with Melissa's kids, eating the YUMMIEST homemade fudgesicles ever}{My kids with Kayla's kids performing one of 3 plays they made up for us}{My close childhood friend Jenny and our 7 kiddos. We used to play on this trampoline together and our kids did the same - it was actually pretty surreal!}

A day spent at Belleview Park -

Playing with Grandpa's "friend" that was found in the backyard:Playing night games including egg tosses and a pinata:A day at the American Girl Store:A trip to our favorite candy store in downtown Littleton:A trip to Pirates Cove Waterpark:

The kids played endlessly in my parents fab backyard, we went to the movies a couple times and had a ball being together! It was a great time in CO that went way too fast, as usual.

{For more details on most of these activities, check out my 365 blog ----------> over there}

Oh yes we did

July 10: Cow appreciation day at Chick-fil-A. Free meal if you dress up like a cow.

We did it.

We're classy like that.

Actually, it was really, really fun. And it kept the kids busy for a couple hours while they threw together their costumes {a minor feat with 8 kids of varying ages}.

Here's our small herd outside the restaurant.

My dad was the cowboy and all the kids walked into the restaurant holding the rope. It was a hoot and we got a lot of attention! The manager even took a picture of us to send to the corporate offices.

Will we do it again next year?

Absolutely!

We're classy {and cheap} like that.

Fishing

We had SO much fun in Colorado! I took almost 600 pictures (eek) so it will take me awhile to wade through them all. We spent one day fishing in the mountains and had a fabulous time. It was probably my favorite thing we did during the two weeks we were there. I took 150 pictures that day alone. Here's a few of my favorites:

Allen teaches the kids how to bait hooks:


Teaching how to cast:

The first catch:



Addie was SO enthralled by the fish we caught and kept in the bucket. It was seriously hilarious watching her watch them:

She was in rare form:

End of the day:We ended up catching 5 fish in about an hour. All the kids got a chance to cast and use the nets to get the fish. It was such a great time. They all tried the fish that we caught and grilled up at home that night. No one but the adults really liked it but I was proud that they all had a taste. I'm not a huge trout fan but it was really good that fresh!

More posts to come!

On the road again (part 2)

I'm finally getting around to recapping our super fun spring break trip to Colorado. Here are the highlights:

Saturday: Looooong day in the car. Perfect traveling weather. Kids did great. I read nearly an entire book while Allen listened to one on his iPod.

Sunday: My dad took Allen to the airport at 4:00 a.m. We attended church at my parents ward where my kids are virtually the only kids in the congregation. After lunch and naps, we took a nice leisurely walk down the nature trail behind my parents house and played at the park for quite awhile.

Monday: Spent the morning visiting my friend Kayla {how did we fail to take a picture, yet again?!} and letting our kids play together. Always so fun to hang out and wondeful to meet baby Finley! Met up with my parents at the LDS Employment Center where they are serving their mission. Got a tour of the facilities, met all those they work with. Very cool and made me so proud of them to see all the work they are doing and all those they are helping {you can imagine that in this economy they have a very big job!} Went to lunch with my parents and then stopped for a little shopping on the way home.

Tuesday: St. Patty's day! Lucky the Leprechaun visited and left a treasure hunt for the kids along with chocolate "coins" {rolo's} along the path. The kids loved it {though I was mad because I'd left the fun surprises at home and had to improvise and spend more money - ugh}. We had our traditional green breakfast. We spent the morning at the Littleton Historical Museum - a staple for us when we visit Denver. It's such a fun place and I have such fond memories of visiting there from my childhood. We saw the 13 newborn sheep, got to observe and help the blacksmith.

Visited the animals:

Played at all the indoor and outdoor exhibits:

We literally had to tear the kids away, they were having so much fun!

We hurried and had our picnic lunch and then went off to see "Bedtime Stories" at the movie theater. Cute movie. My kids thought it was really fun! My mom made the yummiest Irish dinner to finish off our fun day!

Wednesday: My dad stayed home with my kids so my mom and I could enjoy shopping and lunch together. What a treat. I wish we could do it more often! It was a very low key day for the kids and they played and played in my parents backyard {did I mention that the weather was GORGEOUS last week - 60s and 70s all week which is phenomenal for Denver this time of year!} We all went to the park and hung out. My dad introduced Carter to Sudoku this week and he is now obsessed. He has also decided he wants to learn how to write in cursive and spent hours practicing his letters! He's such a funny kid!

Thursday: Spent most of the day at the Denver Zoo! Let me tell you, we usually do these kinds of activities in the dead of summer when we're visiting so it was DREAMY to be doing them in the more mild temps. It was a lovely day and we had so much fun. Addie was dreamy and so agreeable and the big kids wanted to see everything. Our favorites were the polar bears, monkeys and giraffe's. We rode the train, got treats, got really dirty and generally had a great time.

Friday: Spent most of the day with my dear friend Melissa, who I sadly had not seen in about 2 years. It was so fun to get our kids together and let them play {very similar ages} and get to gab and catch up. I so wish we could do it more often. Thanks for such a fun day Melissa! That night my parents had signed up for the missionaries so we had fun making dinner and feeding them.

Saturday: Another gorgeous day so the kids were in the yard for most of the morning with my dad while my mom and I snuck away for wee bit more shopping. Have you ever been to Lakeshore Learning? Oh my gosh, most fun store ever! Check it out if you have one near you. I spent waaaaaay too much money there! Right after lunch we went out to the airport to pick up Allen {angels singing!!} and went straight to White Fence Farm for a fun afternoon and dinner. This is a restaurant that has a ton of fun things for kids: playground, huge indoor slide and play area, arcade, candy shop, petting zoo area, little shops, etc. We all really had so much fun!

Sunday: Another long car ride home. We hit a horrible, horrible wind storm that lasted for about 200 miles. Truck trailers were tipped over and we were basically driving in white out conditions because of the dust! It was nuts but we made it home safely.

Of course the week went way too fast. It was so nice to get so much one on one time with my parents. We're often sharing my parents with lots of grandkids/kids so having so much time with them was a treat. I think we were a pretty good distraction for my mom and I even helped get a few little projects done around there house. It was a great week! Thanks so much mom and dad!