Trip to Colorado

We are finally returning to some kind of "normal" after our trip to Colorado. It takes a few days to settle back in...laundry, dishes, lots of naps... Here are some of the highlights of our trip.

Tuesday, May 20
Left for Colorado in the morning and settled in North Platte for the evening. It was nice that we arrived a little early so Asher could do some swimming. We knew he needed to burn some energy after sitting in the car for over 6 hours.

Wednesday, May 21Arrived at Uncle Teddy's house in Manitou Springs, CO. He lives right "in" Garden of the Gods. It's a really great location! He had a very unique home which he just moved into and is currently fixing up. We even saw some deer on his property. Pretty neat. We met Teddy's girlfriend, Mary, and she was very nice. She's great with kids...even when they're tired and cranky. We settled in for the night at "The Timberlodge" close to Teddy's house. It was a nice place to stay. And it was great because they had a little playground for Asher and Dad to play while Mom took care of Phin.

Thursday, May 22Teddy took us out for breakfast at this great place called "King's Chef." It was a really fun little diner with only a counter inside for seating. But there were some picnic tables out front and some in the back in a tent. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast and it was delicious. We love going to different places to eat and try out the local "hot spots." Makes the trip more interesting. Then Teddy gave us the drive-through-tour of Garden of the Gods and a tour through the Air Force Academy. It was really nice to see Uncle Teddy and we wish we could have stayed longer. He was a gracious host!
We arrived in Highlands Ranch and crashed in our room for a few hours before going over to the Van Dyke's. Jonathan worked on his paper while the boys and I slept. It was a nice break. It's a lot different traveling with kids...not as many naps (for me) in the car. We went over to the Van Dyke's and I worked on Brady's graduation poster. It was fun to do a little "scrapping" again. It's something I don't do very often at home because Asher would love to "help." Then we just hung out with the family. My parents went too so that was nice for Asher and Phin to have Nana and Papa around.

Friday, May 23Jonathan worked on his paper for most of the day and we met up with everyone for Brady's graduation from Denver Christian. I had a nice time and enjoyed the ceremony while Jonathan played with the boys in the nursery.

Saturday, May 24My Mom, Phin and I went to the Van Dyke's early to help with food and finishing the poster. Jonathan went to Borders to work on his paper and my Dad watched Asher at the hotel. They went swimming for 2 hours in the morning. It was nice for Asher to have Papa all to himself. Then we met up at the graduation party. It was really nice. There was really good food and a bouncy house for "adults." It was fun for Asher to jump around with Jared, but he didn't understand why he couldn't go in with all the big kids. Phin slept through most of the party and Asher fell asleep on my lap while we were visiting. We ended up putting Asher in the pack and play outside and he slept hard. It was nice for him to have a nap.

Sunday, May 25We went to church with Brad and Lora and the family. Afterwards we did lunch and hung out at the house. It was nice to have an easy day. Jonathan did some work on his paper and we relaxed.

Monday, May 26
My parents left for Iowa and we hung out with the Van Dyke's in the afternoon. We made smoothies and played cars on the hardwood floor.

Tuesday, May 27Jonathan worked in the morning and we met up with Lora and Jared at Chuck E. Cheese. We had never been there before, but it was fun. It was hard because Asher was tired before we even got there, but he did alright. He wasn't really into playing games but he liked riding on the cars that sway back-and-forth. Really, it's pretty funny that those cars are such a big deal. Jonathan did take him to play Skee-ball and they won some tickets. Asher got a bouncy-ball and some suckers. Jared got Asher another ball and a ball for himself. Asher was so tired and crabby after the outing so we went back to the hotel and let him sleep.
That evening we had dinner with Justin and Julia Walker. They live in Denver. We had some great kebabs off the grill and enjoyed a walk to the park where Asher played on the slide. It was nice to see them again.

Wednesday, May 28
We mostly hung out in our room in the morning and met up with the Proctors for lunch. They grilled us chicken and had really great asparagus, and bread. Yummy!! It was really nice to visit with them and have great conversations about church, seminary, etc. We were really encouraged by the visit.
After lunch we did a little roaming around REI and the mall. We then met Lora at the baseball diamond and watched Jared play ball. He had a good hit and even scored a run. He plays first base so we saw him make some good plays. Then Lora and I went out for Mexican...by ourselves!! It was really nice having some time away from the boys. I really enjoy visiting with Lora. We had funny talking and laughing. Jonathan took the boys to Village Inn with Brad and Jared. It was a pretty interesting time for them. I'm just glad I was in the peace and quiet.

Thursday, May 29
We left in the morning and stayed in Kearney, NE. They had a tornado touch down on the north end of town. We noticed some big, bad clouds as we were driving on the interstate, but we had no idea what county we were in or anything. Kearney had some power lines down and some destruction to some buildings. We stayed at the Country Inn and Suites there and they had electricity. It was a nice hotel.

Friday, May 30
We left Kearney and went through Grand Island on our way home. They also had a tornado the night before. We saw a building down, irrigation systems turned upside down, and some power lines and poles down. It was pretty impressive. We arrived in Ames around 1pm. And the town was flooded. We didn't know what was going on! Our house was safe and we unpacked our vacation stuff from the car and packed up our garage sale items and headed over to the Thomas's for our garage sale.

That was our big 2-week's of events! We made some money at the garage sale, the flood waters receded and we are returning to a nap-time schedule. We're glad to be home and I think I need to go take a nap. You can check out more pictures of our trip by clicking here to return to the top of the page.