Denver!

We arrived at Aunt Dee's house on Friday and stayed through Tuesday morning - it was wonderful! We had a great visit with her and Mr Dave, and got to do some really fun things while we were there!

Not the least of which was the Wii! Aunt Dee and Mr Dave helped the boys make their own Mii's - the character made to look like you while you are playing...

...the boys both chose black skin for some reason, and Caden chose gray hair and a gray fu manchu - so they were pretty funny and didn't actually look anything like the boys!



Caden has long been fascinated with tornados, earthquakes, and volcanos. The Denver Science and History Museum had an exhibit on natural disasters, so we decided to take the crew (minus Daddy who squeezed in 9 holes of golf). It was really a neat museum and also had exhibits on dinosaurs and space - the boys were thoroughly impressed! (By the way, it was awesome to have one adult per kid - I'm almost always outnumbered, and it was great for everyone to have some individual attention and only one short person to keep up with!)


Moving moon rocks

Building a volcano

There was an awesome video of a tornado taken from several cameras as it passed over them, and the video was set up so that you could watch the tornado all the way around you - see it coming, on top of you, moving on - it was neat, but scared Caden enough that he wanted out of the tent where it was set up - he still wanted to watch, but right next to Aunt Dee, and at a distance.

Wooly Mammoth

On Sunday, we drove out to Nederland for lunch at the Black Forest Restaurant. While waiting for our food, the boys started a friendly game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Atom Bomb, B-1 Bomber, knight, laser, etc.
Aunt Dee tries to understand as Caden is explaining ALL the rules...


After lunch (which was not great) we headed out to the steps to take a few pictures and throw a few snow-balls.


Nostalgia brought us back to Black Forest - we have a picture of Caden and I when he was about 5 months old, sitting on the steps in front of the restaurant. It had been a great day, with the most memorable diapering experience I have ever heard (and poor Aunt Dee's new car!)
Well, here we are, almost exactly 5 years later, with a new baby...

And look at him now!

And Sweet Luke doing his "Cold Face"!

The Whole Fam

I tried a couple of times to get a good one of Aunt Dee and Mr Dave, but the boys were feeling a little ornery and not too cooperative...


That night we met Cody and Jeannie and Judah at Gunther Toody's for dinner and dessert. It was nice to visit with friends we only get to see about every other year, and their precious daughter (who is quite a fabulous dancer) is a joy to behold. Our ketchup bottle had "turned" and we ate for 1/2 price! When Jeannie's shake was announced as on the house, we all wished we had ordered one too, nonetheless, it was a fun evening!

The Denver Zoo the next day (Monday) was fun too.
Baby ram...

Baby girl...

Baby geese... (these walked around with us for a while)

Bears...

Boys...

It was exhausting

The boys were treated to their first excursion into a ToysRUs, courtesy of Aunt Dee and Mr Dave, where they found treasures they are actually still excited about and playing with 2 weeks later!


Aunt Dee picked out this great dress and darling sunglasses for Reese, who LOVED them!

Okay, maybe she's not sold on the sunglasses yet, but we know she'll grow to love them!

Maybe she was just crying because she knew it was our last night.

Honestly, spending these days with Dee was so wonderful. We got to go to her birthday party, stay up visiting (and playing on the Wii) after the kids went to bed - we all felt spoiled! It was a highlight of the trip!

Coming up - Pike's Peak and Mt Capulin Volcano and the end of our vacation!