Denver Adventures-Part 3

Unfortunately, Kimberly and Josh had to return to the real world on Monday, so we were on our own during the day.  We didn't really have a plan, but I knew that I wanted to look into pedal boats, and possibly a bike ride.  Turns out that all the pedal boat places were closed, but we found a place called Heritage Square, which is a storybook Victorian theme park and shopping village.  We perused the website and it seemed pretty great.  It was also featured on a "Top 10 Things to Do in Denver with Toddlers" link I found on Pinterest.  Google maps showed the hours as 11 am to 5pm, so we hopped in the car and drove the 30 minutes to Golden, CO.  As we drove in the park, it seemed SUPER empty, and you guessed it, closed for the season.  Not sure why google showed the hours when it wasn't actually open, but there we were, at the closed park. So, we decided to head back towards Kimberly's place in hopes that Brooke would nap on the way, and then we could do a little shopping near her house.  All went smoothly until it was time to leave the mall and Brooke wanted "more water" (meaning the fountain with fish in the center of the mall).  She was literally screaming as we left, and it was humiliating.  Not an experience I hope to repeat any time soon. I knew that she really needed some time to run around, so when we made it back to Kimberly's, we spent some time playing with all the rocks in the landscaping, which made her very happy.

Once Kimberly and Josh made it home from work, we headed to Casa Bonita, which is a real treasure of a place.  When texting about plans before the trip, Kimberly asked if I wanted to go there.  She described it as, "the tackiest place you've ever been, with awful food, but super entertaining."  Umm, sure??  It was definitely an experience, but lots of fun.  Since we were there on a Monday night, the place was not busy at all (normally you wait at least an hour to get in), and we were seated right at the base of the pool where the divers jump.  During dinner, which wasn't great, but not terrible, they had this girl doing dives off the rocks.  Brooke was totally intrigued by the whole thing.  Then they did a little "pirate" themed act, which was not good, and scared Brooke to death because of the gun shots.

After dinner, we went through Black Beard's Cave, played some arcade games, and watched Brooke ride quarter slot trains/cars.  We finished off the night with cookies from Mary's Mountain Cookies.  

Tuesday we attempted to be a little more prepared as far as a game plan for the day. Kevin found an amazing bike trail that was kid-friendly and went around the perimeter of a lake.  Problem was, we couldn't find a rental place that had bike trailers for our little one.  After many phone calls, Kevin finally found a place to rent one, but it was in the middle of the city.  Which didn't really help us much since we had no way to get it to the trail.  So, instead, we went to Red Rock Amphitheater.  (Also on the Top 10 things to do with toddlers list.)  Although i wouldn't really say its a great activity with toddlers, unless you want to help them go up and down a zillion steps over and over, it was really beautiful.       

And that concluded our trip!  It was so great to spend time with my sister and to get to know Josh better.  Definitely a trip to remember :)

Denver Adventures-Part 2

Brooke crashed on Saturday night, then woke up like 45 minutes after we put her to bed.  Then again 30 minutes later.  Then after another hour...so finally, I just brought her into bed with us.  Which meant that, again, I didn't sleep, haha.  It is so funny because Kevin loves to have Brooke in our bed. He still sleeps well and loves to cuddle her. I have a great iPhone pic of Brooke with her head near me, and her feet to the side and completely on Kevin's face, haha.  But, he loves it, which I think is cute :)

 By the time Sunday morning rolled around, I felt like I was hit by a bus, and I contemplated skipping church :(  Once I was up and going though, I started feeling better, so we made it to Sacrament meeting.

 In my book, Sunday isn't complete without a few Sunday pictures.  Thankfully, everyone obliged :)

 We then headed to the Butterfly Pavilion.  We just missed the butterfly release, but they were all still flying around in the pavilion.  One even landed on my hand, which was pretty cool.  Brooke held her hand near mine, as if she wanted it on her hand, but when I put my hand closer, she said "no no", haha.  I guess she only liked the idea of a butterfly on her hand. After spending some time with the butterflies, we headed into the building where they had exhibits of fish, spiders, and bugs.  Kimberly and Josh even held Rosie the tarantula.  I have already held a tarantula once in my life, and that was enough for me.  I held Brooke while she watched in awe at that giant spider on Tibby and Dosh.

 Before leaving, we wandered out to the gardens, which were really nothing spectacular since they aren't in bloom.  They did, however, have this awesome tree that Brooke was playing in. Kevin was standing by Brooke and Kimberly asked him, "How big is the opening at the top?"  I knew she was scheming something, and next thing I know, she was inside the tree.  Then she convinced Josh to join her for a family picture.  She then offered to take our picture inside the tree.  Kevin goes, "It would be our family tree."  Oh boy! I got inside, then Kevin followed, which was hilarious.  Kimberly took some great pics of Kevin trying to climb inside.  Kimberly handed Brooke to us, and our family tree was complete, haha.

 We then loaded up in the car and drove to a different park for a picnic.  It was seriously gorgeous weather the whole time we were there.  Denver has some really nice parks, and some great people watching.  Apparently slack lining is a big thing here, and we saw some interesting people working on their skills.  Brooke spent most of the picnic either running around the blanket, eating chips, or sitting atop the cooler.  The picnic was totally nostalgic for me because Kimberly shopped at Safeway, which is the grocery store we grew up on.  Everything just tasted like home.  French bread sandwiches with peppered turkey, cheese, tomatoes, avocado, and lettuce,  french onion dip with chips, and firm green grapes.  Perfection :)

Gorgeous scenery, right?  Following lunch, Kevin and I took Brooke to walk by the river and play on the playgroup while Kimberly and Josh took a little nap.  We finished the day with "artisinal" ice cream at High Point Creamery.  Lots of crazy, unique flavors, with hand crafted sauces on the side.  Pretty darn delicious.

Denver Adventures-Part 1

On Saturday, April 11th, we flew out of DFW airport to Denver, Colorado.  We were excited to see Kimberly and Josh (or Tibby and Dosh, as Brooke calls them).  Brooke especially loved the fish tank near our gate.  She was great on the flight, but had no interest in resting or napping, haha.  Once Kimberly picked us up in Denver, we headed back to her apartment. My hope was that Brooke would fall asleep on the way there (which she did), so that at least she had a mini nap for the day.  Once at Kimberly's place, Kevin stayed in the car while Kimberly and I dished up the delicious tortilla soup she had waiting for us in the crock pot.  We had a little picnic by the car until Brooke woke up, about 20 minutes later.  It was actually perfect timing.  By then, Josh was ready to go as well (he had been sleeping after working 24 hours straight), and we headed to Colorado Springs to visit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  

The zoo, in one word, was AMAZING!!  Not only was it gorgeous because it was right in the mountains, but we were able to get so close to the animals.  I guess for the animals that isn't too great, because it means that their habitats aren't super big...but for the zoo patrons with little ones, it was really nice. Brooke was excited to feed the giraffes, until the first one put his slobbery tongue all over her hand.  Then she was OVER IT.  Anytime we would get close, she would say "no no".  It was really cool to feed them though, but I don't blame Brooke for not liking the slobber.  I wasn't a fan either. 

We headed on over to see the lions, which was also a favorite.  The male lion started roaring so loud and was having some kind of dispute with one of the females.  It was just so crazy to have this huge lion walking right by the glass!

I love seeing Brooke enjoy something that I have always loved.  Since the zoo was on the smaller end, and because there were multiple adults to help, Brooke was out of the stroller for the majority of the day.  I really think that helped her enjoy the time better because she wasn't constrained!  

As we were leaving, I was pretty positive Brooke was going to have a meltdown as she was NOT happy about leaving.  But, thankfully, she held it together and we were able to take this priceless selfie :)

Easter 2015

We celebrated Easter at Grandma and Papa's house this year. Since we were camping in the backyard (see previous post), I had planned on putting Brooke's Easter basket outside the tent door for her to find first thing in the morning.  Well, since we ended up in the house about 3 am, we placed her basket on the hearth :)  Of all the things in her basket, she was most excited about her lollipops (Dum Dums), haha.  She kept at it until she unwrapped one all by herself. 

 We enjoyed some cinnamon rolls, eggs, and sausage, then were ready for Conference.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention about Conference on Saturday.  Probably because it was SUPER hard to actually pay attention with kids in the house, etc.  I really need to go back and study all the talks, because I know I missed out on some really great lessons and messages.

 After the Sunday morning session, we had an Easter egg hunt, which was so much fun.  Kevin and Jeff hid all the eggs in the front yard, and Kinley and Brooke had a blast collecting them.  There were so many eggs, and their buckets filled up so quickly, that Kevin kept dumping Brooke's eggs back into his plastic sack, and re-hiding them, haha.  Brooke found the "golden egg" that Auntie Mel Mel filled with jelly beans.  She loved how it sounded when she would shake it.  But, once she had me open it, and she saw all the jelly beans, she went nuts.  She had never tasted one before, and she kept shoving them in her mouth as if they were going to disappear unless she ate them all quickly!

I love love love this last picture, haha.  I think we made the girls smile for ONE too many pics that day.  They have the most forced smiles ever.  After the hunt, we headed inside for a yummy steak dinner.  We attempted to watch the final session of conference, enjoyed a strawberry trifle dessert I made, then headed home after a great weekend. It's awesome to have family close by when holidays roll around :)

conference campout

Last November, we camped in Jerry and Bev's backyard over General Conference weekend. It was a fun experience, even though we only lasted in the tent till 3 or 4 in the morning.  When we realized that Easter and Conference fell on the same weekend this year, Kevin started talking about camping out again.  He guilted me with, "Do you want to ruin the conference campout tradition??", haha.  I knew it would be fun, but I also knew that I wouldn't get much sleep.  I also have been waking up at least 3 times a night to go pee (post to follow soon), which isn't exactly conducive to camping.  Needless to say, I was a bit reluctant. Then Kevin started in with, "So, you're telling me that bug and I are going to have a father-daughter campout??".  I just laughed and told him that he was more than welcome to camp with Brooke.  I actually thought that would be really interesting, since I have always been the one to get her to sleep when we were camping, in a hotel, at a different house, etc.

But, he was up for the challenge, so that was the plan. Saturday afternoon, we set up the tent.  I absolutely loved how excited Brooke was about everything. 

 "Helping" Daddy set up the tent.  A cute little helper if I do say so myself!

 Kevin built a fire in the outdoor fireplace, and we were ready for some "camping" fun.

 The Peacocks came over, and all three girls had fun in that tent.  Kinley and Brooke kept running around inside and squealing :)

 After dark, we broke out the s'mores, and Kevin was the all-time marshmallow roaster.  Kinley and Brooke also tried to roast one, but they were easily distracted, and the marshmallows ended up in the ashes or totally burnt.  When we gave Brooke her completed s'more, she wanted nothing to do with it.  I took my eyes off Brooke for a minute, then looked back, to see that she had opened her s'more and was eating the melted chocolate from the middle.

 It was ALL over her face, but she clearly enjoyed it.

 After s'mores, Kevin pumped up the aerobed (per my request, in case I was to sleep outside), and the girls thought it was awesome.  The bed was super tall though, and literally took up the entire tent!  Brooke was about ready to crash, so after the Peacocks went home, we quickly got ready for bed and headed out to the tent.  I decided last minute that I would join them because I didn't want to miss out on the fun memories.   I had intentionally stopped drinking much water a few hours prior so that I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom as much during the night, haha.

So, there we were, all snug as a bug in our queen sleeping bag, with a very tired little girl.  She only wanted to lay her head by me, and it took like 45 minutes for her to finally fall asleep.  About 1 am, I woke up to rain falling on the tent.  It was kind of cool at first, but I couldn't go back to sleep.  Brooke was sleeping well, but moves a ton in her sleep.  She had cozied up to Kevin, which he loved.  (He later told me that he was pretty disappointed at first when we were going to bed, since Brooke didn't want much to do with him.) Around 3 am, I woke Kevin because the rain was coming down harder and the thunder and lightening had just begun.  We waiting till the rain let up a bit, then headed into the house.  Again, it took Brooke forever to fall asleep in bed with us, but eventually, we were all sleeping peacefully!

Although we didn't make it all night again, I would say it was a camping success.  And that's the beauty of camping in the back yard, right??  You can always head into the house :)

messy, but fun

 This is the first year that we dyed eggs for Easter.  I was not really sure what to expect from Brooke, but she was totally in to it.  We started out with Brooke on a garbage bag, which was way too small, so we quickly switched to this vinyl tablecloth.  Brooke loved the little metal egg holder, but she still wanted to just bare-hand the eggs and dunk them into the cups of dye. By the time we were finished, she had a very orange hand!  She also kept dropping the eggs, so they had little cracks all over.  At that point, I determined that we most likely would not be eating any of these eggs since they were all contaminated with dye.

It made for a fun Friday night activity to get us ready for Easter weekend :)

a new season

We had our first boat ride of the season on March 28th, and it was perfect, but a lot of work!  The weekend before, Kevin had helped his dad detail the boat and get it ready to put back in the water.  His parents went out of town a few days later for a funeral in California and would be gone all weekend.   Kevin thought it was the perfect opportunity to launch the boat at Joe Pool Lake by our house.  He had a whole scheme in mind, which changed suddenly when we found out that his parents had driven their Tahoe to the airport.  This meant that we no longer had a way to tow the boat down to our lake.  But, of course that didn't stop my boat-loving husband.  He found out where they parked the Tahoe, which was at an off-site parking facility.  But we also didn't have a key to the Tahoe, so...we went to Flower Mound on Friday night to get the Tahoe key from their house.  We stopped and had dinner at Red Robin to make an event of it :)  Then, I took Brooke home, while Kevin drove 30 minutes to get the Tahoe, drove back to his parent's house to get the boat (30 minutes), then drove it down to our house (which took an hour since he was towing something).   But, then we were ready for Saturday's activities.

 Brooke woke up excited on Saturday morning.  Kevin was outside getting the boat ready, and Brooke wanted to watch him out the window.  Right when my arms were about to fall off, I wise-ened up and grabbed her stool from the kitchen.  She stood there for a solid 15 minutes watching Daddy while I packed up our lunch :)

 Brooke was super happy to be on the boat, which made Kevin very pleased :)  He kept saying that he just wants her to feel comfortable on the boat and have a desire to play and have fun out there  Well, the water was much too cold on this particular day, so we just enjoyed the ride.  And some snacks.

 This last picture KILLS ME!  These pics were all from my regular camera, so I didn't realize that she had made this face until I uploaded the pics to the computer.  I guess her little aviator sunglasses helped her get into character :)

And this picture, hahahaha!  We pulled her carseat out of Grandma and Papa's car, and Brooke quickly made herself comfortable.  She looks pretty thug to me, haha.  With her belly hanging out, no less.

It was a wonderful day, just the three of us.  Then, on Sunday, we had to do the whole shuffle again.  Kevin left early in the morning to go return the boat to his parent's house, and then drive over to the parking site to return their Tahoe.  I met him there to pick him up, then we headed to church.  See what I mean when I say it was a lot of work?? Took many hours of driving and shuffling, but we had a great time, so I guess it was worth it, haha.

san antonio trip

Kevin had to work in San Antonio for two days (March 16-17), so we decided to drive down and make a family weekend of it. We made the 4 hour drive down on Sunday morning, and went directly to Sea World.  I had never been, so I was pretty excited.  I was also certain that Brooke would love it, but I was a little nervous about how she would do with no afternoon nap!

The shows were awesome!  They were all about 20-25 minutes, which for a toddler, was perfect. She would clap for the animals, and kept saying "dolphin", and "whale".

We enjoyed the most amazing funnel cake after one of the shows.  Brooke was not interested in being fed little bites.  She grabbed the spoon and took matters into her own hands, haha. 

Another favorite was the penguin exhibit.  You entered the building, stood on one of those moving walkways, and it took you past a ton of penguins and the trainers feeding them.

 Our last show of the day was the Killer Whales.  It was amazing to me how large they really are.  I was also a little sad for them that they had to perform in a tank all day.  After returning home, I actually read an article that said the number one way the whales in captivity died was from banging their head against the glass.  Pretty sad :(

Brooke was not too happy about leaving the park.  This is her pouty pose, haha!  For no nap though, she did pretty great.  She started asking for her pacifier halfway through our outing, and I gave in since I knew she was really tired.  

 It was a lot warmer than we planned, so when we got back to the car, we stripped Brooke's pants and she was asleep in minutes.

 She had a really hard time going to sleep that night, and once she was finally out, I didn't want to risk putting her into the pack-n-play, so she slept in our bed. Which meant that I hardly slept!  She kept waking up and would fall back asleep once she was laying on/near me, but it was a long night.  In the morning, we were supposed to drive Kevin to work, but I really debated waking Brooke.  If we didn't take him, we would be stuck at the hotel all day with no car, so I took this picture then woke her up to meet Kevin in the lobby.

 After making the drop-off, Brooke and I headed back to the hotel for breakfast, a little movie time, naps, lunch at Pizza Hut, and an afternoon at Phil Hardberger park. The park is located on an old dairy farm, and was beautiful!  So many fun activities for Brooke, including a little nature walk to collect rocks and sticks :)

I seriously adore my nature-loving girl.  She is happiest when we are outdoors and she can run free. After a few hours at the park, we met Kevin at Outback Steakhouse for dinner.  We were all pretty tired, so we had an early night, and we all slept much better (thankfully!).  Tuesday, Brooke and I had a few more hours at the park, had a lunch date at Corner Bakery, and picked Kevin up at 2 pm to make the drive back home.  Overall, it was a great little family adventure, and even better when work pays for your hotel and gas :)