One of Courtney's best friends had a birthday at the beginning of the month while we were in Colorado. They didn't have a party for her because it is a crazy time of year and Courtney felt a little sad for her friend. So I asked her what she wanted to do. Her answer shows that she wants to be a little older than she really is..."Let's take her out to a nice lunch." So we did.
The kids had earned some coupons for free kids meals at a new restaurant in town (actually, it probably isn't so new, but it was a new to us) called Iggy's Sports Grill. It was a best place ever and the kids loved it!! In the middle of the restaurant there is a jumbo-tron like in a basketball arena. It was playing the British Open and so Ethan was entranced. They had a great kids meal with a huge ice cream sundae at the end. And the prices weren't bad at all. Courtney loved being able to make her friend happy.
After the train museum, lunch, and chores around the house, we decided to go to the park. Grandpa went with us and it was a lot of fun. Grandpa brought a bigger bat and we grabbed a bigger lefty glove for Ethan to use and he did great! He really hit the ball! One time he even almost took out Bryan. Bryan pitched one to him, Ethan hit it like a shot...right back at Bryan's head. I heard the crack of the bat hitting the ball, saw it fly back to Bryan, saw Bryan put up his mitt and then hit the ground. I was so afraid we were going to have to call the ambulance but Bryan got up laughing and congratulated Ethan for a hard hit. Ethan was pretty nervous that he was going to be in trouble for killing his dad, but when he saw that Bryan was fine, he felt a lot better.
Ethan is left handed and throws that way but he prefers to bat right handed. Bryan kept trying to get him to try it lefty but he would only try a few balls (hitting them pretty well) before he would slyly slip to the other side. Grandpa told him to keep trying to do it left handed so he could be a switch hitter, but we'll see.
Courtney even got in on the action and his some balls. She is determined to play little league next year with a pink glove, but we'll have to see.
It's a tradition for us to go to the Denver Train Museum when we come to visit. The kids love it. They love going through all the trains and seeing the models in the basement of the station. This year we went on a Saturday and they had train rides, so we got to go on that too. It was pretty fun. They even had a small Thomas the Train going around the outside model train set so Ethan had a picture with him.
The kids wanted to go to the park and so we took them on Friday afternoon. We took some baseballs, baseball bats and mitts. Ethan and Courtney hit baseballs for a while and then they went over to the playground equipment to play on. They had a great time!
When the sun came up Thursday morning we were glad we had stuck it out because it was blue skies and gorgeous. A line was hung and things were put out to dry. After breakfast Grandpa took the kids fishing and it was fun to watch Ethan cast. He is pretty good. He didn't catch anything but a few rocks. Grandpa even helped Courtney reel in the line. We could see fish swimming in the water and jumping but none of them wanted to bite.
We cleaned up camp, Grandpa bagged the fish they had caught on Tuesday so we could take them home and we started back home. It was a good hike. Ethan was a champ with his backpack and Courtney walked on her own the entire 2 miles back to the cars. They are such troopers!
We then drove into town and Grandpa treated us to ice cream. On the way home we even saw a moose and a fox. What a great trip!
The kids loved it and Ethan says that he wants to go again. I'm glad they liked it because I wasn't so sure when we started out. We do have to buy some more gear because we didn't have rain stuff sufficient for us all....or pjs for Ethan....or socks for Courtney...but we had a great time!
We woke up to rain and low clouds, got ready, loaded up and took off to meet the boys at the trailhead at 9 a.m. The boys were going to hike down, meet us and help us bring out stuff back up (translation: they were coming down to help us take Courtney back up because we weren't sure how well she would do on a 2 mile hike).
Well, after a 10 minute delay in Arvada then a 40 minute "we got lost" delay, we finally made it to the trail head at about 9:45...and the boys weren't there. Since it was raining and didn't look like it would let up soon, we debated whether or not we wanted to hike at all. We had left them a voice message on Grandpa's phone to let them know we were late, but knew they would have to drive a while before they got service. We hiked around the parking lot and waited for them to show back up. It was only about 30 minutes before they got back. Courtney was the deciding factor. Ethan didn't want to hike back up but she wanted to be like the boys and go on a hike, so we loaded up and began hiking to the camp.
It wasn't too bad of a hike. It took a while to get Ethan smiling again and even Grandpa's "Billy Roundup" stories weren't enough to get him smiling at first. But then I snapped him out of it and he was begging Grandpa to tell stories. Grandpa is a huge champ and so creative!!
Ethan hiked without a problem and Courtney hiked 2/3 of the way on her own. Bryan carried her the last part of the hike. But I was very impressed!
When we got to camp we were right next to a snow drift and it was beginning to rain. So we all got into our tent, tried to organize things and took naps. That was easier said than done. The kids played around for quite a while before they fell asleep. We all felt better afterward.
The rain would let up for little bits at a time and we would be able to get out and look around. Ethan, Bryan and Courtney were even able to go fishing but they didn't catch anything. (Bryan caught 2 fish on this trip and the last one was 10 inches long!)
It was a gorgeous place that I thought would have been better without the rain, but it was nice. Most of our time was spent in the tent though and the kids got stir crazy. After a while we realized that the tent was dripping from the top and leaking from the bottom. We really debated whether or not we should pack it up and hike back home. But it was raining when we were talking and we didn't want to take everything down in the rain. So we waited it out. It was cold out but the kids slept great!
