Goin' to Colorado

Every time we left my sister's house, or even talked about leaving my sister's house, Claire would exclaim, "We goin' to Colowado?!" She never quite understood that we were already there, though she did seem to be having a lot of fun wherever it was she thought we were.

After our hike in blizzard conditions on Friday, we took it easier on day 2 with a hike up the mountain directly across the street from my sister's house. Sentences like that make me wonder why we haven't tried harder to make Colorado the next stop in our career/life path.

The kids were very impressed with their sky-high spot above the mile-high city.

Tex was too.

 

We spent the rest of the day exploring Golden, in particular this random creek that runs through part of downtown. Why is everything in Colorado so absurdly beautiful?

 

Easter morning rolled around and the kids woke up way too early in their excitement to find their Easter baskets and eggs.

 

Even Claire looked a little hungover. I think this was like 6:30 a.m.

 

After much consternation Landon finally found his hidden basket hidden in the dryer. Claire, having found hers ages ago, was by his side for moral support.

 

While my sister and Billy got up and ready (hours after our children had bounced into our room exclaiming about seeing the Easter Bunny during the night), we took the kids back to our new favorite park in Golden to explore. There were geese, and we told them if they could catch one, the goose would lay them Easter eggs.

 

Claire tried to entice her with handfuls of sand. She was genuinely sad they didn't accept her offering and become her friends.

 

We explored the creek some more. JP is incapable of seeing rocks in water and not climbing down to walk on them with both kids in tow. It's one of the many things I love about him.

 

Speaking of love, we played Monopoly Saturday night with my sister and Billy, and Sunday morning found JP and I arguing about Monopoly strategy while taking a shower together. Naked and occupying the same 3 feet of space while our kids watched cartoons and Val and Billy slept, and are we doing fun things? No, we are debating the relative merits of the deals we made trading our properties the night before. And even worse, we are finding that fun. Given how mad I got at JP for his ridiculous low ball offer for my two potential monopolies, it is clearly better for our all aspects of our marriage if we don't play board games against each other.

Back to beautiful Colorado. After a fun scavenger hunt my sister put together for the kids to find her Easter baskets, and another egg hunt in the park across the street, we piled in our cars and drove out the most beautiful highway in the world (or at least that part of Colorado) and stopped in a random spot between Golden and Idaho Springs to get the kids and dogs out of the car and play, relax, and rock climb in a canyon with a perfect mountain stream running through it.

The dogs swam, JP and Billy climbed steep cliffs and then spent about 30 minutes relocating several large boulders in a feat of pure manliness (or so they explained it to a mystified Val and me), and the kids threw pebbled in the water and climbed all over rocks.

 

It was lovely and relaxing and exactly how Easter afternoon should be spent when you're twenty minutes away from peace and beauty like that.

 

We left early yesterday morning for the 13 hour trek home. It was rough on JP and me- we had been staying up later than usual to destroy each other at Monopoly and the kids had been getting up way earlier than usual to ask if we were still in Colorado, but the drive was as smooth as a 13-hour drive can be. The kids were perfect- they colored and read, watched a movie every 3-4 hours, and sang songs to each other without a single whine or complaint. I on the other hand whined quite a lot about being hungry and nauseous and tired. JP drove the entire way while I acted as corporate secretary transcribing his emails and answering the swim school phone. Tex never even sat up, he was so exhausted from hiking and keeping up with the young pups at my sister's house. All in all it was a perfectly excellent, if short, vacation. Chicago may be my favorite city in the US, but Colorado is definitely my favorite state.

 

The kids agree, and Claire asked this morning if we were going to Colorado today.