Memorial Weekend

It felt like we had just gotten back from a vacation and we were headed on one again. Wait, we really were. Every memorial weekend we go camping with Ben's dad and family. It's always nice to go camping, but I wasn't a huge fan of where we went. We went to Crystal Hot Springs. It wasn't bad, but the bathrooms were absolutely ridiculous. Nothing ever worked and it was so dirty. It very sad that they can't take better care of a place that a lot of people really like to go to. We had the biggest camping spot available, which was nice because we had a camper and 4 tents on it, and there was still plenty of room to set up the horse shoe court. We all took turns being in charge of a meal and that always helps lower the cost, which is really nice, ex specially in these times. We got up there Friday and set up camp and just relaxed around a fire and games of horse shoes. Since Nelson and Deann weren't able to make it to Gabbi's birthday they gave her her gift there of a glow worm and some clothes. She loves the glow worm, but I had to take it away so she wouldn't get it all dirty. Saturday was spent at the pools. You could come and go as you please which was nice, but the wait in line was ridiculous. Almost an hour, they had two workers standing there while the last one was ringing customers up. They had two other tills, why not use them. That ticked me off and then Gabbi fell asleep while in line so I ended up staying with her, while I let Ben go swimming with his brothers and dad. Wasn't a whole bunch of fun. Then we went back to camp for lunch. It was really funny to watch Gabbi walk around. The ground wasn't smooth like a pavement and she was having a little bit of a hard time balancing. Deann put a helmet on her and let her walk around with it. She thought that was pretty cool even though she ran into the table a couple of times, she loved the helmet and she couldn't even tell. After lunch, Ben was tired so he and Gabbi laid down and weirdly enough my mom and grandma had stopped by to make a reservation for mom and dad. So I went down and talked to them, seeing how no one else was awake or around to talk to. Then when I went back to our camp site, I made Ben wake up because I wanted to swim and I wanted to take Gabbi as well. She loved the water. It didn't surprise me seeing how she loves the bath. It was funny to see her face when we went from the luke warm pool to the hot pool and then back to the luke warm pool again. She wasn't a huge fan of that. But we had a lot of fun with her in the water. That night it started to ran so out dinner was cut short to a mad dash to clean up and tie down as much as possible and the rest of the evening was spent in the car waiting out the storm. The next morning didn't look any better, so we all decided just to pack up and head home. So we said our goodbyes until next time. It was in good time too, I don't think I could take anymore of the mud everywhere.

Monday we had tickets to go and watch the sequel to Night at the Museume with my family. It's kind of a tradition to go see a movie that day. It was a great movie and Gabbi slept most of the time. When she wasn't sleeping she was watching the movie and that was good too. Afterwards some of us went to the traveling wall monument. That was pretty cool to see. I've always dremt of going to DC to see all the monuments, but this came to me. It was nice. Then the rest of the day was spent relaxing and playing card games with my family.

Ben's 25

While we were in Colorado, Ben had his birthday. It ironically enough was the same as mother's day. He was nice enough to share the day with me, even though he really didn't need to. His birthday came before I became a mother. What a sweet guy. I tried to tease him the first week with him knowing where his gift was, but he was a good boy and didn't look. So first thing that morning I jumped on the bed and made him wake up for his gift. I think I was more excited for it then he was. But he would soon change his tune. Tune being what I got him. I got him an I-pod Nano. He had been wanting one ever since he got his new job. Three days a week they have an exercise hour and Ben likes to run. Well his running can boring without music. He had music on his phone, but it never gets loud enough. So he in essence wanted an upgrade. Once he opened it and hooked it up to the computer, he really started to enjoy it. All that week I had spent the time downloading all our Cd's so he could put them on his i-pod. It worked out quite well. He loved once he figured out how it all worked. It was nice. We also went out for lunch for his birthday.

When he was stationed in Colorado all the soldiers loved going to Hooters, and he wanted to go there at least once before we left. So I surprised him for his birthday. It was actually pretty good food. Even Gabbi liked it. Also since it was mother day, they handed out flowers to all mothers that visited. After lunch I told Ben he could do anything he wanted. But he decided to surprise me with a heart pendant necklace and a ring to match. I loved it. We both enjoyed out special day even though we had to share. Once we were back from Colorado we celebrated his birthday with my family at one of out family dinners. Jenny made a really good bar-b-que dinner with cheesy potatoes and German chocolate cake for dessert. It was really good, Jenny's a good cook. We played games in the back yard because it was such a nice day. Then he got to open the gift that my parents gave him. The bought him an emergency car kit, which I have been trying to make him get for a long time, it's a good thing he held out. And a dash board cover for the car. He loved it. Anything for his car he loves. Even though its our car. It was a great birthday for him.

Kayla turns 6

Right after we got home from Colorado it was time for Kayla's birthday. I can't believe it, she will be in the 1st grade next year. "All grown up!" They had her birthday party the ward house of Tiffany's parents. Everyone came and it was a blast. They had blown up about 100 balloons and had them placed in the middle of the gym and it was a free for all balloon fight with everyone. The kids had a blast. She had a luau party and Kayla was so nice she even let Gabbi wear her flower lai. Everything was so cute, Tiffany always does a good job on things like that and Kayla loved it. She got a lot of really cool stuff.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

The Cheyenne Mountain is a famous zoo because it is built into the mountain. It is an up hill zoo which was very tiring, but very worth it. Everyone we talked to said we needed to make time to go this zoo and they were right. It is the only zoo I have gone to in a long time, where all the animals were awake and interacting with the visitors. It was awesome. I completely felt out of shape though. The hills killed me, but we did the whole zoo in a little over 2 hours. Ben wasn't able to come because of class and it was the only time that we could fit it in to the schedule due to there winter hours. So I ventured without him and just took Gabbi. We had a pretty good time, but I wasn't able to let her out of the stroller to walk around because she probably would have ended up rolling down the hills more then walking on them. Thank heavens everything was low to the ground so she could see into the cages. I think she had the most fun with the gorilla's and monkeys. They were sitting at their window and tapping the glass, putting their hands on top of the kids hands kind of like they were giving a high 5. It was so cute to see the look on her face when they were playing with her, so to speak. This zoo is mainly known for their giraffe exhibit. They house about 20 giraffes and they are out in the middle of the zoo. The fences provide an up close look at the giraffe enough to pet and feed them treats. It was crazy to see one women feeding a giraffe a treat from her mouth. I wanted to up chuck to see the giraffe's tongue reach out for the treat and even lick the women face. I would rather die. It was nasty. But the kids had a blast feeding the giraffes. The day we were there, a couple of schools were there for the end of year field trips. Well not their whole school, just a couple of grade from a school and a kindergarten program. So it was really nice to have the zoo pretty empty, beside them, enough for Gabbi to see all the animals without getting in any ones way. It was a pretty cool zoo and in a way changed my opinion about zoos. Most of the time the animals are asleep or don't want to be bothered, but here it was pretty much the exact opposite. It was awesome. Well worth the trip.

Parks

Parks were our main form of entertainment for Gabbi and I, and Colorado had a lot of them. They had a few that were in walking distance and then the others, we needed the car. So that meant we could only go there when Ben was done with class. Gabbi loves the park. She used to be scared of the swing because she couldn't breathe really well with the wind in her face, but now she just loves it and Ben makes a fool of himself while he's pushing her and it just makes her laugh historically. Sorry about the video being the wrong directions, but that was just so funny I had to add it.

The park we are at in the video is called memorial park. At each corner of this park there is a different monument in memory of different things; the navy, firemen, and one other I can't remember. But it was pretty cool to see the different monuments. The firemen one, was the one that I like the best, but I forgot my camera that day. This park also had a giant man made lake right in the middle of it. They had a nice paved walking trail that went all the way around so people could really enjoy their run or walk. Some boats are even aloud on the lake, I thought that was pretty funny for how small it was. Well more so, it surprised me to see a boat on it. You could even fish if you wanted. And they had so many toys for kids to play on. It was an awesome park.

The park by our hotel wasn't as nice and big, but it did it's job. It kept Gabbi entertained while I got to relax in the shade and watch her. We attempted the slide for the first time at this park. Gabbi wasn't quite sure about it, but we made her go down anyway. It was an adventure for her.

The parks saved my sanity. I was able to get out of the hotel and Gabbi could play where ever she wanted, well as long as she was in view.

Cliff Dwellings

Colorado is home to the famous Indian cliff dwellings. They have visitors come from all over the country to visit the dwellings. There were parts of the dwellings that weren't visitor accessible until the most recent years. It was really interesting to see who they used to live. I don't think I could have lived in the small confined spaces that they lived in and the fact that they slept on rocks and in the dirt. That doesn't sound at all comfortable. All throughout the dwelling they had explanations as to what they did in each room, and they definitely utilized all the space they had. The modernized one of the main building to make a gift shop and added on to it to add a new portion of the museum. They did a history of the cliff dwellings museum. The different events they held there, the many different types of visitors, all the work that was done there. It was pretty cool to see all the post card and the changes they went through over the past 100 years that is has been open.

Pikes Peak

They have what's called the Pike Peak Park. It's a 19 mile drive up the mountain. The majority of the drive can be driven on the good parts of the year. But the peak is only accessible for about a month towards the end of the summer early fall. It takes that long to have the snow melt. When we went, we were able to drive up 18 miles and the snow pack was at least 4 ft high creating a wall on both sides. It was quit scary to drive up. I am not a fan of driving someplace where I can look down on one side and not see the bottom. That is what is was like pretty much the whole drive. At one point we were even driving through the clouds and that made it even more frightening. They also have complete u-turns it seemed like and you had no visibility if someone was on the other side. But beside being my chicken self, the view was incredible. You could see the city down below and it literally looked like an ant hill, nothing but specs. An amazing drive.

Denver Zoo

Our first weekend was filled with adventure in Denver. First we ended up taking one of Ben's classmates to the Denver airport, since we were down there we wanted to explore a little. Due to time contransts that night, we didn't get to explore as much as we wanted so we headed back the next day; being Saturday. We drove around looking for this most spactacular mall we heard about and after seeing three different malls that weren't it, we decided to give up and head to the zoo. It was very packed, but that didn't surprise with it being a Saturday. But inside it didn't seem that bad. There were hardly any crowds when it came to looking at the animals. I am not a huge fan of the zoo most times because every time I go the animals always seem to be sleeping.

This time wasn't much different, but they big difference was that we had Gabbi. She loved when the animals would get right up to their glass and look at the kids. She got scared a few times, but overall she loved it. I think she liked the birds and ducks the best. The zoo lets them run freely, so Gabbi kind of chased some of them. She also really like looking at the fish in their aquarium. The famous "Nemo and Dory" were even there. It was a very big zoo and a lot to see. However it may not have been the best time of season. A lot of animals were still in hibernation, but they had a far amount available to the public.

Garden of the Gods

Ben just loved the Garden of the Gods when he went, that it had to be one of the first things we did. I admit, it was gorgeous. It's called Garden of the Gods because of it's elevation and the grand and serene area it encompasses. There are huge rock structures throughout the hole park. People go there to hike, walk, rock climb, run, or just enjoy the view. It was "built by the Gods" for people to really enjoy. We walked around the park and stopped every once and awhile to let Gabbi to walk around. She loved being out and about. It admit, it was nice to be out of the hotel to.

The formation is called the kissing camels. They are located in the upper left hand corner.