Monday | August 4
{A day of going to the pool, Old Town, O'Dell, and Culvers :) }
Is this vacation update over yet, geesh?!? Plowing through in the name of being finished...
Porter is up at 12:45 am and is soaking wet because diapers aren't working well at night lately. I give him a bottle and change his clothes. Then he's up again at 2:15am and I want to die. I really cannot believe how awful he has slept here. The big kids are talking loudly before 7 am, then they release themselves from their room right when the clock is yellow. Nate goes upstairs with them because Truman and Cecelia are already fighting about ridiculous kid-things and need adult interference. I lay in bed willing myself to wake up. Finally do that at 7:20 and Porter is awake 7:30. Yawn, sigh, etc.
Pancakes!! Truman requested we make pancakes the other day so we had to make it happen on our last full day of vacation. Hang out, then the guys leave for golf at 8:15. Seriously, golfing four times during this trip is pretty incredible, no?
I get some 1:1 time with Porter as the bigs do a science experiment with Gogo. Porter loves the windmill thingy next door so we spend some time inspecting it and playing on the ground. Cecelia fell down the stairs this morning and I was very thankful they were of the carpeted variety instead of our solid wood stairs at home. I make Ports a bottle and lay him down at 9:15. When he's still quiet at 9:30 I go for a 3 mile run and felt amazing!
Kids are having snacks and watching Jake when I return. Cecelia is getting a keen sense of smell apparently and tells me, "I can smell that you're sweaty". Not sure that is really true but hustle into the shower anyway. I get the kids and our lunches all ready to take with us to the pool. My mom has a few friends that go to her Bible Study group and these moms are my age with little kids. Mom has told them my family was coming to Colorado and they wanted to meet up, offering to take us to the local pool in the neighborhood. The kids are super excited about this activity and I think it will be fun to meet some new mom friends who are my mom's friends.
Porter wakes at 10:45. Lindsey comes to get us at 11:15 and she follows me on Instagram so she feels like she already knows me and the kids and gives me a big hug immediately. She is outgoing and talkative and her little girls are adorable, and Truman and I ride with them in their car while mom takes Cecelia and Porter. Always such an ordeal fitting all three kids into cars these days...long live the minivan! ;)
Pool time! We get there around 11:30 and let the kids play, and one of Lindsey's (and mom's) friends meet us there with her two little ones, too. It's fun to see my three play with the other four, I love how kids can be social and just jump right into interacting with new people, no problem. We eat our packed lunches there, mom helps out with entertaining Porter who is moderately fussy, and we pack up around 1:45. Nate and dad meet us at the pool on their way back home and apparently they had a nice round of golf. They help us cart the children home and then we immediately put CC and Porter down for naps.
Once they are asleep, Nate and I head to Old Town for some shopping and more exploring. We had been discussing a very important topic last night and most of the morning: where to get afternoon coffee? We decided on Starry Night, because it was one of our favorites during our last trip. The iced lattes did not disappoint.
Also, in my day five post I said we bought fudge and spices and gifts for our parents but OOPS---that wasn't day five, it was this day instead. Easy to mix things up when we did walk around Old Town both days and then....wait for it...we decided to go back to O'Dell Brewery for a beer. Nate said I was being all wishy washy about what we should do, because I couldn't decide on having dessert or alcohol at this point in the day. Vacation = rough life, I know. When I said we should go back to O'Dell Nate was practically giddy because he loves that place so much.
This time we got sampler platters and the patio was, yet again, packed and full of awesome atmosphere. We feft at 5:10, hit rush hour traffic, and didn't get home until 5:45. We quickly said hello to our children and then our whole group headed out for dinner at Culvers. Eating out with children is always a crap shoot but this time proved to be really fun. Maybe having four adults and three kids had something to do with this? Also, the children ate nearly all of their meals (chicken tenders) and then got custard after so they were basically in heaven.
We went back home and played with the new toy my dad got the kids at Culvers---some ball toss game thing that was a huge hit.
I wanted a family picture, Nate was behind the camera and got this one first. Love it.
And the infamous porch shot. Porter's face is my favorite, along with his one knee sock.
Porter went to bed at 8:15 and big kids were shortly after. Nate and I started packing up since we knew our morning would be really early the next day, and then we broke out the fudge for my parents and did a little taste testing. Verdict: all of the varieties were amazing but double chocolate was our favorite, followed closely by salted caramel, German chocolate, and turtle. Mmmmmmm.
Beer, HGTV with my parents, and bed at 10:40. Vacation, why do you have to end? And yet, we were all kind of ready to get back into routine, I guess.
Tuesday | August 4
{Traveling Home}
Alarm goes off at 6 and everyone slept through the night, hallelujah!!! P-man is up 6:15 and gets his bottle, Nate and I are getting ready. We make time to eat breakfast outside one more time but in retrospect, we probably should have hustled butt a little more. But dude, coffee outside with the sunrising is the besssssst.
We woke the big kids up at 6:45 and left 7ish, sort of frazzled because I think we were trying to pull out of the driveway by 6:45 and that did not happen. Truman is crying about missing Margot the cat, which we think might be code for 'missing Colorado and grandparents'. Because really? The cat? I guess missing a cat is easier than encompassing his feelings of missing his grandparents. Truman rides with my dad and Nate, then Mom drives me and CC/Porter in her car. We wave goodbye to the mountains as we drive.
Horrible traffic on highway 25, like really really bad. Hear on the radio there is a major accident and I become slightly panicked that we will miss our flight. Stress-check my phone to see what other flights leave Denver and go to Milwaukee this date, and there are zero direct flights after ours and all of the later ones make us get in around 6-7pm. NOPE. Please let the traffic clear, Lord!
Arrive at the airport at 8:10 which isn't horrible, since our flight is scheduled to take off at 9:45. But we know that the Denver airport seems to be really horribly slow each time we are here, not sure why but it always takes us forever to get through lines and arrive at the proper gate. We say goodbye to my parents who illegally park in the loading zone to help us with our gigantic/numerous bags. We had such a wonderful time with them but it's easy to ignore the sadness of leaving when you are stressed out about flying with three small (exhausted) children.
We eventually get to our gate at 9:10 and chaos ensues, all of the kids are thirsty/have to potty/are starving/are angry at life. We note our flight is delayed from 9:45 to now take off at 10:00, so I find my emergency candy in my bag and dish it out to the kids. I'm sure sugar makes bad moods better indefinitely, no crash allowed. Not sure what else we did while waiting for our flight, but I do recall Porter ingesting airport germs from every surface possible and being very sigh-y and anxious to get on with the flight.
Boarded the plane and we did end up sitting close together again, Porter on my lap and then Nate with the bigger kids across from us. P and I end up sitting on the aisle seat with a nice gentleman from Miller-Coors next to us. He says that his entire team is flying to Milwaukee and he's a CO native, stating that flying to Milwaukee is 'fine' in the summer but he is really upset about flying our way during our winters. Join the club, man. Winter blows and apparently even parts of Colorado have less snow that us somehow? It's definitely milder for my parents in Fort Collins than for us in Milwaukee, that is for sure. Not sure how that is possible but I will blame Lake Michigan.
Porter is alternating between being happy and playful to being PISSED as we prepare for take off. CC is constantly asking, 'when can I watch my show?" Finally took off and about 30 min later and Porter took part of a bottle, looking super tired. He fought it hard but did fall asleep on me for about 45 min. Heaven.
Then he awoke and immediately pointed to Cecelia's juice she got from the flight attendant, like 'you can't pull one over on me, lady, I know juice was handed out while I snoozed'. We managed the rest of the flight with snacks and letting him smack the back of the chair in front of me repeatedly (sorry, dude). He got a little antsy and I think we walked the aisles/hung in the back by the bathrooms but I can't be sure, I think I blocked a lot of this return flight from my memory.
Cecelia was singing 'bah bah black sheep' very loudly as we exited plane, and the flight attendant loved her. Tony met us at the airport, before we got to the baggage claim, and we are all excited to see him. We got our bags, found the van, and drove home. Sweet, glorious home.
CC and Truman both slept for about15 minutes on the ride home, and we arrived at 2pm. Truman was wide awake when we got home and Cecelia, too, but I convinced her to keep sleeping in her own bed. We ended up having to wake her at 5 pm so she might have been a little tired. Porter and Truman ate lunch with us, Nate got Cousins and Colectivo before we unpacked because we were STARVING and it was 3pm. Porter went down after that, I went through work emails and phone calls, unpacked with Nate, cleaned up dishes, he watered outside and we all remarked it was amazing to be home. I liked getting back around 2 this day to have a bit of time to recollect before we returned to work the next day. I think Tony and Lois came over to our place that night and we all ate dinner together which was a perfect way to catch up on our trip away, and they brought Henry back to us after his fun week at grandma's. Super spoiled dog alert, and one that probably didn't want to come back home to us!
And that's a wrap! Such a great vacation, hope to make it annual or at least biannual!
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