Denver Trip 2009

I think we just went on our last family vacation of 2009. I don't like to travel in the winter...too scared. So we decided to take a trip to Denver to visit Jake's brother in Parker, CO for our last trip of the year. And what do you know, the Utes were playing there at the exact same time as our trip. How convenient. I really don't mind planning some of our vacations around Utah Football. I think of it as a great excuse to travel. It's a win-win really :)

It was an 8 hour drive and Lydia was PERFECT. She only whined a couple of times. And she didn't watch more than 2 hours of movies; she just entertained herself. It was awesome.

As soon as we walked in the door of Josh's house, Lydia and her cousin Elle just clicked. Elle asked her if she wanted to go play and off they went together. It was so cute. They got along perfectly this whole trip and I LOVED it. They didn't fight once. It was nice knowing that there wouldn't be any fights when they left to go play for two hours by themselves. It made me relax more knowing that I wouldn't have to referee at all. So that was great that they had each other on this trip.

Here they are playing games and dancing.
Lydia practicing her break dancing moves.

Playing downstairs.

On Thursday we went to the Denver Aquarium which is 1000 times cooler than the one here in Utah. They had this huge tube you go through to make it feel like you're in the water with the fish. We literally sat in this tube for more than 30 minutes; the girls' were loving it.

Then I saw a long lost buddy of mine...the Fire Bellied Toad. I had one of these growing up. Actually, my brother got one for a scouting project and when he was done he didn't want it anymore so I took over caring for him and he lived another 10 years or so. He even almost died and I nursed him back to health. We had put him in the trash and everything. We saw his foot move and I healed him from there. True story.

They had a HUGE shark tank. Here's Rodney checking out the fish.

That night we all went out to dinner for some bbq.

The next day we went to the Butterfly Pavillion. I held my first tarantula. I have fear of spiders, but apparently not that big of one if I can hold this thing. Lydia and Jake didn't want anything to do with Rosie the Tarantula.

We also got to touch some Starfish and different coruscation's.

I can't get over how well Elle and Lyd's got along. Elle brought out the silliness in Lydia as you can see in this pic below.

They had a zip line you could go on to feel what it was like to "fly like a butterfly".

Then on to the rain forest where all of the butterflies were. There were literally thousands in this huge greenhouse type place. It was really humid in there, just like the actual rain forest where these butterflies live. I was sad though because none of the butterflies landed on any of us even though they were flying all around us.

Here's the Owl Butterfly.

Elle and Lydia being so cute together. I just love it.

Then on Saturday the guys left for the Utah game. The weather was freezing, about 16 degrees and snowy. So glad us girls' didn't go. Between the four of them they had on about 24 shirts and 8 pair of pants. No joke. Layers baby!!!! Luckily the Utes won, which would make for a great drive home on Sunday.

While the guys were at the game us girls' went to "The Wildlife Experience" in Parker. And an experience it was. It was like you were actually in these animals' environments. It was really cool. Lydia was really scared at first because of all the real sounding animal noises and all of the animals that were around. It was kinda funny but she got used to it.

We also saw a 45 minute movie about African wildlife and it was so interesting. I really learned a lot. It was geared more toward older people but Lydia and Elle just sat there quietly through the whole movie. Thank goodness.

Silly Lydia.

Then we ate dinner at our new favorite place, Chick-fil-a. Jake is obsessed with it and hopes they get one in SLC soon.

In the kids meals they had different "experiences" (as Elle called them) that you could do. The experiments were actually really cool. They put on their aprons and scientists they became. It was so cute.

Lydia was perfect once again on the car ride home. Due to bad weather/snow/horrible wind drifts it took us a lot longer to get home that we liked. But we made it in one piece and that's what's important. But 8 hours is just too long to drive for me. Flying from here on out!

Thank you so much Josh and Danni for your hospitality and letting us all invade your house. We had a great time.