National Lampoon's.....

National Lampoon's Vacation is the only movie I can think of off the top of my head that sort of describes our vacation. So many little things happened that it was comical.

First off I'll tell you that our original trip was planned for Omaha, NE. My grandpa has had season tickets to the college world series forever and we've only been once since we've been married. Plus this was the last year at Rosenblatt Stadium. So we were all looking forward to going and catching a few games.

Monday before we left (we were planning on leaving on Thursday) my parents called to say that that Cathy (the woman whose house we were staying at - some great friends) had had a stroke. The last thing she needed was to have her house taken over by 10 people (my family, my parents, my sister Kelly and my brother and his girlfriend). And I agreed. Since it was the world series there weren't hotel rooms available and the family we have that live there just don't have the room for all of us Coloradans. So we decided to not go to Omaha. We were bummed but almost immediately we felt the stress go way down. As much as we wanted to go, once we decided not too, we realized how stressful it'd been. So much so that even though there were a couple bedrooms offered to us on Wednesday we still decided to not go this year. Things were crazy before we left and it was going to be crazy when we got home (obviously we had no idea about Ranger....). So we chose to stay in Denver and just have fun up there.

So we left Friday morning so we could take our time driving up. I decided not to begin our vacation with me taking Jack and Kate to Dairy Queen the night before and Kate having a fit about ice cream. I figured who really wants to hear about that!?

Anyway, 30 minutes into the drive Jack pooped. And so began the long trip up. One with Jack pooping at least every hour and us pulling over to change his diaper. By about Wolf Creek (the first big mountain pass about an hour into it) we caught up with the Ride the Rockies group. These are crazy bicyclists who ride their bikes all over Colorado. This year they started in Grand Junction, rode down to Durango, over to Monte Vista and up to Salida where they finished. So crazy to me. Mark's own personal hell.

We literally followed bicyclists for 2 hours - slow going - over the pass (where we stopped to change another diaper...), down the other side and all the way to Del Norte. I don't know how much more time that added. They were riding in the right lane so there wasn't any passing room and you obviously had to be very cautious.

We didn't stop for lunch because I had brought a lot of food in coolers. Unfortunately the kids were not impressed with my selection even though they were with me when I bought it. *sigh*

We got to Denver in the afternoon and had a good time hanging out with my mom and my sister Meghan. Although that night Meghan's basement flooded so she had to spend a bunch of time cleaning up water, moving furniture, ripping out carpet and cleaning things up.

Saturday I believe was the lazy day. We just rested from our trip up. Oh and Meghan's dog, Cutler (I call him Cutler-something-is-always-wrong-with-me-Leadford) had a deer tick. A huge deer tick! About the size of Mark's pinky nail. Big for a tick. It'd been there a while eating nicely. So we had an adventure getting out the tick. I'm serious. This vacation was full of these kinds of stories!

On Sunday we visited my brother's girlfriend's (Sarah) church, Red Rocks. It was great. The pastor spoke on nutrition and honoring God with our bodies. It was very unconventional but very good at the same time. Both Mark and I were challenged. After church we had lunch with my aunt and uncle and grandma. Good to see family. Oh yes and I believe this was the day my parent's air conditioner started leaking...It was also Father's Day. The kids got Mark a card and Just Dance for the Wii. The game got a lot of use while in Denver. You should see Mark dance to Cotton-eyed Joe!

Monday we decided to meet up with Mark's brother, Chad, and his wife, Alisha, and go to the Children's Museum. We got up and got ready. I burned the snot out of my upper arm with my curling iron. Nice job. The medicine I put on it made it look like an enormous bruise. Disgusting.

Once we got there we waited for Chad and Alisha in the firetruck room. They have this life-size firetruck that the kids can climb all over and inside and drive and turn on the lights and a quiet siren. There are fireman dress-up clothes and a hose they can play with. They loved it. Especially Jack. And I'm about to tell you just how much Jack loved it. (sorry for the phone pics - forgot the good camera...of course...)

Once Chad and Alisha got there we headed upstairs (where most of the exhibits are) and played in the dress-up room. The kids were running around, dancing and dressing up. Having a blast. I turned to Chad and told him I was going to run to the bathroom. When I came out I asked Mark where Jack was and he said he thought he was with me. Uh no. He did not accompany me to the potty.

So the frantic search for Jack began. The next thing we hear is the loudspeaker. A woman from the museum wanted to let the parents of the child in the green shirt (yeah, that would be Jack) know that he was safe with a museum employee and could we please come pick him up from the front desk. Seriously?! Oh yes, we are those parents and Jack is that kid...And that kid had climbed down a flight of stairs and went back to the firetruck and was driving it when he was caught unsupervised. Oh my golly.

We retrieve Jack, have a calm down session and return to normal children's museum activities. Sort of. We visited the art room, the bubble room, the train room and the put together everything from recyclables room (don't remember the real name).

The kids climbed and played and had a blast. And really so did the adults. Then we decided to go get some food. Our next adventure.

I don't know any place to eat in downtown Denver so I called Meghan and had her be my GPS. She was going to direct us to the Old Chicago. Yum! Well at one point she wanted me to turn left but I couldn't get on the street she was telling me to without pulling a U-turn so I went up to the nearest light to turn around. I got to the light and it turned red so of course I stopped (Chad was following me) only to realize I had stopped on the light-rail tracks (new since the last time I was in Denver!). Yes I know not to stop on train tracks but I didn't realize I was on them till I stopped. I started to reverse then looked out the passenger window and saw a train coming. Looked out my driver's side window and saw another train coming. Both were blaring their horns at the dumb mini-van driver who stopped on the tracks. I yelled at Mark to yell at Chad to BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK UP! OR WE'RE GONNA BE HIT BY 2 TRAINS! Luckily Mark was on the phone with Chad and we backed up just in time. *double big sigh* My options were to back up, get hit by 2 trains or pull into traffic. So thankful I could back up!

Talk about heart racing! We finally made our way to Old Chicago and by this time I was so frazzled I said we're parking in that parking garage and I don't care if it costs our mortgage payment I am NOT driving around looking for a parking space!!!! So we did.

Lunch was good. It was fun to hear about Chad and Alisha's vacation to Fiji. Yeah I know. They go to Fiji and swim with sharks and do a zip line and we almost get hit by a light-rail in Denver....on our vacation...Oh the glamor that is our lives... We lived vicariously through them. And truly we enjoyed listening to stories. Fiji sounds wonderful!

Needless to say by the time we got home I had a headache and had to lay down.

My dad and Kelly came home that night then the ladies of the family went to Holy Yoga over at the church we attended on Sunday. Yoga with scripture. It was really fun!

So let me recap for you the first 4 days of our vacation: change of plans, poop, bicyclists, poop, starve on the drive, poop, deer tick, flooded basement, church, lunch, broken AC, Just Dance, burn, loose Jack, find Jack, almost hit by light-rail, Fiji vs Denver, Old Chicago, headache, family and Holy Yoga. And yet there's more to come tomorrow since this post is entirely too long!