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I love Jesus. I love my family. I love photography. I love books. I love thinking. Probably in that order. I have a wonderful husband, five beautiful daughters, a house, and a camera. I enjoy spending time talking to my husband, playing with my girls, redecorating my house and shooting things with my camera. In my spare time, I sleep.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Denver Vacation: Monday

Monday morning, we got up and started getting ready to go. After a shower I began the process of packing up. We heard from J&S much earlier than expected; Little S even came over fully dressed and informed us that they were pretty much ready to go. So we abandoned our packing to go to breakfast with them at Chick-Fil-A since we were in no rush to get home and they needed to be back before 4:30. After we ate & had one of the employees take a group photo, the kids exploded into the play yard. They had a great time! All of them were laughing & running & screaming! We let them play for quite awhile but eventually we had to go and say goodbye to each other. Little S & Eden were both so sad to leave each other. They were both crying when we loaded them into their seats. After many goodbyes & hugs we parted ways. We headed back to our hotel to finish packing. The girls watched SpongeBob on tv while we made sure everything that belonged to us made it into our bags & Russ loaded up the van. I got some ice from the lobby & filled up our cooler and before long we were on the road. We had decided to take the girls to the Butterfly Pavilion so we headed to Westminster and found the place swarming with school children. That made it interesting! Eden really enjoyed the butterflies & the turtles. Jasmine was so worried about strapping herself into her stroller that she spent half the time with her back to the beauty. We spent quite a bit of time there. We looked at the spiders & bugs first. Then we walked through the Pavilion. Then we stopped to watch a presentation where they release some butterflies and tell us what each one is. With all the kids it was pretty crazy, crowded & we couldn't really pay attention and Eden started getting bored. A lot of the school kids were trying to get a butterfly to sit on their fingers and so Eden got it in her head that she wanted to hold a butterfly, too, so she & I went in search of a butterfly for her to hold. She was so excited when she finally "held" one on her finger for a couple seconds! We found Russ & Jasmine and Eden shared her good news with them. We all walked around for awhile longer, then we went and looked at the aquarium and the girls got to touch a starfish & a horseshoe crab. There was also a small interactive play space that we went through. They got to be bees and put together a praying mantis. They had fun. We stopped in the gift shop briefly and saw cheese flavored bugs for sale. Yuck! I got each of the girls a butterfly shaped lollipop and we left. We drove across the way & Russ stopped at a shoe store to look for new sandals while we waited in the car. We then went in search of food as it was nearing 3 o'clock and we were hungry. We went into the Hibachi Steakhouse to get Russ some sushi & to access the Internet on his Ipod to locate the nearest Jimmy Johns. Once we had secured both sushi & Jimmy Johns sandwiches we ate in the van. Jasmine tried to eat hers but she was so tired that she fell asleep with the sandwich in her hands so we saved hers for later & she finished it when we woke up. We made two more stops before leaving Denver. Russ went into Total Beverage and while he was in there I channel surfed the radio and learned from NPR that short people experience 'now' sooner than tall people. Handy tidbit to add to my list of reasons it's good to be short! We then went through a Starbucks drive-thru and got iced drinks. Mine was gone within minutes. It was so good! Our next stop was Loveland. I went to the Old Navy & finally got to get some shorts & tank tops to help get me through this pregnant summer. Jazzy & I then went next door to the Ross to use the facilities and I found a couple items to buy there, as well. After my little shopping excursion, we stopped at the PF Changs to get some take-out to take back to friends at home. Then we drove into Ft. Collins. Russ dropped me off at the Whole Foods while he & the girls went to fuel up. With those tasks out of the way we headed home for real--stopping only briefly in Cheyenne to use the bathroom. We got home about 9 pm. We were exhausted but we had a great time and were a bit sad for our vacation to be over so quickly.

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