Have I really been married for 7 years? Yes, I have and it's even harder to believe that I met Dan when I was only 17 years old and that we have now lived in Colorado for 10 years. It was time for a break from spending the weekend at the house with the kids and since our anniversary was coming up I decided to book us at the Embassy Suites in Colorado Springs for 2 nights. It was time for a mini-vacation. We chose the Embassy because of the suites and the fact that we could put the kids to bed and then we could stay up and enjoy some time together. I got off of work early on Friday so we could get moving, which was a must since traffic through Denver on a Friday is a bear. We made pretty good time considering. We got to the hotel around 6pm, checked in and walked around a little. We had an Old Chicago that was a block away so we ordered some food and had supper. After supper it was time to hit the pool, even though it was way past Junior's and getting past Katelynn's bed time. We had fun, but at 9pm we had to get them to bed. Dan and I stayed up for a little while. Katelynn was so funny the night before our trip, it was 10pm before we could get her to bed. She was so excited. She kept saying, "Mom, I just can't sleep"; "Mom, I am just too excited" - Go to bed kiddo! The next morning she was awake at 5:30am because she was so excited - poor thing had a long wait.
Dan & I enjoying our Merlot the first night at the hotel!
Katelynn enjoying her time after a nice swim in the pool!
Junior, happy as usual. He thought the first day was pretty cool!
Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast. This is also one of my favorite things at Embassy - their omelets that they make right in front of you. Everyone enjoyed. Then it was off to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Up to the mountains we went. Have I said lately how much I love my GPS in my car, took us right there even after we missed a turn. This was the most amazing zoo I have been too. The animals were all so alert and it seemed so much more intimate. All of our favorite part was feeding the giraffe's. The first stop when you walk in is the giraffe's and they are literally face to face with you. You can buy them crackers to feed, which was cheap - 3 large crackers for a dollar. The kids were a little nervous at first, but got the hang of hit. We headed back to the giraffe's to feed them again and get some more pictures before we left for the day. When else is a person ever going to get that close to a giraffe again?!
We walked through the rest of the zoo. Katelynn, Junior and I took a little train ride, also only a dollar and later Katelynn got a pony ride and a ride on an old style Merry-go-Round.
Yes, I realize that I do not really fit in this thing ,but Junior couldn't ride alone.
Yay, the fun!
Katelynn getting her pony ride, it made her so happy!
I thought this was just a nice back drop for a picture of the two boys.
It was getting close to nap times (we skipped Junior's morning nap) so it was time to get back and have lunch and do some resting. While Junior took a nap Dan took Katelynn swimming in the pool again. After nap we were off to the USA Olympic training center for a tour. I was really thinking this would be cool and it was free. Our tour guide was good, but we didn't really get to see much of the facility, a lot of it was looking through windows and nobody was training. The one really interesting piece was the men's gymnastics training place that we did get to see. The floor exercise mat (which is the same size for the women) is so much smaller than it looks on TV. Our guide said the TV stations stretch it out when they broadcast. I would like to see a competition in person and see how the can run and do all those flips in that small of an area, no wonder they step out. Katelynn was getting pretty wore out without having a nap and walking so much at the zoo so we snapped a few pictures and left without getting to the gift shop. I was hoping to sport some authentic USA vest or shirt or something, bummer.
Back to the hotel for supper. We went to the restaurant at the hotel, this was not very good, which was another bummer. It was time to just relax for awhile and of course the Embassy has their free Happy Hour that we didn't want to miss out on. Dan and I would take turns going down and grabbing two drinks to bring back up to the room, they had some good merlot! The kids watched a little movie (well, Katelynn did and Junior played around the room) and then it was bed time. Dan and I hung out again and then my friends Tim & Sienna that live in the Springs came over for a couple of beers. We had fun seeing and visiting with them and they seem to be doing well.
Sunday morning was about the same as Saturday. Down for breakfast and then we took the kids swimming. It was pretty early in the morning so we had the entire pool to ourselves, which was so nice. I could completely see us having a swimming pool, if only we lived like the rich! We packed up our bags and checked out of the room. We were headed to Garden of the Gods. This is basically hiking and touristy, sightseeing of Red Rocks that our kind of in the middle of everything. It was very pretty to look at, but I don't get into it too much. The tourist center had a video about how the red rocks got there, but they wanted $5.00/person for a 14 minute video - no thanks, too steep. A storm was starting to come in so it was getting pretty windy. We decided to take a couple pictures with Garden of the Gods in the back ground and then do the 10 minute drive through them to take a look. That was enough for us! (Lazy aren't we). Off homeward bound from there. The kids napped on the way home and we had a great weekend. It actually felt like we had been on vacation and had made the most out of our time. We will definitely be doing a couple more short trips like that. It seemed to work really well for us with the kids. I will post some more pictures later because you know I have a ton.
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