Colorado/Utah Vacation Days 1-2: Red Eyes and Monsons

We haven't left our rock for almost a year, so vacation could not come soon enough.  We prefer not to take our child out of school but when there's a family wedding, you go, and when you go from clear out in the middle of the ocean, you don't go for only a few days.

Red eye flights are the worst.  Every time we take one, I think there surely must be an alternative and whatever the cost difference is, it has to be worth it.  Then we look at the difference and take the red eye.  We were up packing and fretting over our seats (the non-reclining back row next to the bathrooms) the night before until 2:30am, so it was a rough start.  The kids did decently well on the flights to Colorado, but we got an hour of sleep between the two of us.

 We went to get our car and stood in line for an hour while the kids pleaded for food and Owen blew out his diaper all over me.  When we finally got through the line, we walked out and stood next to the Yaris and realized that unless we were clowns in a circus, we weren't going to fit.  Knowing we had an hour wait and bigger cars were several hundred dollars more for the week, we tried to be clowns, and we must have looked like a pretty entertaining circus to the employees watching.  We can't think about it now without busting a gut--Brady squeezing in bags everywhere we could and me finally admitting that he was right and there was absolutely no way.  The agents came out and helped us determine another option, and we were suited up with a mini van for $5/day a more.  Lucky.

By this time, we were all starving and made a fateful decision to eat at Chick-fil-A.  It was terrible and we can't figure out why people like eating there.  We finally checked into the hotel at nearly 4pm (after landing at 11:30am), and we all felt a little like this weepy baby:

After a really dry, slow jog for me, a quick snooze for Brady, and a trip to Target for Kate, we met up with Steve and Natalie at Chipotle.  They were generous to drive 45 minutes to meet us there and our kids were in heaven playing with Kelsey and Joshua.

The Nufer family reunion didn't start until Friday afternoon, so we jumped on an opportunity to see Boulder.  I've wanted to do the Boulder Half Marathon since getting a postcard about it in the mail almost 15 years ago.  The city definitely had charm.  We checked out Flatirons in Chautauqua Park, again joining Steve and Natalie's family.  

I saw this pile of horse poop and asked Zachary, "Why couldn't you hold it?"  In classic Z-man style, he cocked his head to the side, raised an eyebrow and said, "Moooooommmmm, really?"  About 5 minutes later, we crossed a stream and he asked me if I could please go to the bathroom in a place more private next time.  Good one, son.

Kate and Kelsey were really fast friends and it was super to have Natalie to myself.

Joshua and Zac kept coming up with ways to make the hike more fun--finding things to jump off of and playing "made you look" about 100 times.

Hyrum was happy when walking and blowing on dandelion weeds.

When Zac got out of the car, he immediately told Joshua that there were no snakes on the hike.  We let him know there actually were snakes in Colorado (which was the topic of about 97 of the 100 "made you looks").  I was surprised to spot this one several inches from my foot on the trail, though.  The kids were trying to use their extensive knowledge of snakes (which extends to rattle v. no rattle) to determine if it was poisonous.  An old man behind us said this guy was a gopher snake.  Zachary asked, "Are gopher snakes bad?"  He replied, "If you are a gopher."

After our short hike, we hit up Pearl Street in Boulder, where Zac was offered marijuana, the kids picked up their souvenirs, we ate a delicious curry bowl from a food truck, we posed in front of gorgeous flowers, we watched street performers, and we made like tourists with a piece of Cheesecake Factory deliciousness.

On the way out, Brady pointed out this store and acted like I should understand it's significance.  I told him I'd never heard of the store and it took me the entire stoplight to figure out it was our initials and he was being adorable.

I would have loved more time to explore Boulder, or even time to run a half marathon there.  Plenty of trails and exploring for more than a quick couple of hours.  Next time!

Up next, Nufer Family Reunion and Eric's Wedding.