Grandmas' Visit (cont)

On Wednesday, we traveled back up the canyon to Georgetown. This small mining town touts Victorian style housing and cute shops in the historic downtown. Just beyond the shopping is supposed to be the Georgetown Loop railroad. As we pulled up to Georgetown, we stopped by their visitors center and to our surprise it was CLOSED. Why would you close down the visitors center in a town that was obviously surviving on tourism?

Anyway, we decided to just guess and drive as it was a small town. Drive to one end and if you don't find anything, turn around and go to the other. Luckily we followed the right cars into the old shopping area. Before we window shopped, we drove around some of the old homes there. As we passed one place, my mom asked me to stop and go back as she thought she saw a donkey or mule in someones yard, just laying down. Close enough.

We walked around the shops, enjoyed some homemade ice cream, found some interesting/cool trinkets (rocks, trilobites, aspen leaves with only the veins left that are gold/silver plated, etc.). They were fun little shops. After we had walked around, we went to go find the train. One of the store owners gave us directions to the station.

As we pulled in, a man from the gift shop/ticket office greeted us and said that the last train of the day had already left. We were a little disappointed to have missed it. I think it would have been a fun ride. Then I remembered the 24th of July at This Is the Place park when Jake took Ellie on the mini train they had going. She didn't like it too much. We decided to wait for the train anyway as from where we were we could watch it cross over a 100 foot high trestle called Devil's Gate.

The train started to come into view. We watched it travel over the bridge and pull into the station. Ellie did not like the noise it made as it pulled in. She immediately turned on whoever was holding her, fussing, and cuddling deep into their chest. Maybe it was a good thing we weren't actually on the train.

Grandma Wendy bought Ellie the cutest conductor's hat, which oddly enough she likes to wear. (I will post a few of the cute pictures later.) The 4 generations picture in the last post was taken by the train station.

We then continued on our adventures by traveling back down the canyon to grab Jake for dinner. But we got distracted on the way down and stopped at Buffalo Bill's grave and the Boettcher Mansion.

At Buffalo Bill's, the museum was already closed but of course the gift shop was open and the actual grave site was just on the mountain side. Outside the gift shop was a lookout patio that faced Denver. (The grave is on Lookout Mountain just outside of Golden.) We spent a few minutes looking through those old viewing binoculars things. We tried to pick out a few things. You could barely see the airport it is so far out on the horizon. The gift shop had some cute things in it. Nothing that we really hadn't seen at other gift shops so far.

The Boettcher Mansion isn't a mansion by today's standards but considering it was built in 1917 makes it very impressive. Now it is use mostly as a events/reception center but I imagine it would be quite a site to see all done up for such an event. It sits on the mountain and aside from a small groomed gardens close to the mansion, it is all forest that surrounds it. There is an elegant stone gazebo type structure out back. The door faces away from the building and has a fireplace inside.

We drove down and waited for Jake to finish up at Young Men's to take off to dinner at H Burger Co. The burgers were pretty good. The patties were hand formed but the main reason for eating there was they have liquid nitrogen shakes. My mom wanted to try one to see how it compared to the ice cream place in Lehi/Provo area. Of course, Ellie provided the show. Not only for us, but she kept trying to attract the attention of the people sitting on either side of us to entertain them as well.

On Thursday, mom's and grandma Bonnie's flight left later in the afternoon so we tried to squish in a few more activities. First we took off to see the Denver Temple. In my opinion, the Denver Temple looks like a mini Jordan River which could be true as it was built shortly after the JR Temple. One of the main differences between the two is behind the Denver Temple there is a cute spot to take bridal picture. It is a circle of benches with trellis coverings and flowers surrounding it. Quite beautiful but I am sure difficult to snag a good picture of the temple from there.

From there we headed to the Cherry Creek shopping center. We grabbed lunch at Panda Express. Ellie loves the noodles in the chow mien. Apparently we had been keeping her busy because as she finished lunch, she took the opportunity to sit back and relax. What a silly goose.

One of Ellie's new found loves is stuffed animals so Grandma Wendy wanted to give her a Build a Bear (kind of a tradition with Grandma). Luckily they started making "small fry" Build a Bear animals. They are just miniature stuffed animals (already stuffed) that you can dress if you so desire. Ellie had a hard time deciding which one she wanted. Can you tell?

We even tried to hold the equal distance from her and allow her to grab at one but she would grab one and then grab another and then the last. If we tried to move the others once she grabbed for the first, she would start to whimper. To finish off our trip, Ellie wanted to show grandmas the fun play area in the mall. She loves it there and would have play longer but we had to leave to make sure mom and grandma didn't miss their flight.

We were really glad to have mom and Grandma come out and visit. Ellie still can't seem to receive enough attention from Jake or I to make up for theirs during the visit and I know she is lonely sitting in the backseat all by herself without grandma Bonnie there to tickle her piggies.

Thanks for such a great visit Grandma Wendy and Grandma Bonnie. We love you!

Grandmas' Visit

Yes the grammar in this posting's title is correct. My mom (Grandma Wendy) and her mom (Grandma/Great Grandma Bonnie) came out to visit last week. Boy did we have fun. Ellie is now a little stir crazy from being in the house so much compared to last week.

Here is our picture of 4 generations.


They flew into Denver on Monday. Ellie and I drove to the airport to pick them up. Unfortunately none of us really knew a lot about the Denver Airport, the airport doesn't have good guidance signs and they got lost trying to meet me outside. Once we found each other, we drove back to our place to drop off their stuff and then off to the Outlets at Castle Rock. Deal of the day; I bought a pair of levi capri pants (which I needed) for a grand total of $6.44! Awesome.
When we girls were done spending money, we drove home and picked up Jake for dinner. We ate at the Rocky Mountain Diner. Overall dinner was delicious and with Ellie there showing off for everyone, we had a show as well.

The next day us girls took off for the Denver Botanic Gardens. This, like the zoo, seems to be a developing project. First we toured the Children's Garden. In there the garden and learning activities are tailored for kids as well as being a rooftop garden to conserve energy over the parking garage.

I loved wandering around the actual gardens. After stopping for a bite to eat, we started our wandering in the tropical garden: an indoor conservatory that was as humid as the rain forests and jungles of tropical areas. In the center of the room was a "tree" with stairs and an elevator so we could go to the upper levels of the canopy. Below is a picture looking up, notice the pretty purple flowers at the top.

This is the close up of the purple flowers. They turned out to be one of my garden enemies, Morning Glory. I couldn't believe how big the flowers were.

We left the tropical garden by the way of the orchid garden. Outside they have areas grouped off to show gardens of different types; rose, lily, oak grove, Japanese, and many more. Being fall, some of the areas weren't the greatest but others were just wonderful.

We also found the romantic garden that was to be closed later that evening for a function. We guessed a wedding ceremony.

There were quite a few areas with water displays and the gardens were also displaying several statues of Henry Moore.

After enjoying the gardens, we stopped at home to "hopefully" allow Ellie a small nap. Small doesn't describe the shut eye she got.

Next we drove out to the Red Rocks Amphitheater. This is a really great place. I hope one day I can see something performed here. The theater is set right next to the foothills and is mostly natural formations. Of course there have been a few modern additions for safety and for technical purposes.

This is us standing at the top of the theater. Behind us is the stage and looks out over Denver.

The top row is row 69, I think. If you have been to Rice Eccles Stadium (where the Utah Utes play football), it has a few more rows than the west side. Nothing was scheduled to be there that night but there were about 30-40 people there exercising. It was quite a sight. Some just walked the rows, some walked/ran stairs, some high stepped the benches but I thought it was a great way to exercise if you were already in shape.

Ellie, Grandma Wendy and I walked all the way down the stairs to the stage. Grandma Bonnie waited on row 43 for us to come back up. This is what it looks like from the bottom. That's Grandma sitting all by her lonesome.

Ellie and I playing on the stage down front. I will tell you, it was a hard climb back up. Carrying a 20+ pound infant didn't make it any easier. My calves were stiff the next day.

We toured the amphitheater hall of fame and museum to learn about how has played there and the history surrounding it. Apparently dinosaurs used to roam the area. There was a bit of information about that as well.

A short drove over a small pass took us to Idaho Springs, a small mountain mining town. We drove past a few shops but stopped for dinner as it was becoming late. We stopped at Beau Jo's pizza. You buy the pizza based on weight. Their Rocky Mountain crust stands about 1 1/2" to 2" high. Our server told us most people save the crust and eat it with honey like rolls.

Check out their salad bar. We loved the bath tubs.

One of the menu items is called the Challenge. We weren't about to try it. $75 for a 16" pizza that weighs 14 lbs; consisting of pepperoni, sausage, hamburger, green peppers, onions, and mushrooms. The challenge; if only two people can eat the entire pizza (crust and all) in one hour and one sitting, the pizza is free, they receive $100 cash prize and 2 Beau Jo's t-shirts (seen on Man vs. Food).

Having had enough adventure for the day, we headed home. Ellie was one tired little girl and even though Grandma Bonnie was sitting next to her on the ride home, she still fell asleep.

Rough day!

Today has been a bit of a rough day. Ellie has decided that she is done eating baby food. Last Saturday we bought a few more jars because she was still eating it. At all three meals yesterday and this morning she would eat maybe 3 bites and then start waving her arms in front of her and yelling. If not quick enough, baby food would go flying. Now we have all these containers and she won't eat it.

This morning while I was cleaning up the clothes she pulled out of the laundry basket, I heard her wandering down the hall. Once I couldn't hear her anymore, I called out. Not getting an answer I knew she was in the bathroom. When I got in there, I saw her take a bite out of the toilet paper roll. I promise, she has plenty of fiber in her diet although you couldn't tell because she also eats the corners of the remaining card board boxes in our front room.

After bringing her back and closing the bathroom door, I got back to work. I hear her again take off down the hall. I know she isn't in the bathroom so I know she has gone back to the storage shelves to pull off the covered toilet paper rolls, tissue boxes, and anything else she can get her hands on to. (Can you tell she does this on a regular basis?) Unfortunately Jake also stores his pop cans on the shelf. Ellie can reach them but they are slightly over her head. I hear her grunt a little and then I hear a can hit the floor. Next came the scream of a child that was hurt somehow. I assumed it hit her toes and pinched them. A few minutes later I realized I was wrong. There is a small bruise forming on her cheek just below her eye.

She recovered quickly. Hopefully she'll leave the drinks alone from now on.

Ellie is trying to eliminate one of her naps. This only works for a day or two and then she is so tired she can't help but take 2 naps. Today she snuck a short 30 minute nap in the morning. Then we went for a walk. She has been a little stir crazy/cabin feverish since my mom left.

Once back from the walk, she emptied the laundry basket again as well as the Tupperware cupboard and the dish towel drawer.

Got to love that little girl.

Dancing the night away.

The other night, Ellie and I were watching movies while waiting for Jake to come home. She loves putting items over her head and then wrapping around her neck (like a scarf). She then scrunches up her shoulders. Well, tonight she was doing this with Jake's laptop protective cover so I put it on her head like a hat. This is what she does.

What a crazy girl. She dances to just about everything; even the opening song in Relief Society.

Denver Zoo

September 17th, we went to the Denver Zoo. When Ellie loves animals so much, we thought it would be great. (Yes we know she won't remember it, but we will.)

We got there and ate lunch. We left home as soon as Jake was done with class so none of us had eaten yet. It was also nice because it gave us some time to look over the map and the activities to come up with a game plan. Once lunch was done, we headed over to the lion cage. There is a little house for the lion cage and also the hyenas/wild dogs. (They are improving parts of the zoo so animals share time in the outdoor areas sometimes.)

The first activity was feeding a bone to the lion and scraps and blood-cicles to the wild dogs. A zoo person came and explained what would happen then another person started throwing the items off the top of the house. The animals have great internal clocks. They became more active and watching the top of the house about 5 minutes before it started. They had to remove the lionesses from the lion cage because apparently the lions don't share well.

We continued wandering around to the rest of the cat cages; leopard, panthers, tigers, etc. It was interesting to see that the tigers had a liter of 4 cubs. They were really cute. (There are 2 of them wrestling in the background of the picture. The mom just paced in front of the window where all the people were watching.)

We walked past the elephants and giraffes on our way to the sea lion show. It was just a simple demonstration about what sea lions are taught and how they are taught to do those things. Ellie loved waving when the sea lion would swim by.

After watching the show, we walked over to the sea lion pool to see the new baby sea lion. The baby was adorable. It would just sit on the rock. If it tried to get in the water, the mom would swim over, then the cub would sit still. After about a minute, the cub started placing it's nose in the water and would blow bubbles. Then it would flip water with its flipper. We could have just sat there for hours and watched the little guy.

We walked around and saw the giraffes again and the hippos and some other weird looking animals. We were on our way to the penguin show. The zoo guy explained that the birds had colored bands on right or left flipper, depending on gender, and the colors indicated what year they were born. They do this because there is no way other than blood tests to determine gender. They had actually guessed wrong on 1-2 of the newborns this year and will have to switch the bands.

As we were watching the penguins, Jake is holding Ellie so she could see the penguins eating. All the sudden he says, "I think she just peed." Not thinking anything about it, I said, "OK. We'll find a bathroom and change her." I then noticed a small splash by my foot. Yes, Ellie had leaked through her diaper. Apparently kids pee a lot more when given plenty of water to make sure they aren't dehydrated. It had only been 2-3 hours since her last diaper change so it was a surprise. At least I knew she wouldn't be dehydrated.

Unfortunately her pants were all wet. So I washed them out in the bathroom sink and she went pant less through the rest of the zoo. We did reapply sunscreen to her legs. No need to burn those cute chubby legs.

We walked through the bird house and then started for the primate walk. Sadly all the primates, although they had huge outdoor areas, were inside. These cute little guys have the greatest mustaches.

The gorillas were all up high eating hay when we got there and didn't hold Ellie's interest. The orangutan's had a new baby as well. We didn't get a good picture of the baby because mom was very protective. At one point, she walked the baby to the back corner, fluffed up the straw, and wrapped the baby in the potato sack blanket that was in there. Then she picked up the entire package (with the baby inside) and moved it to another location. When the baby would crawl out, mom would come over and put it back in.

Notice no pants. It was a short but fun visit. Some of the exhibits were weird because of the habitat sharing but they were working on improvements. By the end of 2011/beginning of 2012 they plan to finish the new Asian habitat and shift the animals back around.

At the end we wandered into the gift shop and of course Ellie had to pick up every stuffed animal she could get her hands on and cuddled it and AAAHHH!!! Since there was no afternoon nap, she was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot.

AAAAWWWWHHHH!!!

Ellie cracks me up. Whenever she picks up and cuddles a stuffed animal, she places it under her chin and starts cooing, "AAAWWWHHH! OOOOHHH!" She does it with a small ferret, the dog that her Grandma Connie gave her, the toy of the little boy who sat behind us at church, and every one of the little stuffed animals at the gift shop at the end of the Aquarium. My only guess is that she has hard Jake and I do it to her and that she just picked up on it.

Denver Aquarium

If you can't tell, I am enjoying living in a new city. Last Friday we went to the Denver Downtown Aquarium. I was so excited. At one point in my life I wanted to be Marine Biologist. I became a little discouraged when there wasn't a program anywhere at any Utah universities and I had hated the Wildlife Biology program at Utah State.

The Denver Aquarium is a lot bigger and more interesting than the one in Sandy, Utah (with exception to the Penguin exhibit). It walks you through all the different habitats around the world. To say Ellie LOVED it, would be an understatement. She put off eating lunch for almost 2 hours she was so excited.

Here were some ducks that were across the walkway from the otters. (We didn't get a good picture of the otters.) Ellie occasionally says "cack cack" (quack, quack), but only when she wants.

Ellie and Jake watching some sharks on the bottom of the huge fish tank.

Oh my, look at that shark. Ellie stood in front of this tank and walked back and forth using the glass for balance for about 15-20 minutes. We had to stop her from tapping on the glass. Most people would comment about how brave she was.

Where are the fish going? You can partially see how big this tank really is. That fish in the background was actually about twice Ellie's size.

Ellie and Jake looking at the Lion Fish or something like that. Their fins flatten down while they swim but will puff up like a lion's mane occasionally.

Of course they have a ray tank. Ellie was dying to get in and swim. I don't know if it is because she likes swimming or if she wanted to touch the rays. She did try and touch them a few times, but as parents we didn't think fish water was the best for her to play with, especially since her fingers are always in her mouth.

I just thought this picture was hilarious. That star fish just really loves that pipe.

At the end, there was this worker with a bearded dragon. As you can see, Ellie wanted to snuggle it so much. Again, for her's and the worker's safety, we didn't think this was such a good idea.
Some of the other cool things we saw there; shark egg pouches (called mermaid purses), sharks with noses that looked like saws, jellyfish, and oddly enough a tiger. There were also these fish that spit to knock bugs off plants so they can eat and they could really spit.
Since it was just after 3 and none of us had eaten lunch yet, we decided to stay and eat at the restaurant. Even though it was after 3, a manager allowed us to order off the lunch menu. We were sat next to the fish tank. Ellie was just the biggest cheeser for the staff. This video is of her eating at the restaurant. *Notice her small yummy shimmy.*

As we were finishing up, the manager who allowed us to order lunch came by. Ellie cheesed and waved. It was then we were informed that it was because Ellie was so cute that she allowed us to have lunch.
It was quite a fun afternoon. One day it would be fun to go back when Ellie is older. They have all sorts of programs and activities; snorkeling in the tank, scuba diving, eating lunch with Mermaids, etc. Maybe after law school.