It’s been a busy couple of weeks around here. I took on a project to tear down the wallpaper in the kitchen, repair the 3 small holes Bailey chewed the first week we had her and then paint. ( I may post before and after pictures when I finish up the final touches). Then we had family in. Then school started for both of us. And then we took a road trip.

We left on Thursday, bound for the Denver area to visit friends of Patrick’s that I’ve never gotten to meet in all these years. I had a great time meeting them and Brenden loved their 3 little boys (ages 2-5). Brenden did not however like the 12 hour car ride there and back. Especially the ride back as he had come down with a cold that wouldn’t be realized until the next day. (Which I also have and Patrick is trying hard not to give in to.) For a kid that does not like to sit still, even long enough to eat, he did pretty good though.

Friday the family was busy so the 3 of us went to the Children’s Museum and let Brenden play. Then we went downtown and explored. We were pretty tired of walking by the time we got done!

Saturday we drove in the mountains and went up to the top of Mount Evans. It was really beautiful, and really high—14,130 feet high to be exact. It boasts of having the world’s highest paved road. I handled the altitude well at first, but after awhile, I started to feel my asthma. And it was super cold. Then we went back down and drove to Tiny Town, a little town just for kids with lots of mini houses and a little train. Brenden kept going forward to look at something and then going back to the last thing that he saw that he liked.

Sunday we all went swimming at the city’s rec center which was really neat. It had a play room, a rock climbing wall, the pool, workout facility and who knows what else. Patrick and I took turns playing with Brenden in the water and going down the two water slides.

Throughout the visit Brenden practiced going down the stairs until he was a stair master. Their house had multiple levels and he knew how to go up the stairs but not down. The 2 year old showed Brenden how to slide down on his  belly and he slowly  got it and then had to keep practicing. Up. Down. Up. Down.

Great visit. Now we can rest up and try to get over colds until more craziness ensues this weekend.

Here are pics. I may add one of us on the mt. if Patrick has a good one, but so far the ones I’ve seen are not so good.

Brenden practicing his art skills at the Children’s Museum

This was a little pretend vet’s office at the Museum, but all Brenden wanted to explore was the “recptionist’s desk”. I’m sure he was especially happy to see they had a Nortel phone very similar to the one we have at home!

The Museum also had a little grocery store/kitchen area for the kids to play in complete with carts and a register. Brenden loved pushing the cart around and filling it up.

The first stop at Tiny Town was this little Conoco sign that he kept returning to.

Next up was the Tiny Town Tribune.

This is just about as close as I get to the kid actually looking at the camera-which by the way is having technical difficulties.

This little area had a tiny step down from the brick to the astro turf stuff and Brenden took it like he was a mountain climber. Then he crawled up on the bench looking rather proud. This was one of those areas that he kept coming back to again and again.