Day 2 in Denver - 7/4/10

When we planned this trip we thought, "Ooh, cool, 4th of July in a big city!". well, things didn't actually go as planned. :-( We got up, got ready, and drove to a near by city that we heard was having kind of a family festival with lots of kids activities. We got to the park only to find out that they didn't start until after lunch. so we drove to another park that was scheduled to have kids activities. When we got there we discovered that everything cost extra to do. so we decided to head back to the hotel and walk to a local hamburger place. Marc read that they had some of the best hamburgers in town. So we walked to H burger. When they seated us they gave us a big piece of paper for the kids to color on while we waited for our food.Samantha was getting kinda squirmy. During her squirmyness she looked very prim and proper. She was sitting with her legs crossed sitting very lady-like. :-)

After we had lunch we headed back to the hotel via some talking grates. We knew the grates talked, but we didn't tell the kiddos. I wish we had the video rolling when we walked over the first one. Marc's reaction was priceless!!!! Samantha didn't get why there were people down under ground yelling/singing/making noises at us. ;-)

We also found this really big, blue bear. Marc said it was an icon of Denver. the way it is standing it looks like he is holding up the building.

(Marc's attempt to get us all in a picture with the bear)

The morning didn't go so well, but the afternoon from lunch through a later afternoon nap went good. After nap it was dinner time. We himmed and hawed (I don't really know how to spell that phrase) about what to do for dinner. Well, as we were walking around trying to find food, it started to rain. :-( We figured that most of the restaurants in downtown on the pedestrian mall would be open for dinner on the 4th of July.....we were wrong! We finally found The Cheesecake Factory. It had about a 20 minute wait. We were afraid that if we ate there, by the time we got done eating, we would have missed the fireworks, and what is the 4th of July without fireworks?!?! So, we kept walking (in the rain) and riding the over crowded bus trying to find food. Finally the rain let up and we decided to walk closer to where the fireworks were being shot off (the baseball stadium that had a Lacrosse game going on) and see if we cold find food. As we got closer to the field (and farther from the hotel) it began to POUR!!! We took cover under an overhang of a fire station. We waited there for about 45 minutes. At first we were waiting for the fireworks to start, then we decided that there were going to be any fireworks due to rain so we waited for the rain to let up so we wouldn't get completely drenched walking back. Finally it let up enough for us to walk back to the hotel. We walked into a Taco Bell/Pizza hut to get pizza only to be told that the Pizza Hut part was closed for the night. By this time we were tired, wet, cold, and hungry! We walked to the McDonald's close to our hotel. We had planned to eat it in the restaurant to warm up and dry off some. Only to find that that late at night, the clientele isn't the kind you would want your kids around. So we quickly ordered, ate the fries as we walked, and finished eating it in the hotel.

It was not the best 4th of July ever, but at least we were together as a family! :-)