Day 1 in CA - 7/10/10

We spent today driving to Simi Valley to go to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. We decided we didn't need a van for our one day excursion, so we rented a car. Not just any car.......but a royal blue, Mustang convertible. Do you think my hubby is going through a mid-life crisis? ;-)The kids weren't too sure about it at first, but it quickly grew on them.
Samantha kept pushing the hair out of her face and saying "windy!".
We got to the museum about 1/2 hour before it opened, kinda unlike us. ;-) So we took advantage of the beautiful scenery. They had a mini rose garden that, of course we had to use as a background.
As we wandered around we found a Memorial site with the Presidential seal on it. What do you think, do we have future Presidents on our hands? ;-)
"Do you think we will shake my hand?" ;-)
Part of the museum was Reagan's old Air Force One, the actual thing!. It was pretty cool walking through the same plane the a former United States President flew on and made lots of important decisions on!
On the way back to the hotel we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Chevy's. We first discovered Chevy's in Chicago 4 years ago while there celebrating Marc's birthday. It is a Mexican restaurant. When it is someones birthday, they sing to you, give you an ice cream sundae, and a birthday sombrero. We have celebrated his birthday at a Chevy's every year for the last three years (yes, we have 3 of the sombreros in our house). So, of course, Marc found one in CA for us to go to again this year. Samantha thought Daddy looked silly in the sombrero.

Then the kiddos had to try it on.
It was a good first day in CA! :-)

Day 7 in Denver - 7/9/10

Well, it is our last day in Denver. :-( Marc was finally able to get the kiddos to Dinosaur Ridge today. This is a place where they has found and preserved TONS of real dinosaur prints and bones. They rode in a tour shuttle for the first part of the exploration.Daddy said that their tour guide was great, very knowledgeable! Marc got lots of lessons while on the walk.
Daddy had the kids see just how much bigger a dinosaur's footprint is compared to theirs. Really makes you think!
The guide took this picture of Daddy and the kids before they left. That's a lot of footprints behind them!!
Well, we had a fabulous time in Denver! We had already packed the van up with all the luggage the night before so we would be able to go straight to the car rental return directly after they picked me up from my conference. We rented from Hertz while in Denver. When we pulled up to the rental area. One of the guys asked us if there was room for one more person to sit inside. Kinda confused, we said we could probably make room. Well, Hertz is trying out a new service in Denver. One of the Hertz guys drove us, in the van right up to the curbside check-in for our airline! That was awesome!!! Certainly made for an easier time getting to the airport and saved lots of time.
Now, it is off to CA!!

Day 6 in Denver - 7/8/10

Today was my second day of Steve Spangler fun! Marc was going to take the kids to a dinosaur place, but had some trouble finding it. He came across Red Rock during his explorations, so that is where he took the kids today.This is where the Red Rock Amphitheater is. Marc insisted that Daddy walk all the way to the top of the amphitheater. This is a panoramic of the view from the top.
I think both kids enjoyed climbing all the steps!
Peanut (and Daddy) just LOVE Steve Spangler. So I asked him if, when they came to pick me up at the end of the day, if I could bring them in to meet him. Being the super nice man that he is, he said "Of course!". When Steve introduced himself to Marc (Peanut), he was kinda stunned. He stood there speechless for a second. Instead of telling Steve his name, he said "We watch you on tv all the time!". It was so unbelievably cute! Steve was SO nice to Marc!
As you can see we all had t-shirts on about the Mentos/Diet Coke experiment that Steve made famous. He signed our shirts for us.
Steve gave Marc the "left-overs" of the stuff he used that day! Lots of fun color changing activities. I guesstimate that he gave Marc about $50 worth of stuff!
When you see Steve on tv (Elle and the Denver local news) he always looks like so much fun and such a nice guy. Well, it isn't an act, he really is truly that nice! If you ever get a chance to meet, definitely go for it!

While we were in Denver Steve did a tv spot about a new ice cream place that used liquid nitrogen to make a custom, homemade ice cream. We had to check it out one night and it was pretty cool.
This is the recipe Marc chose to make for his ice cream.
We all had a great day in Denver!

Day 5 in Denver - 7/7/10

I started my science conference today. Today did not go as planned for Marc and the kids today. While we were at Focus on the Family yesterday we noticed a bug bite near Samantha's eye that had gotten a little swollen. After consulting Nurse Aunt Missey, we began putting Benadryl cream on it. When we woke up this morning, her eye was almost swollen shut. So, I called the doctor and she suggest we give her liquid Benadryl. If there is no change in 24 hours, we would need to take her to urgent care. Marc had planned on taking the kids to a comedy improv story time. When he got there the whole building was closed, So he went back to the hotel and did laundry for me (what a great hubby!).
After I got done with my conference, they picked me up and we headed to get some dinner. Marc had read about this Mexican restaurant called Casa Bonita. We had heard that the food was horrible, but the entertainment for the kids was great! They had several mini shows off and on through-out the night. We saw a gun fight, a pirate show, a monkey show, and some cliff diving. Think my kids enjoyed the shows? ;-)
About the time we got done eating dinner, they called the kids to a back part of the building to hit a pinata. Each kid got to pick up lots of Tootsie Rolls.
Like I said earlier in the post, there were cliff divers, As part of the back drop of their diving there was a water fall. We couldn't resist getting a picture of the kids with the water fall.
On the way out of the restaurant the kids got to pick something from the treasure chest. They each got a Tootsie Roll and a play dollar bill.
All the reviews where correct....the food was awful, but the kids loved the atmosphere and the entertainment!
When we got home (hotel), I was instructed that I had to give a science lesson on the things I learned that day.
It was a great first day of my conference! After a day of Benadryl Samantha's eye looks much better!

Day 4 in Denver - 7/6/10

There was a red cow in the lobby of our hotel in down town Denver. Every morning when we left and every night when we came back Samantha had to tell it hi and give it a hug. Super cute!We got up and headed t the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. This was a zoo built into the side of a mountain! We spent about 3 hours there and saw lots of great animals. Our favorite, by far, were the giraffes. We got to feed them giraffe crackers. When we took Marc to the local zoo to feed a giraffe at Samantha's age, he got a little freaked out. We were a little worried about how Samantha would do, but she did great!
Marc thought it was pretty cool too! He is old enough now to appreciate the fact that he can feed them.
We were walking along the sidewalk in the Australia area when we noticed this animal standing right next to us! We aren't sure what kind of animal it was, maybe a marsupial, maybe a kangaroo, we are not quite sure. We stood there watching him while he stood there watching us for a few minutes before we were able to watch him hop away. Super cool!
After we got done with the zoo we headed to the Will Roger Shrine to the Sun. We had to go up, yup, you guess it, another mountain, not as tall this time. This is us in front of the shrine.
Marc took this panoramic picture of the view from the base of the shrine. There were a ton of steps to go to the top of the shrine. Samantha and I stayed at the base while the boys climbed to the top. Marc said the view was spectacular!
After the shrine, we went to fine some waterfalls. We saw a lot of signs for a place called 7 Falls. So we decided to go check it out. We could choose to take LOTS of stairs or take an elevator built into the mountain. Can you guess which one we chose? Yep, you guessed it, the elevator. Here is Marc inside of the mountain while we waited for the elevator.
If you look behind us you will see what are called the 7 Falls. In our opinion it was just one big continuous fall, but they said it was 7 different small falls. It was pretty, but after spending the day before in the Rocky Mountains, the was kinda unimpressive.
After we left the Falls, we headed to Focus on the Family. For those of you that are local, there is a Christian music radio station called WCSG 91.3. They participate in a program called His Kidz Radio. This is a program dedicated to things for kids to listen to. At night they have bed time stories based on the series Adventures in Oddessy. Focus on the Family is a free play area with a lot of fun, interactive, hands-on activities for the kids to do. One of the things that had was a 2 story twisty slide. This is how Marc looked when he reached the bottom.
After leaving Focus on the Family, we continued our fun-filled day at Garden of the Gods. This is a "garden" of beautiful red rocks, trees, and nature. The rock Marc is in front of is called Balance Rock. No one can explain how this huge rock is balancing on the one tiny section and not falling over, but it sure is amazing.
Today was our last day "family vacation" in Denver. We saw many of God's beautiful, wonderful creations while in Denver.
Tomorrow begins my Steve Spangler science conference.

Day 3 in Denver - 7/5/10

We spent our 3rd day in Denver in the Rocky Mountains. We drove about 45 minutes to a pretty little town called Estes Park. We took the hour drive up to the top. This is a picture close to the base of the mountain.It was a long, nerve-racking, beautiful drive to the top. This is a picture about half way up the mountain.
On our way up we saw some elk relaxing in the sun, lots of beautiful mountain tops, patches of snow, and clouds that looked like they were at eye level, we made it to the top!
We asked someone to take our picture at the top.
We were about 12,000 feet above sea level. We were a little concerned about how I would do being up that high. I have sinus issues to begin with, let alone being up that high. As we drive up and I was fine, except for the nerves because there were no guard rails! As soon as we got out of the car and started walking I began ti have some issues breathing well. I was not able to get a full, deep breath and every time I stood up I got dizzy. We went to The Cafe in the Clouds for some lunch. After sitting down and some calming down time, I did much better! The view was breathtaking (almost literally)!
We spent the whole day in the mountains, looking at the beauty that God has made!! :-)

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! :-)