Monday, June 13
Monday was full of fun and sunburn! We joined forces with Yajaida's family and headed to Lake Loveland for some fun in the sun. The kids played in the water and sand for hours. Yajaida's mom and I visited off and on - I was primarily watching the bigger kids play while she was caring for their seven-month-old. When we couldn't understand each other, due to language restrictions, she'd call for one of her girls to come translate for us! Poor Daniella, 12 or 13, kept having to jump out of the water to tell us how to talk to each other! We grilled burgers on my little grill and ate chips, watermelon, and other snacks. The kids borrowed toys from the other beach-goers to dig ditches, build castles and running rivers. By the time we were done playing at the beach I was looking a little sun-kissed. I didn't realize that I was burnt until much later. Sydney went home with Yajaira for a sleepover while the boys and I headed to Sam's Club to buy an umbrella for our next trip to the beach. We bought the umbrella that creates a small shelter - I'm thinking that's my best bet for sun protection. We grabbed a few other grocery items - mainly fresh fruit that smelled to delicious to pass by. Shane and I made fajitas for dinner - which is one of those meals that the grownups will eat, but the kids won't touch. Some meals are just worth it! The boys slept super hard that night. Spencer was sad that he didn't have a sleepover - he was appeased by some video game time with his daddy. Shane and I were startled awake by the phone at 11:30p - it was Sydney, calling to report that she too, was burnt!
Tuesday, June 14
I picked Sydney up after nap-time on Tuesday. She had Yajaira come over so that they could go to Activity Days together. They are fun friends. I worked Tuesday night, and looking back can't think of anything remarkable about the evening other than it being busy, not with check-ins but with reports and other paperwork I needed to catch up on. I worked with Laurie for the evening. I think we may have sold out of rooms that night - which is always good! I do remember laughing that I now am the proud owner of a key to both the General Manager's Office, and to the file cabinet full of employee files. I already had a key to the file cabinet, but the GM never locked it anyway. Apparently there were issues with people getting into the files, so they decided to lock the office up as well. I still think locking the cabinet was the easier option, but hey, I'm not the boss!
Wednesday, June 15
On Wednesday we went to the library for one of the Summer Reading Program activities. There was a magic show, staring Ann Lincoln. She happened to be the same magician we had seen when Sydney and Spence were little and Shane was still working at Webroot. The show was fun and exciting. The kids were laughing hysterically at Ann's antics. At the start of the show she kept dropping a penguin beanie baby and yelling at it for not staying where it was put. The kids loved it. She did various types of juggling and even did tricks with fire! She put the fire sticks in her mouth and the kids were awestruck. She explained that it was safe for her because she was a stunt person like the ones on TV or movies. Later that night, Spencer told me he wanted to be a stunt person too (no surprise there!) Ryan was terrified by the "snakes in a can" - the springs covered in fabric. He got so nervous about them that he covered his eyes!
Earlier in the morning, before the library, Mom had called and mentioned she might need forms for the hotel - Dad's back was acting up and she thought they might need to seek treatment. Sure enough, she called mid-magic show and informed me that she was ready to get some help for Dad. She gave me some names and numbers and I started making phone calls.
When the magic show was finished, we stopped by the local market, grabbed some iced push-pops and food, then headed to Parish Park to play with friends. Sarah Nye, with her two boys, and Janeil Padilla, with her three kids, played with us for a couple of hours. More phone calls were made, and after consideration, it was decided that Dad would head to the emergency room at the Medical Center of the Rockies for treatment.
After the park, the kids and I headed home for nap time. After nap, we did our usual chores until Shane came home. Then we headed to Loveland to get the hotel arrangements for the parents finalized. We hung out at McDonalds in the play area until the parents made it to the hotel and got Dad into his room. We were all excited to see the Grandparents. We reminded the kids several times to be soft and more careful so they didn't hurt anyone. The boys are both getting heavy enough to cause injury to anyone not expecting a flying child to land on them! We had some grilled dogs/burgers from the hotel for dinner - then Shane brought back Chick for Dad - who was nodding off while eating.
Thursday, June 16
We joined the parents at the hotel for breakfast, then hit the town (not super hard) while Dad rested in his room. We went to the Ford dealership in Loveland to see about getting repairs made on the parent's truck. We then shopped the Goodwill store where we found some sweet bargains. When the kids were shopped out, we headed back to the hotel for some swimming. They played in the pool and hot tub to their hearts content, or their stomachs - we stopped for food. After the kids were cleaned up and dressed again, we headed out for a feast of local fast food restaurants. Here's what the menu looked like:
Sydney: 3 burritos from Taco Bell
Spencer: 1 burrito from Taco Bell, 1 McDouble from McDonalds and an order of chicken nuggets from Wendy's.
Ryan: 1 taco from Taco Bell and chicken nuggets from Wendy's
Sara, Mom & Dad: 1 meal each from the Chick
Yeah - we went to four restaurants, what of it? Stop judging me! Just kidding, the whole thing was pretty funny and the restaurants were very near each other.
After lunch it was time for me to head to work for a few hours. Grandma kept the kids while I drove down to the hotel - poor Grandma with three grumpy kids!
Work was busy, drama was plentiful. The first issue I had was a guest who had been double charged and was upset about it, he called in backup in the form of the HR department of the company he was seeing. The second issue I had was a group wanting to go out to dinner, but the cab company 1st, didn't send the cars on time, 2nd ended up only having one car to send and 3rd still came to try to take only part of the group to their destination. Overall, I didn't feel like I got a whole lot done. I spent the whole evening trying to wow guests into loving the hotel and holding hands to fix issues.
Friday, June 17
We tried to get out of the house early so we could maximize our time with the grandparents. We had breakfast at the hotel in the morning. Grandma was at the Ford dealership waiting for repairs to be completed - which took longer than expected. When she returned, we took the kids to the pool to swim until contentment! We had a lunch of reheated leftovers and sandwiches, then packed up to head out. The grandparents took Sydney and headed home to Florissant. The boys and I headed home to take a nap and get our bags packed for our trip to the mountains.
After nap we all hustled around the house packing and cleaning - emptying trash and washing dishes so that the house would be funky smelling at our homecoming. Shane arrived home a bit earlier than I had expected and I hadn't finished packing yet. He gave me a hand, we loaded up and hit the road.
We debated taking I25 or E470 and ended up just sticking to I25. It was slow in places. There was the normal traffic in Denver and slower than usual traffic between Denver and the Springs. It made for a long drive. We stopped at Rudy's (a BBQ joint) and had some of the tastiest sandwiches ever! Yummy! From Rudy's we headed to the grandparents house, where Grandpa was still a bit out of it from all of the medications/painkillers he was on. Although, he did seem to be coming out of the fog later in the evening - only to realize that he wasn't able to remember any of Tuesday night into Wednesday.
Saturday, June 18
The weather in the mountains was nice and cool. We started the day with some super tasty blueberry pancakes with fresh blueberries and prepared by Shane! Shane spent several hours riding the mower around the parents yard, spraying weedkiller and weedwhacking. I grilled up burgers for lunch - they turned out tasty. The girls (Mom, Me and Sydney) headed to Woodland Park for some shopping. We scoured the Woodland Park Goodwill for any great finds - Syd ended up with a super cute dress with tags still on it! Mom had some great finds too! We stopped at Walmart to pick up supplies for Father's Day gifts and headed home. Mom baked pizza from Papa Murphy's while Sydney, Ryan and I worked on our Father's Day surprises. After pizza and crafting, we watched a movie in the basement - Master of Disguise (I think.) I read while everyone watched - there was plenty of laughter, but I'm pretty sure the adults felt that they may have lost some IQ points from the experience.
Sunday, June 19
Happy Father's Day!
We had a Father's Day breakfast of scrambled eggs, french toast, bacon and fresh fruit. The dad's opened their gifts and seemed pleased. After breakfast everyone started getting ready for the day and packing up to head home. We had plenty of mess to clean up, and most of it was left behind for Grandma (sorry Mom!) We had leftover pizza for a snack, then hit the road. We stopped at Rudy's (yeah, it was that good) for gas (weird) and sandwiches to go. The line at Rudy's was so long that people were waiting outside - and that's saying something! We stopped at Arby's for some value sandwiches for the kids, then headed out. We hopped onto the freeway and headed north to find ourselves facing a traffic jam. We jumped off the freeway and did some creative driving north, which ended up not really saving us any time, but made us feel good that we were still moving. We stopped at Roxbury Park before heading home, the kids played for an hour or so, I laid on a blanket and read while Shane took a little snooze. When we got home we unpacked our bags, opened mail (which had letters from the grandparents) and basically took it easy for the rest of the night.
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