Colorado 2009

We made it to Colorado for our 2009 trip and had a great time. We were gone for 10 days (July 2-11), 4 of which were driving. It was a lot of fun and we took lots of pictures (over 300) as can be expected on a vacation. I'm not posting any pictures here, they are on Facebook. It would be hard to pick just a few to put on here. So here are some of the highlights.

Our first stop in Colorado was at Traci's brother's (and family) house in Longmont, CO. It was good to see them again since they moved at the end of last year. My allergies really kicked up with the animals there: two cats and one dog. Allergy medicine helped I think, but it was still more than my body was used to. The girls enjoyed dressing up and playing with their (3) cousins there. Since we were there for 4th of July, we did some fireworks. The kids, except for Autumn who is 2 (and the youngest) enjoyed them. The people in the surrounding neighborhoods go all out. We're talking the cannon-shot fireworks. Pretty cool. We spent the first part of the day at a family friend's house swimming and playing games.

Sunday night brought the roughest thunderstorm I have ever experienced. It only lasted like 15-20 minutes, but it looked just like what you see on the news when the crazies are reporting from in a hurricane...horizontal sheets of rain slamming the house, trees looking like they were going to snap and blow over. I have to admit it was pretty cool.

After staying at their house for a few days (Fri-Mon) we moved on to my sister's house in Henderson, CO. This was the highlight of the trip as we got to meet our new niece (or cousin from the girls' perspective), Bella. She was just born back in February. It was fun to hold and play with her and see how the girls reacted to her. Courtney loved her and Skyler seemed fairly indifferent. We also went to my cousin's place in Superior for dinner one night and drove down to Colorado Springs for a day to see my Great Uncle and Great Aunt. I always love seeing them. They are just so fun and hospitable. And the girls love them too.

While at my sister's house, we were introduced to a new game we have known of for a long time, but hadn't ever played: Cities and Knights. It's part of the Settlers of Catan series of games. Really long, but really fun. I think our game lasted about 2 hours with the three of us playing (Adam was at work).

Being the nerd that I am, I really enjoyed seeing the cloud formation that formed off in the distance on Monday night. There are a few great pictures of this on Facebook. It started off with the clouds that "bump" down, indicating the potential for tornado formation. Then it became part of a much larger formation that I hadn't ever seen before. I'm sure it was pretty nasty for those who were actually under it.

If I took the time to hit on everything we did on the trip, this would be a novel of an entry. It was a great trip and I look forward to the next time we go out there, whenever it is.