We woke up early and made the drive down. We stopped off at Fort Collins and made a quick stop for a while. We drove some more and then we made it to Denver. The traffic was pretty crazy, we're small town people now and weren't used to it. :) We had lunch at Cici's Pizza, a place they had quite a few of on Dave's mission, so we went and tried it. The kids thought it was great, and they had an arcade, bonus! Then we went to the mall and walked around and looked. They had an art exhibit from the local schools all over the mall, so we enjoyed looking at that. Then we went glow-in-the-dark miniature golfing. The last time we went we only had Cal and Emma, so this was a first for half of the kids. They loved it! We played three rounds and were there forever, but they all stuck with it. They were impressed that their clothes glowed (Lucy was disappointed the next day when she tried to put on her headband and it wasn't glowing, she thought it had been changed forever! Haha!). Daddy got quite a few holes in one, I got one and Emma did, too! Cal was pretty good and way into it. Lucy was starting to get it by the end, and Cov's form, oh wow! It was pretty funny! We tried helping him hold it the correct way, but he likes doing things his own way. We all had a great time!
Then we met up with some friends who live in the Denver area - the Gertsches, our friends from grad school! We went to Chik-fil-A to get some dinner, which seems to be a tradition for us. Boston and Cal and Lucy and Reese are always little BFFs any time we get together. And we got to meet their sweet little babe Beckham (who Maria was very pregnant with last time we saw them last spring). Jeff is working in long term care managing a facility there, and he and Dave (and their friend Josh) always joke "What are we doing? Why are we doing this?" They also introduced us to the frosted lemonade there...oh my! So good! They're both great though, and it's so fun to keep in touch!
Then we headed to the hotel to check in - the kids loved the glass elevator, and that we got to ride it almost to the top (we were on the 6th floor). We went swimming and hot tubbing, the kids love that and could do it all day and all night. Then we finished off the night watching "Back to the Future". It was so funny because the kids were so exhausted by the end of the night and started fighting. "He's touching me with his feet!" some wailed. "I do not like him!" we heard. They were so tired, it was annoying but kind of funny to hear. They fell asleep and Dave and I fell asleep not too long after.
Saturday, we got up and looked out the window and there was a half foot of snow outside. All day long it kept dumping snow! We went to go get breakfast at Panera, played ping pong, checked out, and went to the temple. It was beautiful, but in that area, there was even more snow. The poor tulips were covered. It was my first time there, and I did initiatories. It was a sweet time!
After the temple, we went to the Park Meadows Mall, which was so nice! The kids loved playing at the Lego Store, Panda Express for lunch, and looking around. We then visited the Butterfly Atrium. We got to watch pupas turn into butterflies, and see some be released into the large greenhouse garden area. There were so many butterflies just flying all over! Everyone loved it but Cov did not like it and when the butterflies would flutter near, he'd say that they were creepy and try to get away. We got to see many different types of insects, even got to hold a tarantula! We were able to visit the little aquarium area and feel sting rays and star fish. We got to explore and play at the indoor insect play area. It was a fun place, but we forgot our pressed penny...which we get everywhere we go. Bummer!
