Colorado Reunion

Ryan had a business trip to China for most of July, so Rachael and I took a long trip out West to visit the family. We originally planned to just visit Nana in Utah, but then my sister Lesley and her family went to Colorado for a wedding, and pretty soon it turned into a family reunion in Colorado.

Monday
On the plane.  We flew from Lexington to Atlanta, then from Atlanta to Denver.  The flight attendant on the second leg gave her some Delta wings. 

After we met up with the rest of the family, we decided to take the kids to Jump Street, a facility that has inflatables and lots of trampolines.  And an air hockey table!

After Jump Street we had some free time before dinner, so we all went to Barnes and Noble. Everyone had a lot of fun! We got a couple of new books for the rest of our trip.

We went to one of our family's favorite places in Denver - Gunther Toody's.  It's a 50's style diner with good hamburgers.  We took up a lot of the restaurant with our party of 14. While we were there my brother announced to the family that he had proposed to his girlfriend, Koume, and she said yes! They are planning a wedding in a year or two, most likely in Japan.

The five of us.  Kristin, Erin, Julie, Lesley, Kirk.  Julie is the youngest but she likes to be the center of attention.  (Haha!!)

Tuesday
We went to the zoo.  It was pretty hot that day but other than that we had a great time.  I think everyone got to see their favorite animals and we had a nice picnic lunch in the grass. Uncle Chad got slurpee drinks for all the kids so they thought he was awesome.

After the pool we went for a swim at the hotel pool.  It was great to cool off.

Some of the adults went out to dinner, but mom, Lesley, Julie and I decided to stay at the hotel with the kids.  We had a good time visiting and I got this really cute picture of the cousins playing sandwich.

Wednesday
We went to the Children's Museum.  We kind of all ended up doing separate things there but the kids had a really great time. Rachael found a dress up area with tap shoes.  I asked her to take a few tap steps and she said she was too shy.  But I noticed after she got the shoes on she did them anyway... I guess a year of tap lessons sticks with you. 

There were some water activities set up outside the museum, and one of the favorites was a pump that you could hand operate and shoot water clear up in the air. The cousins figured out quickly that Aunt Erin is the one with the arm muscle in our family and she must have pumped that up six times.  (Guess she could skip her gym workout that day!)

After the Museum, Lesley's family had to go to a rehearsal dinner so my dad and I took Rachael and Nicholas over to the hotel pool again.  No pictures because I got in the water with the kids.

Wednesday night we hung out and visited and let the kids play with glow in the dark necklaces.  I'm sure Rachael will take the rest of the summer to get used to going to bed on time.

A big thanks to all my family for coming and and visiting - we had such a great time with everyone!!