When in Colorado

Every time I go to Colorado, I enjoy myself so much. I don't know if it's the company or the scenery, but there's something special there. Although work brought me out there, I decided to take the extra three-day weekend and make a mini vacation of it. But I only had one request for my sister: I have to see more than suburbia while I'm out there. Although I've been out there many times, it's never long enough to do anything but see the houses that are stacked up like dominos in my sister's neighborhood. Chance made good on her promise. On Labor Day, we ventured up to the mountains to Echo Lake. Although I had been there at the same time last year, we were only there long enough to take a stroll around the lake and through the woods. This time we cooked out! It was so much fun that it was probably a bit too much fun. Coming down the mountains, I got a migraine and AJ proceeded to vomit. I guess the altitude, mountain air, and Andy's crazy driving were just a bit too much for us.

I also ate some amazing homemade food, tossed back a few Starbucks, enjoyed sweater weather (Fall is here!), and chilled with my nephew. AJ is talking up a storm now. At the beginning I had a hard time understanding his gibberish from actual words, and then slowly I came to understand his "accent." While I was out there, we taught him to say "peace out" and throw and peace sign. When we went to Target, the check out dude was very impressed with AJ threw his peace sign (looks more like a claw right now) and said peace out. AJ is the coolest 2-year-old I know of.

Chance and I even managed to get a card made during one of AJ's naps. I would say I'm very proud of the Halloween card I made, but I'm not. All my hard work went down the drain, when I was packing on my last night there and AJ came in my room stark naked from his bath. In my head I was thinking that this couldn't be good. Sure enough, I look over to see AJ christening my card that I had laid on the floor beside my bag to pack. It's an extra spooky card now, with urine germs. The things I get to look forward when I have a kiddo of my own. All I can say is: sanitizer. I'll buy it by the bulk.

Perhaps my favorite activity of the week was going through a corn maze. I've always wanted to go through one of these, so when I saw the sign on the train going to the conference, I mentioned it to Chance. Leave it to her to make sure I get those most from my visit. I thought I would be one of those people who would wind aimlessly through the maze, not caring if I got lost. Not so much. Once I figured out the map, it was serious business. All AJ could say was "corn! corn! corn!"