trip to denver

This past weekend we made the long trek to Denver, CO to spend the weekend with my sister and her family. My nephew was being dedicated on Sunday so we wanted to join them for the special occasion.

We left Cedar Falls with my parents about 8pm on Thursday night. Our plan was to drive as far as we could before getting too tired since Lily was sleeping. We got to Lincoln, NE about 1am and decided to call it quits. We stayed in a lovely hotel called the Settle Inn right off the interstate and crashed before hitting the road the next day. We hit the road about 9am for the last 7 hours of the drive. Lily did great in the car - she slept a lot of the time and I had plenty of toys to keep her occupied. I also brought along the portable DVD player because she recently has enjoyed watching her "Praise Baby" DVDs so I thought maybe that would tie her over if she got fussy - and that it did. Here's a shot of her zoning out to her worship DVD :)

in the car with grandma

watching her "movie"

We rolled into Denver about 4pm Friday afternoon and enjoyed some time just hanging out - Kirsten made a yummy dinner and we crashed pretty early.

Saturday morning my mom, dad and I had a 11 mile run so we went to a park close to their house that we knew was relatively flat and was a 1 mile loop. 11 laps got a little redundent but the elevation didn't bother us as much as we thought it might and overall it was a pretty good run! 11 miles is the furthest we've gone in our training so far (12 miles this Saturday)and it's the most I've run in over a year so I was pretty proud of myself! After our run we headed back to their house and enjoyed some pumpkin pancakes before getting ready to head to the mountains. Saturday afternoon we went for a little hike in the mountains to look at the Aspens as they are already turning colors for fall - so pretty! We ended the day with a Target run, pizza, and a movie.

lily & jimmy

ivan & his boys

views on our hike

we told asher to pose and this is what we got :)

all tuckered out

Then Sunday we were off to church in the morning to witness Sam's dedication that actually turned into a baptism - oops! Enjoyed lunch back at my sister's with Ivan's (my brother in law) parents too and then an afternoon of hanging out and playing outside. The weather was awesome all weekend! Sunday night we had planned to meet up with Jimmy's aunt, uncle, and cousins for dinner since they live in Colorado Springs and hadn't met Lily yet. So we drove about 30 minutes to meet them for dinner and hangout a bit. It's always good to see them and we wish we all lived closer because we really enjoy our time with their family. They loved Lily to pieces and are anxious to see her (and us) again this summer when Jimmy's little sister gets married. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of their meeting!

sam's dedication

lily & jimmy watching football

asher loved to "play" with lily

our attempts at a cousins pic

Then Monday was back in the car for the long trek back to Iowa! We did the whole drive in one day and weren't sure how Lily would do but she did great. She only got fussy a few times and we never really stopped because of her - it was always because someone needed the bathroom, or lunch time, etc. So that was good! We also made a stop in Des Moines to meet up with my little sister and brother in law for dinner because it was my sister's birthday. It was nice to get out of the car for an hour or so and spend some time with them celebrating her birthday too!

It was a fun trip. We weren't sure how Lily would do driving that far but she did great and it's always so fun to visit them in Denver. Of course it's always hard to say good bye and get back into our routine after being gone for a few days but it's always worth it! Fortunately we don't have to wait long to see them again because we are heading to San Diego just after Christmas this year and in the words of Asher "don't worry, we will play in California"