SO THREE MONTHS AGO... (or maybe four--and I can write that because life has been that crazy), we surprised my mom with a plane ticket to come visit the grandkids for her birthday. It also happened to be the kids' spring break, so we had a lot of time to hang out and work in a bunch of Colorado activities. The timing ended up being a little tough as it was just a really busy, tiring month for everyone involved leading up to the trip, but I'm so glad we still got to spend the time together that we had. (We all learned our lesson, and in the future we will forego the surprise and get pecific input from the giftee on such a big trip so we can maximize relaxation and quality time!).
My poor mom spent the majority of her actual birthday traveling, but got to relax a bit the next day and hang out with some very excited grandkids:
The kids had plenty of ideas about what they wanted to do with Grandma--go to the park, read books, and of course, play pretend.
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| Getting roped into a butterfly fairy princess tea party with Marie! |
Grandma is also from the pre-Pinterest era in which women had all sorts of super-entertaining kid activities in secret stores of their brains and could whip them out at any moment to save the day instead of having to Google/Pinterest "crafts for two year old." Exhibit A: construction paper mosaics, with mosaic 'tiles' organized by color in a muffin tin. They loved it--and in true Erik form, he designed a big elaborate mosaic chocolate chip cookie.
Later that week my mom got to see Marie ride her bike for the first time without training wheels and tag along with us to a dental appointment (such FUN!). We then made a trip to the nearby Littleton Historical Museum which is set up as a really neat historical working village. There are live animals, an ice house, a one-room school house, a blacksmith shop, and barn, a full vegetable garden, and a working farmhouse with a chicken coup. The reenactors, if you could call them that, walk around in 18th centrury clothing and explain everything they're doing to the kids, but the cool thing is that they actually have a daily routine they kind of stick to in order to take care of the place; they're not just doing demonstrations over and over. We got to watch the cow get milked, and when we went into the farmhouse they had just made something delicious-smelling on the old iron stove. On a prvious trip we also got to see the blacksmith at work hammering some glowing hot metal and explaining the whole process to the kids. It's one of my favorite (free!!) places to take the kids now.
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| Little kids. Big tree. |
Peter's mom also joined us for a day at the "dinosaur museum," aka the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Although it's got some really cool exhibits (like the space one), that place always drains me. And though I should have known better, I didn't consider the fact that it was spring break and every other mother in the Denver metro area would think it was a good idea to spend the day there occupying her kids. Plus there were the million school groups who weren't on spring break who thought it was a great day for a field trip. It was beyond claustrophobic and a total sensory overload for our sensory-sensitive Ookie. Never again, I tell you. But the kids loved it, as usual.
For my mom's birthday celebration the next weekend, we spent Friday night at Canvas and Corkscrews, where we scored by painting a très Colorado painting called "Looking Up." I still like my artsy mom's version of the aspens far better! We'd been looking for some aspen artwork to put above the kids reading corner anyway, so mine has a place until we find something slightly more appealing!
Then the next day the two of us had High Tea together at The Denver Tea House while Peter and his brother took the kids to a Rockies game...it happened to be the last day the tea house was serving guests before moving to a brand new location, so we were lucky to even get a reservation! Our tea date made for some of the best moments of the trip--we had some exciting times navigating downtown public transportation, but once we got there it was delightful. We sampled a few different types of tea from their huge selection (I, of course, tried the Valentine's Day blend that tasted like chocolate) while they made us gluten and dairy-free tea sandwiches and hummus and scones from scratch. We enjoyed some some really nice conversation without interruption, too, which was a true luxury! On the way back we stopped by the beautiful cathedral, and saw that some of the confessionals were open, so we snuck in for some spiritual cleansing before heading on to the 16th Street Mall and ducking into the original Tattered Cover bookstore. (The Tattered Cover is both heaven and haven for local bookworms!) Overall it was just a really fun day.
The next day (because Saturday wasn't full enough!) we decided to go skiing. My mom has skied plenty of rough terrain in the Alps before, but it had been a good 20 years since her last jaunt, so the altitude unfortunately caught her a little off guard when we got up to the mountains. She had been fighting the altitude and dryness at our already-mile-high house pretty much the entire visit, and going up a few more thousand feet wasn't too kind on her system. So we had a bit of fun and some lunch before realizing that we needed to call it and pay a visit to the slopside urgent care. After some IV fluids and sweet oxygen she was doing better and we made it home for a good long rest before her return flight!
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| My favorite view driving into the mountains on I-70, Ethan loving the gondola, and transporting little ski bums the easy way. |
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| Pre and post altitude sickness. We bought her a little gift at the gas station on the way home. |
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| Awake bright and early, waiting and waiting and waiting (im)patiently for grandma to emerge from the guest room! |
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