Colorado

So over the first weekend in June we went to Colorado for Douglas' sister, Rachel, who got married. Looking at hotels we had a few options; 1- be close to our activities, be what I consider reasonably priced, and be very rundown. 2- be farther than we'd like from our activities, my "reasonably" priced, and be a place I'm good to take my kids to. 3- be close to our activities, have a nice hotel, and pay a bit more than we'd like to. I really haven't had to look at hotels before, so my "reasonably" priced is probably much lower due to that lack of experience with it. We chose to go with option 3 and make it feel more like a mini-vacation. I'm really glad we did! The room was great, it had a separate bedroom from the main living area so it was much easier to put the boys to bed. Plus we were able to get a pretty good deal online which made the end price much more reasonable to me (and my reasonable price has gone up a bit since our stay).

We had a great time! Though I found out that I can only handle half of Wyoming before I start feeling "Are we there yet?!" But we had a lot of fun at Green River's "time tunnel." I think that might have been one of Japheth's favorite parts. And we found a fun stop just off the freeway a few exits from our hotel that had some Dino fossils and footprints. Japheth wanted to climb on it the whole time, and at one point climbed up between the guide's legs. So that made it a bit frustrating, but it was really cool to feel real bones in the rock, and see the footprints (especially since it looks like one dinosaur hunting another). The dinosaurs in the pictures are actually to scale, so that's how big we'd look next to them.  And they color the foot prints with charcoal paste so you can see them better.  We also went to the Denver Aquarium. It was a pretty fun time, the boys were better behaved and really liked seeing all the fish close up. And Douglas got to feed some manta rays, but got in trouble for petting them too much. Apparently you're suppose to only use 2 fingers on the tips of the wings.

The wedding went well, and it seemed like everyone was having a good time.  It was held in a natural amphitheater in Morrison.  It was beautiful, and a pretty cool place to get married.  Rachel looked fantastic!  Japheth got to be the ring bearer and did a really good job.  We practiced with him so he wouldn't go off course, run down the isle or drop the pillow.  He was focused and cute and went at a good pace.  Thanks mom for helping me make my awesome dress!