A Visit to the Mile High City

We spent 10 pleasant days in Denver, bookended by David’s birthday on August 18 and David and Jan’L’s 19^th wedding anniversary on August 26.  When we left St. George for our 24-hour round trip, the car was filled to the brim with Jan’L’s favorite hometown goodies, including a dozen loaves of Grandma Sycamore bread (safe for Kole’s allergies), a gallon of Wild Coyote ranch dressing and another of Wild Coyote salsa; two dozen orange rolls from Grandma Tobler’s and a new faucet for the kitchen sink!  Jan’L had already left for her nephew Matthew’s wedding in Southern California when we got there, so Saturday was spent playing with the boys at Heritage Square where we enjoyed the alpine slide, Disney-esque tea cups and taking lots of pictures.  On Sunday we were blessed to witness Kaler passing the Sacrament and were pleased to see David can still wear the suit he bought at the time of their wedding.  He is keeping himself slim and trim – despite consuming a healthy serving of birthday cake and ice cream after opening his gifts - a gun safe from M/D and an assortment of carefully selected gifts from his wife and children.

 

During the week, while the boys were in school – Kaler is a freshman in high school, Kole is in middle school and Kyle, a 2^nd grader who reads at a 5^th grade level – we explored the sights around Denver.  On Tuesday we traveled to Estes Park / Rocky Mountain National Park (luckily, Dad had his Golden Eagle pass in his wallet) including the beautiful – and haunted – Stanley Hotel which was the inspiration for “The Shining” one of hundreds of ghost story novels by Stephen King. 

 

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday Ed and I played tourists in the “Mile High City.”  We attended a session at the Denver Temple but almost didn’t get in because we couldn’t find a parking place.   Ironically, the Fort Collins Temple groundbreaking was being held on the same day. No question Colorado needs another temple. 

We went to the Denver Art Museum which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Everything I saw made me smile!

On Thursday, Jan’L flew off to Tennessee for another long weekend with her family at the Nascar races – leaving us to ride herd on the boys while David worked.

 

On Saturday, we loaded the boys up for a “mystery trip” to the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum (Jan’L thought it was a “boy trip” anyway so didn’t mind missing out).  The boys ooooed and aaaaahed at the big planes, the little planes, the old planes, the new planes, the toy planes and the simulators!  It was a pretty expensive day, but worth it to see how excited they all were.

Intermittently throughout the week, we helped with homework and with Kaler's preparation for his Sunday School lesson, played Monopoly (Kaler beat us all by a substantial margin), had some good conversation with our oldest son, did a steady stream of dishes, enjoyed breakfast for dinner and a hobo dinner on the backyard grill and had a couple of movie nights (Hachi, 42, Epic …) with David’s famous carmel corn.

 

When it came time to leave for home, the boys all cried.  “A good sign,” David said as we waved goodbye … but I’m not sure he meant because the kids were sorry to see us go or because when he said it, we were backing out of his driveway!