The beautiful Colorado!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Colorado? I loved Colorado even before Ben's sister and brother-in-law (Lynn and Michael) moved here in 2006. I have no problem coming to visit them. I was trying to remember how many times I have been to Colorado, I think this is my 6th time to Colorado. This trip is extra special...Ryan and I came to meet COLT!

Colt is 5 weeks old now. Tipping the scales at a whopping 10lbs 7oz (he is almost what Ryan was at birth) and on the verge of smiling. We are hoping he will give us a big grin before we leave.

Ryan absolutely loves his little cousin. He is being a big helper. We do have to remind him to be gentle every once in a while but that is to be expected.

Aunt Lynn asked Ryan to watch Colt while she ran upstairs for something. Ryan decided that Colt needed a little drink.

We have had a long couple of days. I was up at 3am and I woke Ry up at 4am on Thursday morning to catch a 6:30am flight out of DM. Our flight from DM to Denver was really bumpy. We flew through rain storms the whole way. I used to get motion sickness all the time in the car when I was young but haven't really had a problem in adulthood. During the flight, I was feelin the motion sickness and so was Ryan. The first stop I made once we landed in Denver was to buy Dramamine. We both took some for the flight from Denver to Colorado Springs even though it was a very quick flight. I already have it pack in my carry-on bag for the flights home.

Ryan is farming while watching the planes get load during our 2.5 hour layover

We got here around noon on Thursday so we just hung out at Lynn and Michael's house for the afternoon/evening. They had turned down the hot tub before we came in preparation for Ryan. Michael and Ryan went hot tubing before bed. Their house is beautiful. It sits in a wooded area at the base of a mountain. So peaceful and very cozy. I will post a couple photos of the view from their house but they don't do it any justice.

Friday we visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. It is a little zoo up on a mountain, it didn't have a lot of animals (a couple of each normal zoo animal) but it was a very kid-friendly zoo. Ryan got to feed the giraffes some crackers, pet a lizard, and in the bird house they gave all the kids a popsicle stick with some bird feed on it so the birds would come sit on the stick and eat right out of your hand. Ryan favorite part of the zoo was riding the skyride. It went up the mountain pretty high but it was an awesome view.

View from the Skyride

View from the landing of the Skyride Poor Colt. He had been in the stroller pretty much the entire zoo trip which was about 4 hours. He was ready to get out, stretch and eat!

Had to have ice cream before we left the zoo

Today we went up to Cripple Creek. It is an old 1800's gold mining town. Now it is mostly a casino town but I enjoyed walking around the little town. The reason for visiting the town was to take Ryan on the train ride up through the old gold mining area. While we were on the train ride the conductor would narrate the store behind different landmarks. We were at the last stop of the train ride when Ry said to me, "Mom see that old mine up there?" I said, "yes". He goes on to tell me that it was used to mine gold a long time ago but it is run down now. I was quite surprised that my 3 year old was actually paying attention to the what the conductor was telling us about the history of the area.

Ryan, Lynn, Michael and Colt on the train

Looking out the window of the train

Echo Valley stop on the train ride

We have had a great time so far. Colt is such a good baby so we barely even notice that he is tagging along with us. He hasn't slowed us down one bit.

The only negative thing about being here is that Ben isn't here with us. We miss him. June is normally a busy farming month for Ben but with all the rain he probably could have came with us. If we would have only known that when we booked the plane tickets :(