Back from Colorado!

What a trip! First, it almost wasn't a trip. Ellianna landed in the Emergency Room the night before we left -- I had Elijah and Evan over here until close to 9:30 p.m. -- our flight was at 1:00 so it was a bit iffy there. The docs finally got Ellianna taken care of and Brooke was able to take all 5 kids back to Palmer. If that isn't a true saint I don't know what is!

Greg and I had fun and relaxation in Colorado. We found wonderful restaurants and shops in Denver and had a lot of fun walking around and admiring the old brick architecture. We had a to-die-for meal at a restaurant called "Rioja" and I'm still dreaming about the homemade gnocchi with white truffle sauce. We also discovered a great little wine bar called "Cru" that had wine flights and even cheese flights -- various tastes of specialty cheeses selected to go with various types of wine. If you chose the Merlot flight, for instance, you got 3 different selections of Merlots (3 oz. tastes) that showed different characteristics of that varietal. Yum!

We then drove to Colorado Springs for Greg's meetings. Less meetings than he had expected -- which meant a little more time for play. The hotel was amazing -- one of those places that has two staff people for every guest. Everywhere you turn there is somebody calling you by name and asking how they can serve you. While Greg was in his meetings, I hit the spa and had a deep tissue massage that made me feel like mush (in a good way). In fact, it was so great I suggested Greg go to the spa in the afternoon, which he did while I sat by the pool reading "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (I'm rereading them -- first discovered them in high school, but they are worthy of a second read through). That pretty much sums up the trip -- we were very lazy, even getting in the habit of an afternoon snooze when the thunderclouds rolled in every afternoon.

We did a bit of sightseeing -- the Garden of the Gods is a beautiful area with interesting rock formations and we did a 3 hour hike through during a nice sunny morning. We also did a brief tour of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and even dropped by the original gravesite of Helen Hunt Jackson (author of "Ramona" - - a Hemet icon if ever there was one).

Glad to be home to the kids -- it's always nice to get some relaxation and time for reconnection with my husband (in fact, it's amazing how much conversation you can have when you're not interrupted constantly -- we had some really great talks). But I missed them. The only downfall about the trip? We were very proud of our return itinerary -- direct flight from Denver to Anchorage as part of the summer Alaska Airlines schedule. Unfortunately, somebody at Alaska Airlines goofed and didn't give the crew enough rest time so they had to cancel our flight. Instead of our direct flight that would get us home by 2:30 a.m., we ended up flying to Seattle, getting in at 2:00 a.m. to Seattle, staying in a hotel for 2 and a half hours of sleep, getting up and heading to the Seattle airport for an 8:00 a.m. flight to PORTLAND (yes, that is the opposite direction from where we wanted to go) and then catching a flight in Portland that got us to Anchorage by 12:30 p.m. In all, it was about 18 hours for the return trip. We're a bit on the peaked side today....