WHEW!

It's been almost exactly 14 mo since we last came to Colorado...

a lot has changed.

Mostly, the boy next to me still kicking his legs and grinning at the ceiling.

To catch things up,

We left early Saturday morning after getting Carlos good and fed,

stopped for breakfast at what is prob. now my favorite German bakery...yum

(prob a good thing it's not within reasonable driving range for frequent use!)

Next stop was Amarillo.

I encouraged Hubs to find a Chick fil a (which was a little out of our way) so the big kids could, as they like to refer to it as "eat, play, eat, play", as opposed to just "eat (all your food, then) play" and let Carlos spend some time out of his seat.

I was most worried about how Carlos was going to travel...he had the power to make this one miserable drive.

Well, I spent more time than I would have liked in the back seat of the van, but after we eliminated Ace kicking his seat from behind and the random loud voices and yelling (anybody who knows Ace IRL knows that he really doesn't have an inside voice, and when Bug gets wound up or offended she gets high pitched) we had much smother driving.

We ended up making it to a cute town about 20 min outside of Denver before we stopped for the night.

The real fun started Sunday morning...
we hit the Denver Zoo!
We had a great time...

We were all most excited about the Polar Bear!

and were hoping to see him swimming around in his pool...

Turns out, he hates the heat.

Just sat there in the shade.

The other cool thing we saw was the 2 humped camels.

 Carlos slept through the whole entire experience.

It's probably a little mean to post this picture...

as big and tough as Ace looks, he gets his feelings hurt pretty easy.

This was towards the end of the day and he had just fell off the baby hippo.

 I don't think I mention enough here in the bloggy world about what an amazing dad Hubs is.
He loves teaching the kids about the animals.

 I love the guy!
(here he's showing them the lions and hyenas)

(and on an amusing side note, as I'm sitting here at the kitchen counter of our cabin blogging about what a good dad he is...Hubs just told the kids (jokingly, of course) that if they come upstairs and try to get in our bed...he's going to roll them down the stairs while they're still asleep...gotta love it!)

Sunday was wrapped up, with no picture evidence, by meeting up with my dad's family in Denver and going to a really neat 50's diner with the best milkshakes!

We woke up this morning and headed to our final destination.
Estes Park!!
We are so glad to be back.
The weather is great, the grass and trees are green and the rivers and streams actually have water running in them!
After lunch, grocery shopping, and obtaining the proper fishing licenses, we settled into our cabin.
The kids had a good time playing in the stream.
This is probably my new favorite picture of Bug and Ace...

We also drove to a few places in the park, cooked dinner and enjoyed sitting out on our deck listening to the river.
It's been a good day...
now I'm going to take Carlos upstairs, feed him, and fall into a coma.
Here's to hoping tonight might finally be the night the little booger sleeps all the way through!