Weekend in Colorado: The Blog

*Note: Blogging is so fun.

Over Presidents' Day weekend, James and I took a car trip to Denver, Colorado to visit my brother and his family. It was such a treat for us, so I'd like to commemorate (however late) the enjoyment of the occasion by sharing just a couple of stories from the fun-filled weekend.

• After we arrived and got big hugs from three-year-old Beck and suspicious looks from nearly-two-year-old Ainsley, we all sat down to an amazingly delicious dinner made by my sister-in-law Jennifer. Beck had been chatting a mile a minute from the moment we got there and it didn't look like he was going to stop anytime soon. Christian tried to shush him so we could say a prayer, but he said "NO! I have to tell Aunt Charery something!" Christian: "Can it wait til after the prayer?" Beck: "NO!!! It's important!" Christian: "Ok, then go ahead." Beck: -Huge dramatic pause- "I got ... NEW . . . underpants! With Mickey Mouse!" Yet another pause, but this time because everyone is laughing so hard. Christian: "Is that all? Can we say the prayer now?" Beck: "Yep."

• Christian and Jennifer have been trying to beat me at Wise and Otherwise their entire married life. I have always reigned champion and squashed their dreams to a smeary pulp. Unfortunately, they made a terrible decision and chose to cheat horribly and managed to beat me three times over the weekend. There is no other explanation besides outright, dastardly cheatling.

• Poor James got sick pretty much the day we left Utah and is still feeling the effects of it. He spent quite a bit of the weekend hiding in bed trying to combat his fever. The kids often asked where Uncle James was and I had to reply that he wasn't feeling great. They quickly caught on and Beck could be heard the entire weekend to answer the question "Where's Uncle James" with "He's sicky."

• Beck, for whatever reason, always chose who was going to say the prayer at dinner. He invariably pointed out his Aunt Charery. Well, one night we convinced him to actually say the prayer himself and he proceeded to say a very nice prayer, which began to ramble somewhere in the middle. So Christian whispered, "Don't forget the food." To which Beck responded without missing the beat, "and don't forget the food. Please bless this food, and this food, and this food. . . " and would have continued pointing to all the food on the table but Christian stopped him by prompting "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

• Jennifer's sister Leeann had a birthday the same day as mine. Her family lives in Colorado Springs and they were having a little birthday party for Leeann that night. They were so overwhelmingly wonderful and made it a party for me too, complete with some beautiful gifts and a birthday song. I'm so grateful to them for making room for me on my special day—they are such sweet people.

• James finally felt a little better on Sunday night and we all played and read books in the living room that night. Nothing truly special or funny happened, but it was a really nice night.

All in all it was a great trip, despite James being sick, and we're looking forward to getting together again.