They are changing so quickly that each plane experience is completely different than the one before. What I have learned is: 1) babies are easier to travel with than toddlers; and 2) green tea has caffeine and caffeine is not good to give toddlers on plane trips; and 3) passengers who are already freaking out by being on a plane are going to become more annoyed by toddlers excessively trying to touch them or drop bottles in their laps.
Aside from the actual travel, the trip was quite nice. We bought the girls animal backpack/toddler leashes for the trip--which I know some people frown on. (I am certain that those people do not have two toddlers who move at the speed of light). The funny thing is that the girls love them. Evelyn actually started crying when I had to take off her monkey backpack to go through the x-ray machine at the airport. I had keep reassuring her that the monkey would come out the other side and that she would get it back.
We spent the first night at my Aunt Robin and Uncle Charlie's. Charlie is my mom's youngest brother, and they have two kids--Carl and Hudson. The girls had the absolute time of their lives. Not only do they have every toy imaginable, but the boys loved the girls and played with them the entire time.
My Aunt Donna, Uncle Jim, and their kids Claire and Duncan came over for dinner on our first night. Claire and Duncan are both so grown up now, its weird.The next morning we all went to the Denver Zoo. It was their first experience in a big Zoo. I thought the girls may be a bit young to care about the animals, but they were so excited to see them. They would point at the animals and wanted to look at every one. Evelyn really liked the giraffes and Rowan liked the hyenas.
They had their first ride on a carousel too.
Our friends Amanda and Rachel met us at the zoo and we spent the rest of our trip with them.These are our annual fishing trip friends, but this year the group went to Mexico and fearing the worst, we passed on taking the girls across the border. So we met up in Denver for a smaller, shorter version of our annual trip.
I really love these friends. They are the kind of people who make you want to be a better person. They are the kind of people who make you realize that your life is really what you make of it. And the crazy thing is, that they're all that way. We went to see a home that Chris (Amanda's husband) is renovating to be a professional kitchen for his catering company. It is awesome. I know its been an incredible amount of hard work and I can't begin to tell you how proud I am that he had the courage to follow his dreams that way. Amanda is the same with her solar power company. And Cris and Rachel are equally amazing in their lives. The girls had a blast too. We spent one day hiking in Estes Park.
I want the girls to have a love of nature. They stopped and picked flowers, they watched ground squirrels and chipmunks. It was great.
On the way back we stopped off at the Stanley Hotel which is the inspiration for Stephen King's novel The Shinning. We rented the film that night. Andre had never seen it. Its a great book, and the film was good--Jack Nicholson was great, but Shelley Duval? She's so annoying, halfway through you're routing for Jack to hurry up and do her in. The next day we went fishing at another lake. Andre and I spent our time walking around with the girls and just relaxing.
