Colorado Trip 2015: Goofing Off With The Cousins

Look at that beautiful family! Everyone in their reunion shirts, everyone smiling and happy and peaceful. I am so grateful we had the opportunity to be together with the Nash family in Colorado this summer; it was fun, funny, relaxing and heartwarming all at once. I love my siblings, Jocelyn and Ray, and their families, and I love my parents more than I can properly express. I am so grateful they let us descend on their "new" retirement home (it's a bit smaller than the home I grew up in, but they managed to fit us all in pretty well).

There was a lot of fog & rainfall for our last several days in Colorado

Not every day of this vacation was filled with hiking trips or festival visits. Most of our days were spent avoiding Colorado's furtive rainstorms, eating big family meals in the garage (it was the only room big enough to hold everyone!), playing lots and lots of board games and card games, and generally visiting, chatting, and getting caught up with one another.

Here are a bunch of other things we did together during our family reunion. WARNING: lots of photos coming!!

The kids played with each other...a LOT.

 The kids had a blast hanging out with their cousins; they'd spend hours in the basement, playing with video games, action figures, dolls...you name it. They also found some of Grandma Nash's Star Trek-themed merchandise...

 

Lorelai had no idea what this plushie was supposed to be. She called it "a helicopter with a hat," which is probably the funniest description of the USS Enterprise I've ever heard, so I had to include it in the blog for posterity. One of these days, I'll have to show my kids some Star Trek, but in the meantime they can get acquainted with it by checking out Grandma Nash's (LARGE, IMPRESSIVE) collection of Trek-themed toys, games, costumes, books, etc.

They also found one or two opportunities to swim in the pool in our hotel:

 

This was a more novel experience for the Carlin and Nash cousins than for us; we swim often in the summertime, and usually in a bigger, warmer pool! But that didn't stop the girls from diving in after everyone else. Unfortunately, due to the frequent, somewhat unpredictable rainstorms that typified the second half of our trip, we didn't get to go to the pool too often.

However, we did manage to sneak out one sunny morning and play at this awesome community playground in nearby Centennial, Colorado!

 

The playground is not only very large, it has a great splash pad right next door! Apparently, the whole city had the same idea...it was very crowded there that day. But our kids didn't mind; they had a great time trying everything out.

The family also had an idea to start a "rabbit hunt" on the nearby golf course, and the kids all readily agreed. There are a plethora of adorable bunnies hopping all over Aurora, Colorado right now, eating grass, flowers, and pretty much any plant that doesn't have a fence around it. I think they're adorable; most residents see them as nuisances. The kids were happy to seek out a few of the cottontailed culprits and bring them to justice.

 

Unfortunately, they got so excited at the prospect of hunting rabbits that everyone was hurtling across the golf course greens in minutes, shrieking at the top of their lungs. Seeing as how we were in a retirement community, it wasn't long before an official came over and told us to quiet down and get off the golf course. After that, our "hunt" turned more into a "stroll through the neighborhood, with occasional rabbit spotting."

So play-time, for the grandkids, went on almost non-stop pretty much every day...

...and the aunts and uncles often got in on the fun, too (see: Uncle Ray, shown above).

We had a big "bowling/dinner date."

 

On one particularly rainy day, we spent most of the time at the grandparent's house. But everyone was getting restless by the afternoon, so we decided to have a big night out. First, we went bowling in a (slightly) scary bowling alley in Denver.

 

My girls had so much fun bowling. It reminded me that we need to go bowling as a family sometime (Nathan, sadly, had already flown back to Arizona by this time and wasn't able to join us). They did pretty well too! They spent much of the time using the metal "guide" to send the bowling ball down the lane straight, but Lorelai did pretty well without it too.

This is probably my favorite photo of the cousins (plus Aunt Jocelyn) from this whole trip. Everyone looks so goofy, like they're having a great time! Our only mistake was paying for two games of bowling; everyone's attention span ran out halfway through the second game and it became a chore to finish at that point. But before that, everything was great!

After bowling it was dinnertime...at Casa Bonita!

Yes, that Casa Bonita. I've written about it before. It is never my favorite place to eat at (the food is still as terrible as ever), but boy do the kids love it. And who can blame them? It's a kid's paradise!

The highlight of the evening (for our family anyway) was the magic show. Our dinner seats were inside the magic theater, and the magician showed up a few minutes after we started eating. He needed an assistant, and he chose Celeste!

 

 

 

 

She was up there for several minutes, fielding the magician's witty questions, speaking loudly & clearly, and smiling broadly the whole time. She was a natural! She even got to keep the "trick rope" from the show...

Aurora was understandably a little jealous at not being picked to be the magician's helper. Her wailing was long, loud, and a little distracting to the full house. I had to physically remove her from the room for a while. Poor kid!

But luckily, she soon discovered Black Bart's cave, which is the highlight for most kids at Casa Bonita. Her love of the creepy artificial cave grew slowly; the first time I carried her through, she cried and screamed at the top of her lungs. The second time through, she clung tightly to me in a desperate, strained silence. The third time through, we held hands and she walked through, pointing out all the scary monsters. And after that, I lost track of how many times she went though, because she went all on her own! I'm glad her love of being terrified overcame her depression from being rejected by the musician.

Hanging out at the Casa Bonita arcade

The cousins all had a great time together that night. Ray and his wife Adrienne, in particular, had fun; this was Ray's first visit back to Casa Bonita since his own childhood, and his wife and kids had never been before. It was fun to see them discover this weird, truly unique place!

Plus, the kids got these cool fake teeth to take home.

We toured a candy factory, and got a LOT of candy.

One thing I'd never done in Denver before was tour the Hammond's Candy Factory, a place which has apparently been here for many many years. The tour was free (we found out why later), so we reasoned it would be a good way to kill an hour or two.

We had to come back to the factory two times, though...the first time we showed up, the tours for the day had all been filled! But we were able to make reservations for the following day, so thankfully we wouldn't get stood up twice.

The kids were a little unimpressed at first...despite the cool paper hats everyone was given at the start of the tour. But then the introductory video started, and everyone's jaws slowly dropped at the sight of all the delicious, delicious chocolate & candy being made.

It helped that the factory smelled wonderful...I felt like I was inhaling sugar!

 

After the video, we went and had a look at the factory floor. It wasn't terribly busy, but we still got to see a few different types of candy being made. It was really cool to see both humans and machines pulling and tugging on the huge mass of soft, hot candy.

Another group of people were twisting candy canes into shapes, then packaging them to be shipped out.

The tour itself wasn't too long or fancy...after spending some time looking at the factory floor, we were each given a complimentary lollipop, or other hard candy. Then we were all hustled into the gift shop, and Hammond's true evil genius was revealed...they don't need to charge anything for the tour, because they know that after watching candy get made, people will be more likely to plunk down a lot of money for said candy!

And oh boy...did I plunk down a lot of money...

...for a lot of candy!

The girls supported my choice, of course. I suspect if Nathan had been around, he would have been the voice of reason and restrained me somewhat. But what's done is done. And it was all very delicious!! We shared it for weeks afterward.

 

To get the sugar worked out of our systems, the family took a trip to a nearby park. We had lunch, played on the playground, and went and looked at the nearby creek.

 

Due to all the rain, the creek was very swollen and fast-moving. I was a little nervous having the girls get so close by (after all, they have very little experience with running bodies of water!), but up on the bridge I felt a lot safer.

 

The rain ultimately drove us away from the park and back to Grandma's house. I felt a little sadness that night, since I spent much of the time doing laundry, buying road-trip snacks, and getting packed up. It was our last night together as a family; the next day, everyone would be going their separate ways. We had all had a lot of fun, but real life was knocking and we all had to answer.

Grandma and Grandpa's beautiful hibiscus plants

The next morning, as we all loaded up our cars and got on the road, my girls couldn't hold back their tears. Well, Lorelai managed to hold back her tears...until we were on the road. Then, she broke out into uncontrollable sobs, joining Celeste and Aurora, who had already been crying loudly for a long time. It took almost a half-hour of driving for all three of my poor sweet girls to calm down. I admit to shedding several tears myself; not just because listening to them was so sad, but because I always hate to say goodbye to my family and leave Colorado behind. I'm so thankful for the time we spent together, and thankful that we have so many memories to tide us over until the next time...whenever that is.