Colorado Trip 2015: What We Did Before The Rest Of The Family Showed Up

The next several blog posts will be a whole lot of photos interspersed with some basic description. Our Colorado trip was AWESOME, and we had a great time. It is always wonderful to spend time with my family; we may be separated by distance, but we have a lot of love one for another. I am glad we can still feel emotionally close even if we are physically distant most of the time.

For the first time in many years, we made the Arizona-to-Colorado drive in one day. We'd stopped doing that for several years because it was very hard on the girls when they were little. But as they have grown up and become more seasoned travelers, we thought we'd try one day with a lot of driving. And they ended up handling it very well; they were tired at the end of the day, of course, but the complaints were minimal. That was very encouraging to Nathan and myself; hopefully we will be able to do more long days of driving in our future travels.

Everything went okay on that long drive, except for one thing...the speeding ticket I earned right after entering New Mexico!

 

Oops...I guess I was a little too excited to get to Colorado. Thankfully, the policeman was kind and polite, and the fee wasn't incredibly high. However, it did "scare us straight" for the rest of the drive, and it made us modify some of our entertainment plans in Denver.

One thing that helped was that we didn't drive all the way up to Grandma & Grandpa Nash's home that first day. We stopped about an hour and a half short of our ultimate goal, and spent the night in Colorado Springs. Why? Because these awesome people were willing to take us in for the night!

 

Our good friends the Perrys moved out of Arizona in the spring. We'd been friends with them for nine years, had shared countless board-game nights, a camping trip, and lots of other great memories. We love them dearly, and it was very hard to see them go. The silver lining in their relocation, though, was that they now lived in Colorado, on the way to see many of our family members! We decided to spend that first Saturday night at their new home, to see how they were adjusting to life in Colorado.

It was a lovely neighborhood (the Perrys live within walking distance of the Garden Of The Gods! So cool), and they seemed to have lots of nice neighbors as well. The house was also in very good condition from the previous owner, and it looked like they were settling in quite nicely. And the best part? We got to have dinner with them at Rudy's BBQ for dinner!

Hooray, our favorite restaurant is in Colorado! Brad Perry is originally from Texas, and he insists that Rudy's is one of the best barbecue chains around. But for all our talk about Rudy's, we'd never actually been there together. We were all glad we finally got the chance...and our stomachs were glad, too!

The girls were overjoyed to see Kent again...he is their "brother from another mother"!

That night, we relaxed in their home, played a lot of games, and talked a lot about many things. There were more board games the following morning, after which we walked to church (yes, they live walking distance from their meetinghouse. Everything is so convenient for them! I ended up being super jealous of their neighborhood).

Having been away from Colorado for a few years, I spent a lot of time staring up longingly at the tall beautiful green peaks, which were often wreathed in storm-clouds during our trip. But that just makes them look all the more dramatic and appealing!

We only stayed at church for sacrament meeting; it was time to head up to Denver and get together with Grandma and Grandpa. We will always love the Perrys, and we were so grateful for their hospitality. We will definitely be swinging by their place again!

This trip was the first time any of us had set foot inside my parents' new house! Well, it's not a "new" house technically (it's an attached home in the Heather Gardens retirement community), but it was new to us! Last time we'd been there, we stayed in my childhood home. It was strange and bittersweet to drive by that house, which has since been sold, and know that my family's time with that house is over. But we settled in quickly to the new house; we realized that "home is where your stuff is." Home is also where your family is, no matter what shape the house!

It was nice to spend a couple of days getting "exclusive" attention from Grandma & Grandpa. We were also happy when everyone else showed up, but things were pretty peaceful and relaxing for those first couple of days, too. The girls spent a lot of time coloring with Grandma...

...as well as exploring the nearby golf course. I think it is very amusing that now, our girls have two sets of grandparents who live on golf courses! It means they are destined to get into golf, I guess.

Before the Nash family arrived in full, we also had the chance to "sneak out" and pay some quick visits to several Barrett family members. On the way up from Colorado Springs, we got to hang out with Nathan's youngest brother, Evan, for a couple of hours. On Monday, June 29th, Nathan got to go golfing with his brother Grant, while the girls and I headed up to Kelli's new house to check out the view...

 

 

...jump on her new trampoline...

 

...and play with all her chickens. She has lots of chickens, and a large (and somewhat smelly) chicken coop. Which meant the girls couldn't stay away from them.

 

Oh yeah, Kelli's neighbor kept lots of turkeys, dogs, and pigs, too. It was a zoo up there!

 We had to make sure everybody washed their hands really well before going out to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa that night (we went to the Slotted Spoon, a place that specialized in meatballs! It was yummy).

The following morning, we had a quick breakfast with Grant, Molly, and their kids. It had been a long time since we went to their house, but things went well and it was amazing to see how big all their children were getting.

For most of the rest of the afternoon, Nash family members started trickling in. My sister Jocelyn Carlin arrived with her family in the mid-afternoon; my brother Ray and his family arrived roughly the same time. At this point, we all headed over to be checked into our temporary "home" for the trip...the Radisson Hotel located just outside Heather Gardens. It was a very large hotel, and the air conditioning was sometimes a little inconsistent (I guess I am spoiled from living in Arizona!), but it was very conveniently located, both to my parent's house, and to the freeway we would use to travel to many of our destinations.

We were on the 11th floor, and had a lovely view of Cherry Creek Reservoir!

That night, before all the family activities started in earnest, Nathan and I were able to arrange a date to the Denver Colorado LDS Temple...the same building in which we were married.

It is not the biggest or the grandest temple the LDS church operates, but the Denver Temple will always be one of my favorites. It's the place I first received my endowment, and the place where I was sealed to my husband for time and all eternity. When I struggle with answers to questions, or when my spirit is troubled, I have always found peace inside beautiful temples like this one. I am so grateful for the powerful presence that is inside. I was also very grateful to my family, for agreeing to watch our kids so we could have this opportunity to spend some time alone and spiritually "recharge" ourselves.

Now that our peaceful first few days were over, though, the partying with the Nash family was ready to begin!