Happy Monday ~ We are back on the flat ground in the Delta… steamy humidity, misquotes, and all. 😉 Though I’m certainly not complaining… Dorothy was right ~ there really is no place like home!
We had the sweetest visit with my sister and her family. They live in Castle Rock, CO, which was home to some original “wild west” places. We ate dinner at one of those places, and enjoyed several days of shopping in their quaint down town. We also visited my sister’s favorite coffee shop and its nextdoor French pastry shop quite a few times during our visit!
Because my sister’s family is relatively new to the Colorado Springs/Denver area, they are still enjoying the “tourist” things available, so we hit some of those spots together. After the blizzard last Saturday, the rest of the week was sunny, crisp, and cool. It was a wonderfully strange thing, that weather out there… The temps could be in the 30s or 40s, but only one of those days did I really feel “cold.” {Though, that could have something to do with my internal temperature these days??? I must say… this “hot mama” LOVED that cool weather! But I was doing a little of this:}
I saw this sign and thought its a nice way to think about hot flashes. What do you think?
haha!
While we were in Colorado, I actually got to do two things that were on my “bucket list” – and just so you’ll know, climbing a mountain is NOT on the list! I did manage to step up on a rock and pose for a picture, but that’s as far up a mountain as these feet took me. No… my bucket list activities had to do with something so much more important to me than the sport of hiking. They had to do with MY sport – which is SHOPPING!
The first place was this store:
Ever since entering the blogging world, I’ve been hearing of this shopping wonderland called IKEA – and finally I know what the buzz is about. It was fascinating. Oh how I would love to furnish my children’s future dorm rooms with that cool stuff! HOWEVER, the “put it together yourself” furniture is a buzz-kill! My aunt bought my little nephew this darling “boy-approved” kitchen and I can not tell you how long it took my sister and me to put it together – nor how many times we had to take it apart and re-do a section! Frustration and high blood pressure did not even begin to describe way we felt after putting the bottom part together. We decided to save the top piece for my sister’s husband, and of course, he put the entire thing together in about 15 minutes. Whatever. At least, I can now say that I’ve been to Ikea and there’s a toy kitchen to prove it.
The other shopping place on my bucket list came just a tad too late in my my daughter’s life. It’s the American Girl store. For years I longed to take my little girl to that store… back when she was a little girl! Abigail had a Kit doll, and she and Kit had the same hair cut for years. Kit was a regular part of our family, and I dreamed of taking the two of them to the store, getting Kit’s hair done, buying her a new outfit, attending the musical, and enjoying tea in the bistro. Those were sweet dreams that I’ll store away for a grand daughter one of these days. I finally did get to take my little girl to the AG store, and she kindly humored me for TWO pictures. She was very good about it. But when I asked her to pose one more time, she gave me that look and said that long drawn out word that all moms of teens know, “Moooommmmmm”… So I just smiled and thanked her for the two pics with which she sweetly humored me.
We saw the Garden of the God’s, which was breathtaking and logic defying… and pictures just didn’t do it justice.
We also visited the Glen Eyrie Castle, which is now the home headquarters of Navigators International. It was grand and beautiful… and thanks to Christian historical fiction and Downton Abbey, I could totally picture life in that home back in the early 1900s. I didn’t get a lot of pictures on the tour, but thought it interesting that the original bathrooms had what we call “subway tile” walls… Everything does come back around, doesn’t it? This is mom with her grandchildren outside of the castle.
One of the most fun things we did was to visit the Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs. What a large and beautiful campus!
Below a HUGE bookstore (and more participation in my favorite sport) is a family play area that has a 3-story slide, secret tunnels, a theater room with a stage, costumes, puppet stage and puppets, a broadcast viewing area. Fascinating, I tell you!
Most beloved of all to me was Whit’s End and the characters from the radio series, “Adventures in Odyssey.” We raised our children on those radio shows – then videos, and now DVDs and books are available. It probably meant more to me than to Abigail, but I loved getting to sit down and eat in the “Whit’s End” soda shop!
It was a special visit with family and treasured memories were made. I’m so grateful to have been able to go, and am grateful to be back “home.” School resumes tomorrow, and both teens are out with their friends… yep… life is back to normal. But for one sweet week, we definitely enjoyed a Rocky Mountain High!
