Father's Day

Brandon is really into trains, he tells me. He talks all the time about "when I get my train set set up..." The only thing is he doesn't have one... yet! Just in the dreamin' phase I guess.

When I saw the Colorado Railroad Muesum in the Play Date with Denver book we got recently, I knew we were going to go for Father's Day. Right now Brandon's work schedule has is weekends on week days so I figured we would go on his day off instead but I read that they only run the train for rides on Saturdays. And then I found out that they were having Wild West Days the weekend after Father's Day!

All these plans were made with out Brandon knowing what we were doing. Stealth mode. He is always surprising me and it drives.me.nuts! I'm not so good at surprises, receiving or keeping them. But this time was pay back.

And I kept it a surprise all the way! He figured it out because they had a sign at out exit off of the freeway. And he was so excited! So I was excited! I made sure to bring his camera so he could 'play' and take lots of picture of the old train cars and, of course, our adorable littles who made him a father.

And that is just a drop in the bucket of what pictures he took. I think we are going to get a few of them framed and hang them in the house. Hope all you dad's had a great Father's Day!

Child's Play

I found this book in a gift shop and bought for our summer exploring this year and beyond. I was getting a little bored with our usual outing spots and this was just the thing to get us out exploring and trying new things!

(Source)

This book is a gold mine. It's written by a mom who took her kids to each place and then wrote a review telling you the mom-approved version including if you can bring your own food, age group it's good for, restroom availability, cost, hours, annual special events and much more!

One day we were going to a park that's listed in the book but it ended up being too windy so we looked to see what else was close by (another great feature about the book) and they had a children's museum that looked like a great indoor choice.

The kids loved it and we thought it was fun, too!

Checking out the fishes underneath the huge pirate ship.

The sand box.

Ah hoy, matey!

ARGG!!

What's going in there? (It was a rain demonstrator)

The puppet theater.

Going through the drive through at the bank... they even had a working shoot that sends the money inside the building and out to the car, just like at the bank drive through!

A Colorful Day

Back at the end of April, our family had signed up to do the Graffiti Run through downtown. When I signed us all up I didn't think twice about the logistics, I thought we will figure it out, it will be fine! But as the race day approached I started getting nervous about whether it was a good idea or not to take the littles mostly because of the color powder. I was worried about it getting in their eyes or if they would be able to breath. The website for the race said it was non toxic and safe for all ages and I reassured myself that they would know!

 I decided we would go and at anytime that it wasn't going well we would leave. We didn't have to pay anything for the littles to do the race, just my mom, Brandon and I.

It turned out to be a blast! And a learning experience...

.... Get there EARLY and get as close to the front of the starting line as possible. We were walking the 5k so we knew would take longer to get through, but add in littles 3 and under and it takes even loooonger. By the time we crossed the finish line they were cleaning up and the color parties were over. But we finished and everyone had a great time. Caleb even took a nap in the stroller for half of it!

We had our own color party after we finished (that's when everyone that's crossed the finish line gathers up and on the count down they all throw their color packs up in the air at the same time, they did it every 15 min) and the kids danced and threw their color powder on us and each other. The powder wasn't even an issue. It's a real fine powder of corn starch and it would dissolve in the air before you could breath it in and no one complained of it in their eyes.

Lastly, the clean up was surprisingly easy too. We brought extra clothes for the kids and changed them before we got in the car. We used wipes to clean their skin as best as possible and then we just put towels down over the seats for us. I never saw a trace of it in the car.

The littles talked about it for months and still mention doing the 'color run' when they are doing laps through the house. They have asked when we could do it again! We may just have to make it a family tradition to do it each year.