Chicago here we come... we HOPE!!!

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Well we are supposed to leave for Chicago tomorrow night... IF the weather cooperates! I said a few weeks ago that it would be just our luck that it doesn't snow all winter, but then we get a blizzard on the day we are supposed to leave. It appears that I may be able to read the future because that is exactly what the forecast is predicting. The trains are mostly immune to winter weather unless it is really bad, but we have to be able to get to Denver to catch the train - which requires going over Monument Hill! If it is as bad as they are predicting - that may be impossible. We are supposed to get over 4 inches here, and double that in Monument. Which isn't a ton of snow, but winds up to 40 mph it could be total white-out conditions. You can't drive over Monument in a white-out.  

So the smart thing would be to leave first thing in the morning and try to beat the storm up there -but Brian would have to miss another day of work, and Lily would miss the class field trip to Itz that they have been working toward for months - they had to earn enough points to be able to go, and she earned her final points last week. She has been counting the days until Itz for almost 3 weeks... so I'm not very inclined to make her miss it. I guess we could just push everything back by a day or even two - then I would miss my RE meeting on Wed. night though. I don't know what to do. There isn't a good solution, I guess I am just hopeing this storm will be delayed at least a few hours and we can get up there before it gets bad. If by late morning tomorrow it doesn't look like we will be able to make it, I will get on the phone and see what changes I can make. I am trying not to stress - we will get there one way or another, and if I have to change all our plans and reschedule everything at the last minute then that is what I will do. 

This morning we looked up our hotel on Google maps, they even had the Google-mobile street view and it looks like a really nice area (even if my map said it was "good if you're on a budget") Here is the link- not sure if it will work right or not... You may have to hit "search map" or scroll around a little to find it.

Let's see, other news...we went to get Brian some glasses last night. He has had an infection in his eye for a while and isn't supposed to be wearing his contacts. He hadn't been following that rule very well and it was making his eye worse. Our insurance doesn't cover LensCrafters, but since he had already gotten contacts this year they weren't going to also cover a pair of glasses anyway, so we decided to go ahead and get it there since they could do them right away. And Lily's glasses are supposed to be ready today, so they will both have new glasses for our trip. Lily wanted to know if I was going to get glasses too so we could all match - I told her hopefully not! My vision has degraded a little since the surgery, but so far not enough to require any correction. 

This weekend we went for a long hike (~7 miles) at Cheyenne Mountain State Park - getting some use out of our annual pass. Lily was definitely out-doing both of us by the end... even had enough energy to play on the playground when we got back to the parking lot! Then on Sunday we went to the zoo - had to leave a little early because Lily's adventures the day before were catching up with her... she starting getting rather cranky, no doubt due to being tired. But we have an annual pass to the zoo as well, so we can always go back. 

Well that's about it - hopefully we will be on our way tomorrow night, if we can catch a break with the weather. We are supposed to have internet access at the hotel, so if I have time I will post some updates here. 

Spring Break Countdown

So March is moving along quite nicely. Only 3 more days of school until Spring Break! This last weekend, we went up to Denver to see the Disney on Ice show. It was pretty good. I wish our seats had been up just a tad higher, but it was still a pretty good view. The show's story line had the Incredibles going to Disneyland for a vacation, then of course evil villain Sydrome shows up and they have to save the day instead. It was entertaining, even though Lily hasn't seen the Incredibles movie. We actually tried to take her to see it in the theater, but it turned out she was way too young at the time and we had to leave before it hardley even got started.

There is a Princess Disney on Ice that is touring now too, I hope they come here sometime soon. Lily had recently thought she wanted to change her vacation pick next year to Disneyland, but when she realized there was no Epcot, and no Pirate Cruise, that was a deal breaker so now we are planning on Disney World again. Unless she changes her mind. Again. I think we may try the Beach Club this time -it is supposed to have the best pool in all of Disney World. But that is still a little over a year away... oh well. Only 10 more days till we go to Chicago! I just realized our ticker (on the tickers page) is off by a week - must have put in the wrong dates! Oh well, I'm probably not going to bother making a new one now...

On Saturday Lily also went to a Tea Party - the girls were quite adorable in their little dresses! It was the first time I had dropped her off at a party... it would turn out not to be the first time that weekend that we suddenly felt she was growing up...

She has started dance class again. We found another dance studio that seems to be working out better than the one she was at last year. Her class is considered a combo class - but mostly seems to be a modern type ballet - they do everything barefoot! It is much more relaxed feeling than the old place, and they are even going to let her be in the recital!

Last week she got Spring Portraits done - they are on our photoalbum website . I had waited to get them done until I found out if she was going to need new glasses this year - we were pleasantly surprised to find out that her prescription was unchanged so went ahead with the portraits. Then the next day her glasses broke, so now she is getting new ones - and we have portraits of her in her old glasses! Oh well. Hopefully the new ones will be in before we go to Chicago anyway.

We have been trying very hard to eat out less - actually planning a menu and going to the store with a grocery list every weekend. It's working out pretty well - but man it takes a lot of willpower not to jump in the car when Brian gets home and go to Noodles, or Mexican... or pizza... I'm going through a bit of withdrawel!

I was supposed to take Nala to the vet today to get her bordatella shot (so she can go to the PetsHotel next week) but it didn't work out so I guess I will try to go next week when I am off.. As long as I get it before next Tuesday it should be okay. Well that's about all I can think of...hopefully Spring Break will get here soon. If I don't get around to doing another update before our trip - I'll definitely post a trip report when we get back!

It's March!

Well just as I predicted, March arrived! And with it more activity. A little re-cap of the last few days...

Last weekend we took Lily to a Chemical Magic show put on by Cool Science. It was at Bear Creek Nature Center. Even though we had been there several times I printed out a map from Google just in case, as we got close we realized the map was having us go a different way than we were used to. We made the unfortunate decision to ignore our instincts and follow it. Google never leads us wrong, after all, right??? Wrong! It was totally wrong. So we were running a few minutes late after we had to backtrack then go the way we knew.

The room was almost full, only a few seats in the back. Lily was bummed that she wasn't going to be able to see, but the lady next to us told us there was one seat empty in the front row. Lily didn't mind being seperated from us if it meant she could see, so she got a front row seat! I stood up in the back most of the time to get a better look, and keep an eye on her. It was really cool... lots of the typical color changing reactions but some new ones I hadn't seen before too. And some exploding volcano type reactions, disappearing liquid reactions, all the stuff that gets people's attention for sure. And they got lots of kids to volunteer from the audience. The first few times, Lily was the only kid in the room not raising her hand, but finally she got more confidence and started raising it. She never got picked but I was glad she was willing anyway. After the show we looked around in the Nature Center a little, then it was time go - we had yet another adventure planned for the day!

We stopped for a quick lunch at Noodles, then headed on down to Cheyenne Mountain State Park where Lily was signed up for a Bird Songs Class. This time we were actually early and had time to look around in the brand new Visitor's Center. It was a much smaller group than the Chemistry show, they heard a story and made bird calling devices. Then they took us a little ways down a trail to use them. We didn't see many birds, but Lily wanted to hike the rest of the trail after the class was over. We decided to buy an annual State Parks pass, then headed back to the trail on our own. We hiked the loop - a short 1.5 miles, but saw several more birds. Lily really wanted to do more, but it was getting late and we had things to do. We promised to come back tomorrow, afterall we had an annual pass now. So we headed on home, then later got our favorite yummy dinner at our favorite yummy Mexican restaraunt.

After Church on Sunday, I had a meeting and some other school stuff to do, so Brian took Lily back to Cheyenne Mountain State Park for a longer hike. They had a great time and saw a lot of wildlife. Lily especially liked watching the prairie dogs pop out of their holes and bark! They did a little over 5 miles, and Brian told Lily she had earned some ice cream. So after dinner we went to Coldstone (by the movie theater). The Baskin Robbins by our house doesn't stay open late at night during the Winter.

Also on Sunday, Lily planned a vacation for her stuffed animals Hammy and Poodles... to Disney World! She spent all morning telling us about their plans -they were leaving today! Imagine her surprise when she later got an email from them... complete with a picture of them in front of the Castle! She was excited at first, but it became more than a game to her that night, and she got very worried about them being off on their own for so long... so they came home early to sleep with her. They could always go back tomorrow afterall.

She is starting Dance class again. She had been asking for some time, and I finally relented. SO much for the "two activities only" rule. She already has ice skating, and soccer will start in a few weeks. But at least I think I found a place that I will like better than where we were last year. She has her first class tomorrow, so we will see how it goes.

Her Summer schedule is coming together nicely. The last two summer camps are hopefully a go -sent in the registration forms today. If all goes as planned, our summer will look something like this:

June 4-10 - Naples FL, Visit Jaime's family
June 15-19 - Lily @ Nature Camp, Fox Run Park
June 22-26 - Lily @ Zoo Camp, Cheyenne Mtn Zoo
July 9-19 - Family Vacation to Glacier / Waterton / Grand Teton National Parks
July 20-24 - Lily @ Space Camp, Denver Museum of Nature & Science
July 27-31 - Lily @ Little Flippers Camp, Art Sports Gym
August 5 - Lily starts 1st grade!

So we will have a little bit of downtime, hopefully get to make some fun trips like the North Pole, Water World, etc.

So Spring Break is getting closer, and we are getting excited for our trip to Chicago! Only 2.5 more weeks of school to go. And now that the weather is getting so warm, and the sun is coming up sooner, the bleakness of February is starting to fade. It couldn't have come any sooner!

Here are some pics of Cheyenne Mtn State Park, and Lily's pets' vacation. Enjoy!