Colorado Day 1 and 2: Buffalo Madness

I've kind of been absent this past week and I'll tell you why.  

Due to some scheduling with Maddy flying back to the mid-states to attend a wedding in Wisconsin with Matthew, Robb had to create a very complicated diagram involving a rubber chicken graph.  At least that's what it took to explain it to me.  She flew into Minneapolis and Matthew picked her up with our van, which was explained during a dream I had last week.  



After several dates wrapped into one day, they arrived at a friend's home in Wisconsin where they talked into the night.  After two of hours of sleep, Maddy was awakened to cower in the basement due to a tornado nearby.  So she was tired...  Eventually, two days later, Maddy arrived at our place with "Vanna", (It's been dubbed).  I spent Monday night cleaning it up and packing.  


We left on our vacation dark and early Tuesday around 4:30am.  I think I know why my dad always left for trips that early.  The kids would sleep and he'd have a couple hours of peace and quiet.  Robb was of the same mindset but I didn't fall asleep so no peace here!  We were Colorado bound, babies!

We stopped at five places on the way out, breaking our personal best of four.  

On the 11 hour drive, we enjoyed our stop at Kearney, Nebraska where of course Leon got to see the Buffalo.  



He would NOT put his hand into the nose though, no matter how hard the girls tried to get him to.  I guess it's not tradition after all now...

The kids and I had fun running through the maze

and Leon is a cheater, by crawling through underneath the walls.  

Maddy got lost in it and we had to guide her out from above. 



We had such a good time with Maddy on this trip.  

I can't believe we won't see her until mid August now...

Can you tell, we love this maze??  Well, Robb doesn't.  He relaxed in the car.

Inside the museum, which we didn't go all the way into, because the people on the entrance were creepy and it cost money...  and time...  were lots more fun things to do than just use their bathrooms.

Speaking of bathrooms...  we also stopped at the Sapp Brothers gas stations twice.  If you haven't been to these gas station/convenience truck stops, tune in later this week as they are awesome and I'll do a commercial...

Getting into town and checking into the hotel, we took Maddy to the Texas Roadhouse for her first time there.  The kids and I then checked out the hot tub and the sauna, but couldn't figure out how the sauna turned on, so we sat and literally chilled for 20 minutes.  



The subsequent days thereafter, the hot tub had an out of order sign on it.  Meri was convinced we broke it.  I'm sure we didn't.

Wednesday - We stopped by the church where Maddy is interning 

and let Leon play on the playground equipment 

& costumes.

Leon was disappointed that no soccer camp was going on while we were there but we got out a few balls to kick around anyway.  That made him happy.




We then tackled the Museum of Discovery.  



AWESOME place!!!  



If you're ever in Ft. Collins, take your kids there!  



 or you just go and have a good time without kids!



 They had costumes, which is always a plus for the kiddies.



 Lots of water things.  This one was made pictures in the water based on sound.



 Then some outdoor activities too.  Like trying to mimic hummingbirds.



Or play the bells.


 At 1pm most days, they have a garage band jam session.  We were too early for that but it didn't stop us from jamming out!




I got a call from work then and went to go do the worky stuff from the car, thinking I'd be coming right back into the museum.  Nope.  It took a while and suddenly my family was knocking on my windows freaking me out.    We ate at a trendy little restaurant that we couldn't find in our own town, called Burger King.  Have you ever heard of those?

We dropped Robb and Leon off at the hotel so Leon could finish his nap and the girls and I went shopping!!!  We found out later that if Leon sleeps over 5 minutes in a car, a comfy bed nap iss out of the question.  He had taken over Robb's laptop.  He's discovered a favorite Youtuber now and laughs uproarously at them.  Check out dinasour toys...  

When we returned, Robb was more than ready to leave the room.  We headed south to have dinner with my nephew Sam, 



his wife and daughter.  





Another nephew, from a different sibling is their manny this summer.  



It pays to have a plethora of cousins to choose from for the nanny position!  EVERYONE wants to spend either a semester or summer in Colorado.  I'm wondering who will be next.



Sam and Bunny gave us a tour of their new home and we had a fun time at dinner remininscing about when Sam was a cranky two year old.  Another time for that story.  I taught Ewen how to click talk.  She was enthralled...  Finally a language she could master!



It pays to watch the Gods Must Be Crazy twenty times as a teenager...