Road Trip!

It's been a couple of weekends since we've been home from our two week vacation. I think Julie will try to put pictures up later.

First, we drove up to Oklahoma to visit our friends Peter, Shelley, and their daughter, Wendy, who is about our daughter's age and shares the same first name. The visit was short, but it was great to see them again. It rained almost the entire full day we were there. Julie and Shelley took the Wendys out to a Gattiland kind of place, while Peter and I played games at home while Joe napped.

Poor Joe. Their house is mostly hardwood or tiled floors. While learning to walk, Joe slipped and busted his lip on a tile step of their sunk-in living room. It looked like he just grazed it, but he bled a lot. The little guy was crying and bleeding for a few minutes. Then, after enough ice, the bleeding stopped. And, minutes later, he was eating dinner.

Next, we traveled up to Littleton, CO to visit my sister and her family. It was a short visit overnight, but still great to see Cathy and Phil. On the way to Littleton, Julie and I stopped by a small town ER to have Joe checked out. Except for the busted lip and maybe a slightly chipped baby tooth, he was fine. The doctor told us o keep an eye out for infections, and there was not much else to do. Of course, she checked him from head to toe, probably looking to see if she needed to call child services. Sure enough, by the time we left Cathy's, he looked much better than he did the day before.

Next stop... Granny and Grandpa's house in Estes Park, CO. We taught Wendy what elk say ("Do-da-lee-da-loo!"). We went for a walk around Bear Lake. Wendy walked around the entire lake without needing the stroller or needing to be carried.

Julie and I left the kids with G&G and went to Las Vegas for a few days. We gambled horribly, but saw a couple of fun shows. We saw "The Price is Right" at Bally's, which is where we stayed. We also saw the new Beatles/Cirque du Soliel show - Love. That was amazing! If you love the Beatles, like Julie and I love the Beatles, you should really go see Love. If you like Cirque du Soliel for the acrobatics, go see O or Mystere. I am waiting patiently for the soundtrack to be released mid-November. It was also discovered on this mini vacation-in-a-vacation that I am quite allergic to Bally's bath soap. I broke out all over in rashes and hives. Since I had been bathing with the soap for a couple of days before breaking out, at first, I swore it was something I ate, but couldn't pinpoint what it was. Plus, the rash kept coming back and coming back, even after we were back in Estes Park.

We visited a few more days with G&G in Estes Park. Wendy invented a new game called "Bunny and Clown". Wendy always played the clown (stuffed toy), which would attack the bunny (another stuffed toy). The bunny, then, should go flying into the air, or some such silliness. I changed the rules on Wendy and made the Bunny hop all over her and try to eat her up. The funny thing is that Wendy would go up to someone, and politely ask, "Do you want to play with me?" And, we would respond (pretending not to already know the answer), "Sure, Wendy, what do you want to play?" Wendy would always respond with, "Um... Bunny and Clown!" and have this little smirk on her face.

Joe learned to walk much better on this trip. Now, he walks around all over the place. It's only a matter of days before he'll be running all over the place.

We visited Cathy and Phil again on the way home. They spent some time with the kids while we were in Vegas. It was great to know Wendy and Joe got some good quality Auntie C and Uncle Phil time. Which, we also taught Wendy that Cathy says, "Yeehaw!" Phil says, "Mm hm!" and cousin Jonathan says, "Give me some money!"

After that, it was a long car trip home with an overnight stay in Amarillo. It was a good thing we had the portable DVD players for the car. It helped get the kids to and from for over half the trip. Otherwise, the kids would have put us out of our minds for being out of their minds with boredom.

Despite some minor injuries, it was a wonderful trip.