ESP & Co. Part Dos

DAY FOUR

Day Four was Sunday...Father's Day and Cord's 12th birthday (and Memzy's bday too, btw)!  You'd think that with all the events that day I would have taken more pics but no, that one above is all I gots.  Homer & Beebs eating the bday/father's day cake.   That morning was my first "Wha?" wake up moment as I woke up to find out that Homer had spent the night throwing up.  Jenny and Anthony had been up all night scrubbing floors, doing laundry and teaching Homer to barf in the toilet while I had slept like a rock not hearing a thing.   Thank goodness I had shown Jenny where I keep my disposal gloves.     Gty had gotten up early that morning to go to his meetings but then came home and flopped down on the bed in his church clothes with a fever & proceeded to sleep 4 hours while the rest of us went to church (minus Anth & Homer).  I'm going to have to recreate my annual Father's Day pic one of these days and fake like it was taken that day.

DAY FIVE

Gty had to fly out at, like, 6:30am on Monday morning.  Thank goodness Anth offered to drive him to the airport!  I slept in and then, again, woke up to WHA???  I came downstairs at about 9:30am to find Jenny & Anthony fully dressed sitting on the couch.

Me: Wow, you gize are up & ready to go early today.
Jenny: Well, we had to go to Urgent Care.
Me: ::confused look on face::  Huh?
Jenny: My neck was hurting so bad last night I couldn't sleep.  After Anth got home from taking Gty we looked up an Urgent Care place and went as soon as it opened.
Me: Are you srs????

I'm not used to being woken up by shocking news, you gize, and this was starting to become a habit.

So Jenny got some sweet meds and started feeling a bit better (meaning she could turn her head almost 2 inches to either side) and we planned our day.  Little did we know it would turn out to be one of our busiest ones yet.

We headed off to Heritage Square in Golden, CO which is basically a glorified Fun Spot (for you Boiseans).  You may remember we spent a day here when I had my family reunion here last summer.  There are go-carts, rides, and most importantly, the ALPINE SLIDE!

Waiting to go up on the chairlift ^^ on the chairlift below:

 

At the summit! Please note the Denver skyline in the background. 

Here are all the boys lined up to go down:

But these two stinkers had to wait for their moooooommmiieeeessss  ::said all Nelly Olsen-y::

Luckily no one got lost on the way down.  These are the only gize I beat down the hill. 

Beebs saw these heart chairs from afar (they're in front of a little ice cream shop) and insisted on taking her pic like this sitting in one. 

Have you seen on YouTube how someone will do a video and then there are "reaction videos" or spoofs of said video?  Here is the boys' reaction/spoof shot:

Adorable.

 We then returned home and explored the tourist traps a little closer to home... like the creek behind our house.  The older boys caught a frog & claimed to have seen crawdads (?). 

 And we sampled the tasty vittles of a little local pizzeria here called Papa John's while sitting around the front yard and enjoying the cool evenings of Colorado.  A game of HORSE might also have been played on the driveway which, shockingly of course, came down to Jenny and JBird.  JBird won.

 When it got dark we came in and Anthony played a game of Dominion with the older kids while Jenny entertained the young'uns in a rousing game of Duck, Duck, Goose.

 ::sigh::

"Good times" doesn't even begin to describe the fun we had.  Despite some medical issues I think the Espys had a decent time as well.   I am sooooo hoping this is not the last time they grace us with their presence.   The kids love each other, Anthony & Gty only had a few spats (Anth is so uptight!) and if you've read GITYD at all, you already know the magic Jenny & I create when we get together.  It's a can't miss family vaycay!

So, what was YOUR favorite part of our get-together?

ESP & Co.

We had some house guests, you gize.

And not just ANY house guests.... these house guests!

Soooooo fun.  They have been kind enough to host us on two occasions thus far so we were happy to be able to provide them room & board for a few days.  They were fresh off a family vacation to Pennsylvania and were nice enough to stop by the great state of Colorado on their way home.

I'll break up the activities & pictures into a couple of posts to save your scrolly wrists undue injury and also to keep your jealous rages to a minimum.

Day ONE (Thursday)

As you may have gathered from my last post, day one did not exactly go according to plan.  Since Anthony is a huge nume  nmenst  coin collector,  we were excited to be able to take him down to the Denver Mint for a tour.  Unfortunately their rental car company's slowness screwed that up and we missed our 11am tour.  No more tours available for like, ever.  Luckily Gty had the smarts way back when to book us a back up tour time at 8am on Friday.  Keep reading to see if we made that one or not, mmkay?

Since JespyFam had been up since 4am and had had nothing substantial to eat, we all decided to go get some yummy mexican food and chillax back at the house for a while.  The kids instantly hit it off & the Esperson/Anderlin Family Vacay was officially underway & shaping up nicely.

Unfortunately there were a few things we had going on that we had no control over/couldn't get out of.  One of those things was Beebs' dance recital which was Thursday night.  Due to the tickets being $12 a piece, and me thinking it would be torture for the Esplin boys, Anthony was forced to take his boys and entertain them at the local ice cream parlor while I subjected Jenny to this:

And this:

And made her look at this:

Take a picture of this:

And pose for this:

That photo is a foreshadowing of Beebs' intense love for Jenny which would blossom throughout the next few days.  She became obsessed, basically.  She'd sit on Jenny's lap, play with Jenny's hair, make Jenny have "Girl Parties No Boys Allowed" up in her room, etc.  She loves Jenny loooong time.   But who doesn't, right?

DAY TWO (Friday)

 Operation Get Tony to The Denver Mint was a success!!  Barely.  We were still running to the gate in hopes that they hadn't locked us out again.  They hadn't.  Loved the mint tour, btw.  It's one of those things we hadn't even thought about doing but now we can recommend it to all our out of town guests.   It costs more than a penny to make a penny.  Did I just blow your mind?  Thought so.

So then we hung around downtown for a bit until the Molly Brown House Museum opened up at 10am.

Did you know her name was Margaret and she never even went by Molly?  They aren't sure why people refer to her as the Unsinkable MOLLY Brown but now they have to call the museum that because no one would know who they were talking about if they called it the Margaret Brown House.  Also, NOT good for kids.  At least not kids like TBone.  No touching, no leaning, no talking, no breathing...he was in tears by the end and I about strangled him.  BUT interesting.  And good photo ops around the outside (no pictures inside, of course).

These next two I'm gonna keep handy for their future wedding video.

We then went back to the house and let the kids mess around for a while as we chatted & what not.  Jenny and I were also able to meet up with Standsmom that day for some yummy lunch at Costa Vida.  So, like, just under half of the SF7 peeps were there and stuff. 

Another thing we didn't have any control over was the fact that JBird's baseball play offs started this weekend.   So yeah...we forced the Espys go watch a game that night.  To their credit they acted excited about it.  Luckily the baseball park had an actual playground (not all of them do) so the little kids could run around and get some energy out and we could just sit & watch the game in peace. 

DAY THREE (Saturday)

Since we had all been up early for the past couple of days we took it easy on Saturday and just got up whenever we felt like it.  Tony & Gty went and ran some errands together (adorable!) and then Jenny & I ran some errands (even more adorable!) and Jenny trained TBone in the finer points of WeRule and ZombieFarming.  He now considers her a genius and they, I guess, trade goods between their kingdoms or something?  I'm not sure but if you ever see anything posted from my Facebook regarding this it's alllll TBone.  Just wanted to make that clear. 

We then had more of this that afternoon:

This time JBird was starting pitcher and he did a fabulous job, got an awesome out at home plate while covering for the pitcher, got a sweet hit to the outfield and pitched like a pro.  They still lost but JBird got to end his season on one of his best hits ever so it was perfect.

As far as the Espys go.... well, they figured out how to entertain themselves at the game.

 I'm pretty sure Jenny is tapping fish tanks or building a castle there.  Btw, we took a wrong turn while walking down to this park (I'd never been there before) and ended up having to wade across a small stream and hack our way through thick undergrowth.  We provide exciting adventures when you come & visit.  ::putting that in our brochure::

These two are good buds now. 

No further pictures were taken this day, but after JBird's game Gty, Anthony, JBird and Cord went down to a Rockies game while Jenny & I took the rest of the kids to Toy Story 3.    I thought it was cute but as the credits were rolling I heard Homer shout "That was BOWING!" You need to see it and decide for yourself I guess.

Coming up next, Days FOUR and FIVE, yo!

If you think...

...that getting into the airport at 9am gives you plenty of time to
get to an 11am Denver Mint tour, you'd be wrong. Here we are outside
the locked gates. We will try again in the morning.

Potential Amputation

Did that title get your attention?  Thought so.

 So we had some extra kids a few weeks ago, as you probably already know.  Three extras, to be exact.  On my TO DO list was written "survive" and I think I did pretty well on that.   It's all about time management and organization, really.  Oh, and my no nonsense parenting skillz, of course.   This place ran like a well-oiled machine.  The "oil" being pizza, chicken nuggets and pancakes.

We also tried to get the kids to be outside as much as possible.   On Monday night all the boys wanted to go down to the creek near our house.  It was mid-60s and sunny.  A perfect day at the creek. Well, they played there for a while and all was well.  The little girls and I walked the dog down to see what the boys were up to and then left to come home.  I told the boys to come home in about 20 minutes for dinner.

 Well, 40 minutes went by and then Colin came home saying he was FREEZING and he wished he "had never gone to the creek!!"  I thought he was a bit dramatic (after all the other boys were still down there) but I gave him a towel to warm up with and told him to come in when he was drier and less muddy.

Another 15 minutes or so go by and then in comes TBone....bawling.  His hands look like they are holding two tennis balls but there is nothing there.  His arms are bright red up to his upper arm and his legs are bright red up to his thighs.  He's screaming that his "HANDS ARE FROZEN!!"  and "I HAVE FROST BITE!"  and "I THINK WE MIGHT HAVE TO CUT OFF MY HANDS!" and "MY LIFE WAS JUST SWEEPING AWAY FROM ME!" tears streaming down his face.

 He was legitimately scared his video gaming career was over, you gize.

 I carried him into the laundry room (cuz obviously his frozen, frost bitten feet weren't working properly) and started the warm water running in the laundry room sink.   I put in the plug and left him there to help the other boys get towels and what not.

I come back into the laundry room and see this.

He's like one of those Peking acrobats that can fit in those teensy boxes and stuff.

He stayed in there for a good half an hour.

Apparently Will had lost one of his flip flops in the muddy creek (stepped down, stepped out, shoe gone) and they had spent a great deal of time looking for it, digging through the mud, etc.

I am so glad TBone had the sense to leave the flip flop before we had to cut off both of his arms.  It was close though.

PS Are you happy now Kimi?  After all the nagging I'm guessing this is a major let down.  It's your own fault.

Party In the USA (cuz that's where my house is)

Not last week, but the week before that I was busy....like, super busy.   

I was busy looking at this:

And this:

And hanging out with this guy:

    

And listening to this girl sing the latest pop songs complete with dance moves (i.e. Single Ladies):

This all can only mean one thing, of course.  One of my favorite people in the whole world was here.  NutShell came for a visit!!!  Her hubby (Reido, who Beebs later refered to as "Dorito") came for a skiing trip with his Dad so NutShell & kids got to hang out with us all week & we partied like you've never seen partying before. 

I mean, look at these girls partying on the horses at the grocery store.

And these gize partying it up at Chuck's house. 

We actually packed all the kids up to head to a place a hundred times better than CEC's (Amazing Jake's).  The kids were starving & saying it was taking FOREVER to get there, blahblahblah (that's quoting Ke$ha, btw).... and then yay! we were finally there! 

Oh crap.

Closed.

Like, closed closed.  Signs in the window saying it was for lease.  Signs taken down.  A dreadful sight. 

So then we knew we were in for a miserable night at CEC considering it was Friday night at 6 o'clock.   Long story short, apparently everyone thinks CEC will be crazy on a Friday night so nobody goes.  We had no line, plenty of places to sit & the kids ran free dumping in tokens and taking out tickets. 

It didn't matter where we were because all I was gonna do was this anyway:

That's my coy look, in case you were wondering.  She wuvs me.

How'd we fill the rest of the week?

This....

A whole lot more of this....

(on an unrelated note, do any of you know any good cheap home remedies for crows feet?  No reason.  No. Reason.  At. All.  ::fighting back tears::)

Summa dis & dat as well...

I can't believe I got 0 pics of NutShell!!!  Ridiculous.   I'll have to take a ton on the next Annual Reido Ski Trip trip.   As far as NutShell & I went, we spent our time chatting, refilling our diet beverages, trying to remember every SYTYCD performance, looking at blogs,  chatting, eating, staying up late, watching AI, chatting, keeping the kids alive, blasting Party In the USA, barely surviving Stake Conference, and, of course, planning the next time we'll see each other (just a couple of weeks away). 

I love this annual tradition & hope it never ends.  Thanks for coming NutShell & fam... you never disappoint.