Colorado

We took our first family-of-five-road-trip-over-three-hours at the end of July to Colorado for Grant's birthday.   We'll ignore the coughs and head colds that may have made me slightly miserable and left Reese with what sounded like a 12 pack a day smokers cough.....overall we had a great time!   And that's what matters.  Everyone returned home alive and still friends.  While we only spent 3 quick days out in Denver, we did split up the 13 hour drive each way so all in all, it was a 5 day mini-'vacation', but let's be honest 'vacation' and 3 kids aren't synonymous.
Packed up and ready to go:

Sleeping through much of Kansas...

Grant and I don't mind the long stretches of 70 here.....honestly the wind farms keep us entertained.  

The beauty of small kids is that they find joy in the stuff we all take for granted.....bell carts being one of them.  These ladies still remember a road trip to Texas two years ago that included a stay-over in Tulsa, OK and the hotel had a bell cart.  So when we check into a hotel and Grant rolls out the bell-cart to the hotel - obviously we're not staying at the Ritz here people....do it yourself bell carts = Hampton Inn variety hotels:)  the girls light up with excitement.

Riding into the hotel on the cart is enough fun for them we very well could have turned around and headed home afterwards.  And beds you can jump on and not get in trouble???  Get out!

And indoor swimming pools that in a previous life I would have turned my nose up at.....well these girls were in heaven.  And frankly, with my head cold, the indoor steam was exactly what I needed.

Emerson and I enjoyed 'lounging' pool side with the hum of highway 70 as our view...

Roaming the halls...

Eating at an IHOP for dinner....jigga what?

Taking in the beautiful scenery:

Want to know what part of traveling isn't fun?  5 people sharing a hotel room.  We had Emerson in a pack and play, Ryan and Grant in one bed, Reese and I in the other.
Emerson no likey...

Fast forward to 11pm when Emerson was crying and spitting up, my head was wanting to implode and as I'm trying to rock Emerson to sleep quietly without waking the others, all of the sudden Ryan is at my feet, awake and as alert as can be saying "what should we do now mom?"......What else can you do, you stroll through the hotel lobby for an hour and go sit by the pool telling stories.  The three of us provided quite the entertainment for the random family checking in late that night.
Later Kansas, onward to Colorado....

Everyone got a chance to drive....

As a side note, I will say Emerson rocked it in the 'traveling with baby' category (minus the sleeping at night in hotels and blowing out her diaper at almost every change - something about that car seat really 'gets things moving') - but for the car ride she was awesome....her nursing schedule was right on with the rest of us and our needs to stop for food/restroom/gas so she really didn't add any time to our drive.  I'd feed her in the car while Grant filled up with gas, took the other two in to use the bathroom, get some snacks and b/c Emerson is an efficient feeding machine, we'd all be done at the same time.  Two thumbs up Em!
Once we got to Denver the ladies had an amazing time playing with our gracious hosts and friends Mark and Nicole.  They just built a sweet new house that had the perfect layout for our traveling clan....a fully finished basement with bedroom and living room.   Ryan became obsessed with Nicole (rightfully so) and basically stalked her morning, noon and night - so cute that Nicole laid out a whole slew of costumes, party hats and mirror for the girls to play with.  And play they did.....

We went swimming, drove Ryan by the hospital where she was born "I know mom, I've seen it before" (?), had food from our favorite restaurants, went up to Boulder to celebrate Grant's birthday at our favorite brunch spot, stopped by the site of our wedding and took some family photos:

Hard to believe it's been almost 7 years (!!!!) and 3 babies later....nevermind the grafatti.

Comparison shot:

We saw my family and the girls got to meet some of their cousins for the first time.

My little trooper Emerson was OVER it by this point, so tired and just wanted to go to bed.

Ryan was in heaven when her cousin gifted her with about 15 old dance costumes that fit Ryan perfectly.

I'm embarrassed to mention that my cold was so bad and I have terrible allergies to dogs (which Mark and Nicole have two adorable ones), we used some miles to ship my a*s and Emerson's to a hotel for the final night.  I know, I know, pathetic....but seriously I was miserable and going on about day 12 with no more than a 2 hour stretch of sleep at night after dealing with the croup business and my own cold.  The fun part, Em and I had our own little getaway (even if it was only from 8pm - 7am) - it was cute and fun and our first official slumber party.

On the way back to St. Louis we stopped at Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City so the girls could go crazy in the indoor water park.  The place is cheesy as hell but perfect for families - the rooms are fun and have built in bunkbeds (which, hello?  Why don't more hotels do this???),

the indoor water park is big enough to not get bored, but not so big that you feel like you're going to get lost.

Even Emerson got in on the swimming fun...

We got there around 5pm - ate dinner (don't get me started on the lack of healthy eating options in the Midwest), swam a bit, played in the bunk beds and then the girls SLEPT hard core until we woke them the next morning.  They swam again for a few hours

and then we hit the road and were back home by 4pm.   Just in time for Ryan to go through her bag of new dance clothes and come up with this winner to wear to the car wash with dad:

 All in all, a great trip!  The girls were awesome, they loved meeting new friends and family and they have been talking about Colorado ever since.