Trip to Denver

We decided several weeks ago to take a trip to Denver, to visit with family and friends, as it has been about 1 1/2 years since we have been back. We offered to take some grandkids, but it turned into a big argument as to who would come with us. Hannah and Monah had gone with us in June when we went to Arizona, and wanted to also come to Denver with us. But Matthew, the fairness police, pointed out that it wouldn't be fair. Anyway, it was back and forth between Dru and Cassie, then Dru wasn't going so Cassie didn't want to come, so we invited Rissie and she did want to come. I asked Dru if she wanted to come with Rissie, but then Shauna offered to loan us her van so we ended up bringing Dru, Cassie, Rissie and Hannah. About every 5 minutes I would go into dad's office and give him the latest update on who was coming.

Before we could leave town, we had to stop by Grandpa's doctor's office so they could remove his stitches from his surgery last Friday. He was very brave and didn't even cry. I went in the room with him, in case he needed me to hold his hand. They said that both sites were healing nicely. We scheduled his next surgery for the 12th of August. They will remove the basil cell spot on his lip and possibly one other site, then they will try to treat the rest of the sites with a chemo cream that will be rubbed into the various spots on his face. They are hoping that they will clear up with that treatment. If it doesn't have the desired effect, they may have to do more surgery.

Needless to say, we had many adventures on our trip through Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. We got lost a couple of times but finally found our way back on the right roads. We spent our first night in a Holiday Inn & Suites in Lubbock, Texas. After we got settled in our room we went out to a Mexican restaurant and had a great dinner. Cassie asked if she could just have cheesecake for her dinner. At first I was willing to let her, but then Dru and Hannah wanted to do the same, so I decided that we would all need to eat something else first and then we would order 2 slices for dessert and share with everyone.

We returned to the hotel and the girls put on their swimsuits and played in the pool and hot tub for about 1 1/2 hours. I enjoyed watching all their antics. They were doing summersaults, standing on their hands with their feet out of the water, hanging by their knees on the side of the pool and then falling into the water, doing laps, sitting in the hot tub and then rolling into the pool for the shock effect. After they came back to the room and showered, it took them until after midnight before they went to sleep, as they all wanted to be awake to wish Rissie happy birthday (15th).

Jay and his family were on a quick weekend vacation at the Sand Dunes in southern Colorado and they were returning to Denver about the same time as we reached the southern end of the state, so we ended up meeting up with them at a Pizza Hut by Walsenburg. It was fun to see them again. We switched out a couple of kids (Hannah went with Jay and Sarah came with us) and headed the rest of the way to Jay's house. The girls giggled and played crazy games that drove us crazy, but they had lots of fun. We all arrived at our planned destination safely.