After a dinner at tres chic ‘McDonalds’ we dropped the kids at home with their built-in babysitter (that would be Joel) and went out to really eat.

I found a write up about a French Bistro in the paper so we decided to go try it. It was off Zuni and 30th in the Highlands neighborhood. It was very old world quaint. The chef prepares his fare daily from the market. I had the handmade ravioli with spinach and a French sauce. James had the French onion soup and for desert an excellent crème Brule. We talked about 15 years of marriage and the future. We clinked out water glasses (the wine there was $50-$380 a bottle, so we had water!)

The restaurant was very small, just 6 tables and a bar. We got the last table at 8:45 and took in the ambiance. There was a funky chandelier over the main dining area, the menu was written on chalkboards and all the plates were different. It was tres bon.

Before we left home Joel took pictures of us, see how grown up we are!

Hannah didn’t recognize me when I came downstairs; she eyed me suspiciously for a while and then decided it was I. Grace kept telling me, ‘you are so pretty, your dress is so pretty, your earrings are so pretty.’ Okay, I get it! I’m usually not pretty! But I do like to dress up every so often, and a 15th anniversary seemed like one of those times.

Well, back to normal tomorrow and working on the 16th year.

Wow, 15 years of being married. 11 moves, 4 kids, 6 pets (right now), 1 car

I remember being nervous 15 years ago as I planted on my fake nails and my cousin put mascara on my eyes. Not nervous about being married, nervous about walking down an aisle in front of 150 people. Thinking about tripping or falling (but not about my unity candle springing up on my arm covering me in hot wax and burning me…I didn’t think about that one!) I wasn’t scared about being married, I was happy and confident. My grandparents were going on 50 years and I knew we could break that record.

So after 15 years, we’re still here. I’ve seen people go by the wayside and I don’t know how they do it. The “d” word isn’t said around here, not even in jest.

I’m thinking ahead, in 10 years Hannah will be 12, Joel will be 22. Wow. We’re all going to the Cayman Islands for that anniversary.

James had a great idea; we got a journal and wrote about each anniversary year. I wrote a novel. It is neat to try to remember what happened in what year or where we were. Some things I have forgotten and some things James has forgotten, maybe between the two of us we can remember it all. I’ll have to keep a short journal for the years to come, that way it won’t be so hard to remember.

15 things about my marriage

1. I didn’t want to be a June bride so after pushing back the ceremony twice I settled on May 30th because it’s 1 day before James birthday and 2 days before June!

2. James and I knew we’d have children. How many, well he doesn’t seem to remember saying 10, but he did! Funny that we named all the children on our 2nd date, but none of them are named what we picked out then

3. My husband loves me so much he works so I can stay home. That has entailed work that he didn’t want to do or employers who were insane, but he did it.

4. My husband went to the Mike the headless chicken festival with me, now that’s love!

5. James watches the kids while I go to Mom’s night out, Teacher’s night out and scrap booking. I need that.

6. I said “I do” and I have never thought, “I won’t”.

7. We think alike. Sometimes we finish each other’s sentences or buy something that other wanted. One night James came home with a brown bag from the Chinese restaurant with Mu shu in it, guess what I had on the counter for him? Yep.

8. James tries to give me whatever I want and even things I don’t know I want.

9. Sometimes we like to walk to the park and just sit on the ground and watch the sunset.

10. Someone once told him that if he had given them a wind chime for their anniversary they’d divorce him, he said ‘well, good thing your not my wife.’

11. Only 10 years to go to 25!

12. If I had one thing to do over I would have had children earlier, like right after the honeymoon!

13. Also I think I would have moved to Colorado sooner to enjoy it more.

14. We like to watch old movies, the kids are sick of Casablanca and John Wayne, but one day they will appreciate it.

15. Well, I guess the best thing about 15 years of marriage is we are old pros at it. We know the ins and outs of each other; we know what the other is thinking and what they might do. We have enough love for another 50 years and I think we’ll make it there!

Today was Hannah’s endoscopic appt. at Sky ridge. All went well. The doctor is sending biopsies of different parts of her gut to the lab and we’ll know about them next week. Visually everything looked fine except a few spots on her appendix.

So, less one air mattress we loaded up and drove through Iowa towards Nebraska. Iowa must have a lot of deer I saw 10 dead deer in 150 miles, that’s 1 deer every 15 miles! I’m glad we didn’t drive through at night, they must have been running back and forth across the freeway most of the night. We got into Nebraska and went through Lincoln, see the capitol? Neither did we. Heading on the view started to change to hills and rivers. Hannah had fun playing sock puppets with her socks.

Bethany and Grace were in the back playing hide and seek with their hands. “Where are you? There you are!” I’m not sure how much fun you can have hiding fingers that are attached to arms, but they did it for a long time.

We started following the Platte river (that ends up by our house) and got closer to North Platte, Nebraska. We stopped at the sod house and we were really close to the pony express museum, but we’ll save that for another trip.





Bunny and Mr. Otter got their pictures taken here.

Here is the monument to the prairie sodbusters.



Finally we could see the Rockies in the distance and then the mall and then HOME! All the animals were alive and well and we were tired and went to bed!

Sunday morning we grabbed breakfast at Panera (their cobblestone muffin is great) and headed to the Vineyard church with Jeff and his family. After a great service we swung by the WGBL station before lunch to check it out. James has done some work via the Internet for them, so it was neat to see the place. Very reminiscent of the old KSBJ building. Then to lunch where we ate BBQ and drank sweet tea. (That is rare to find around here, I know of only one place that has sweet tea. It’s a southern thing…wait isn’t Illinois north?) We said our good byes at the restaurant and went back to the hotel to pack. Our plan was to drive to Des Moines and spend the night there and then drive into Co. Monday. I thought it would be much nicer to have some down time and enjoy the hotel and pool this time.



So, we headed through Ill. and saw Peoria, it was pretty big. More fields of soybeans and corn and farms and soybeans. The farmers in Ill. like to put up signs, so as we drove we read ‘gasoline prices soaring high, foreign oil is the reason why, so just use our great corn, it’s American born.’ There was one about guns too; I guess they are for guns in that state.


First in Iowa we passed the Council Bluffs. This is where Lewis and Clark talked to the Indians, the Mormon tail passed by here and it was the heart of railroad traffic.

We were running a little behind when we got to the hotel, so the kids and I jumped in the pool for an hour (indoor one) and then watched a little TV. Either this hotel has the nicest bed or I was really tired, because I had a great night’s sleep. Joel on the other hand ended up in the chair because the air mattress finally got a hole in it. Rats! Oh well, I guess it was time to buy another one anyway.

After a large breakfast at the hotel we packed up and headed to Champaign, Ill. We went back by the arch and courthouse first though. This Sat. was the 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott trail so we saw the exhibit in the courthouse. [On May 26, 1857, Dred and Harriet Scott, after eleven years of trials and an infamous Supreme Court decision, finally had a reason to celebrate, for on that day St. Louisan Taylor Blow paid their freedom bonds at the Historic Old Courthouse. To celebrate this momentous day, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is hosting a special commemorative ceremony, recognizing students who have crafted stories about the African-American experience, changes and challenges of the last 150 years.] We toured around the rooms inside and saw the old letters and clothing from the era. Outside we took a picture in front of the courthouse with the arch in the background. We saw the other designs from the contest in 1945. They sucked. One was particularly bad, a giant wall, another was more like a river walk behind the courthouse. The arch design was definitely the best one there.

Here’s Hannah feeding Mr. Otter.


When we left we were trying to find the freeway, took the MLK Bridge and ended up in Illinois right after the Mississippi river. Apparently there are many ways to get to Ill. and that bridge was one of them. There was no sign for Ill., so at the rest stop we took pictures.


I don’t know why these states don’t have big signs when you enter their state, ‘hello you are HERE.’ It was an easy drive to Champaign and it rained on us hard when we got there. It had rained in every state thus far (and in every state going home too.) Most of the time the rain was when we were driving so it wasn’t like it ‘rained on our parade.’

We set up at our hotel in Champaign and went to meet our friend Jeff at his house. Jeff and Sherri are old friends and Jeff was James’ boss from his KSBJ days. They have 3 kids, Hannah 12, Zach 9 (I think) and Micah 6. So everyone had someone to play with and our Hannah played with the dog. We talked about old days and new days, kids and moving, church and friends. We had a great time and all the kids were saying, “Don’t leave, when are we going to see you again?” when we left. We went back to the hotel and crashed.

We left Highlands ranch later than we were supposed to (thank you cats who needed more food.) But finally ended up on I-70 at 10pm. We prefer to make long drives at night so the kids can sleep in the car. Hannah, Bethany and Grace were out while I was driving. When James took over I was out and Joel stayed awake with him. Joel had planned on yo-yoing in each state next to something from that state; he should have done it in front of the rest stop in Kansas.

We were in Kansas, and then we weren’t. Traveling E/W in Kansas was much different than N/S. I always think of Kansas as fields of wheat and tornadoes. But, the route west actually had some terrain to it. We started getting flint hills before we entered Missouri and that was different.

We were pushing to Kansas City thinking we’d stop there for breakfast and then ‘poof’ we were in Missouri. I thought Kansas City was in Kansas, but ¾ of it is in Missouri, who knew? So here we are in front of the Mo. sign with the chiefs and whoever else that is in the background. They really need to fix that sign! Joel yo-yoed here; I’m going to put them all together on a you tube video later.

We ate at cracker barrel and then got back on the road. Next stop St. Louis. Even though we were very tired after stopping by the hotel we went into downtown St. Louis to see the arch. It was very impressive. Here’s the MLK bridge by the arch.



The arch was very ahead of it’s time in the 1940’s. For an architect to come up with such a large monument and one that used steel and had elevator cars to go up in seems pretty impressive.


Some facts about it: The Arch is the tallest national monument in the United States at 630 feet; it is the city’s best known landmark and a popular tourist attraction. Construction began February 12, 1963 and the last section of the Arch was put into place on October 28, 1965. (It was dedicated on May 25, 1968, 6 days before James’ birthday.) The Arch is a structure known as a catenary curve, the shape a free-hanging chain takes when held at both ends, and considered the most structurally-sound arch shape. The span of the Arch legs at ground level is 630 feet, the same as its height. (Yeah, here’s Bethany after running from one leg of the arch to the other and back again.)


We bought tickets for the ride up and went into the boarding area. Mo. is the home of Mark Twain and the north side ride had a Mississippi river feel to it. (the other side was modern and about the building of the arch.) So there were rope scales, old pictures and grain sacks lying around.

We got into the clothes dryer, I mean elevator pod. It was about the size of a commercial clothes dryer. All 6 of us ducked under the doorframe and sat down in the pod. This ride is not for claustrophobics! The doors closed and we started going up, it kind of went up and over, like a Ferris wheel. Then Bethany started freaking out. She was crying and wondering if the ride put us outside the arch, I guess I forgot to mention that we were inside the arch to her. So we creaked up and over for 630ft.

Here’s the top of the arch and the views outside the windows.



You kind of had to lean over the carpeted wall to see out nicely, again not a place for people who fear heights. Bunny tagged along and saw the river.


Bethany had stopped crying at this point, and then we had to go down. Going down was a little better than going up, but still.

Inside the arch at the bottom there was a neat museum about the west. We saw these robotic Indians, soldiers and Clark talking about their life in the 1800’s.



Hannah had to have an otter puppet that was in the gift shop. I tried to get her interested in the prairie dog, but nothing doing, it was the otter she wanted. So you’ll see him pop up in pics now and then.


Back at the hotel the kids begged to go swimming and lasted about 15 minute in the cold water. So we went back inside and ate pizza instead.

Before our trip to Champaign Illinois I had a field trip to do.


We went to the Cabrini shrine. I though we might not make it because last Saturday it was hit by lightning and Jesus lost his hands and feet. It’s the first time it’s been hit by lightning; the nuns put some tape around the statue and are letting people go up. So I met at the bottom of the steps with 3 other moms and we herded our crew up the 373 steps.

As you go up there are Stations of the Cross and mysteries of the cross to contemplate. All I know is they give you a great chance to rest as you go up! The view from here is great on a clear day, today it was about 40 degrees and a little hazy.


After we all got up to the top everyone took a breath and headed down. You could see where the lightning knocked off the hands and foot of the Jesus statue. The nuns are having an engineer look at it to see what can be done to restore it or if it needs to come down.


At the bottom we went into the little chapel and saw the spring by the gardens.

I took the kids into the big chapel later and we saw this beautiful stained glass. Each glass tells the story of Mother Cabrini. She was born Maria Francesca Cabrini: July 15, 1850, Lombardy, Italy. She founded Missionarie del Sacro Cuore di Gesu (MSC - Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus): November 14, 1880, Codogno, Italy. She arrived in the U.S. March 31, 1889 New York, New York. Became a citizen 1909, Seattle, Washington. She died December 22, 1917, Chicago, Illinois. She traveled all over the US and world, planting schools for the scared heat order (one is in Houston, TX.) It was a great day for a visit there.

Here’s Hannah growing from 3 weeks to Two.









We took Hannah to Abo’s last night for pizza. The kids drew on the blackboard, ate pizza and then we sang “Happy Birthday” to Hannah and had a clown cake and some cupcakes. Joel says his cupcake is the smartest.

Grace says hers are kissing cupcakes.

Hannah couldn’t wait to get her mouth on that cake, it was sugar on top of sugar, and it was good.




So Hannah is now 2 with all that being 2 entails; talking more, trying to potty, throwing fits and repeating the same phrases over and over. It’s her favorite thing to sit in the car and say “Mama, Daddy, bub, sissy, sissy too. Mamma, Daddy, bub, sissy, sissy too…” And don’t start ‘this little piggy’ with her, she never runs out of toes!

My husband loves me so much he went with us to the headless chicken festival. He also loves to drive, but with a broken toe he didn’t get to do that. However he did get to stare out the window and see what there is to see after Vail (which is where we always turn around at when we go to the mountains.) Turns out there is a lot to see on the Western slope.

Mike the headless chicken lived in Fruita (that’s froot-a, not froo-eat-a.) No one remembers Mike, except me it seems. I saw him once on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It’s true; Mike lived for 18 mos. with no head, just an air hole and a hole that the farmer would drop food down with an eyedropper. Why does Mike need his own festival? (Because Fruita needs money), no it’s because Mike shows us all the pervasive spirit of boldly pressing on when in dire circumstances.

A little history - Once his fame had been established, Mike began a wild existence of touring sideshows in the illustrious company of such other creatures as a two-headed calf; he was also the subject of various photo opportunities for dozens of magazines and papers. Rodney (the farmer) was loudly criticized by the then equivalent of animal rights activists, who thought that he should have finished the job he had started.

Mike was on display to the public for an admission cost of 25 cents, and at the height of his popularity was earning a princely $4,500 per month ($50,000 in 2005 dollars). A pickled chicken head was also on display with Mike, but this was not Mike’s original head as a cat had already eaten it. Mike was later examined by the officers of several humane societies and was declared to have been free from any suffering. A children’s playground chant soon emerged: “Mike, Mike, where’s your head? Even without it, you’re not dead!”

I must go back to the beginning of the drive and show these pics. We went from foothills and hogback to green canyon and the Colorado River. From striped sand formations to mesas and boulders and back to plateau and canyon. The landscape was ever changing and gorgeous.

At one of the Glenwood canyon rest stops.

Bunny came along.

The Ute Indians didn’t go through this canyon because it was so hard to get through. But a railroad fellow got a line through and the road soon followed. Now back in the 1900’s the first road cost $30,000, by the 30’s another improved road cost 1.5 million, in the early 90’s a new improved road was built that cost 500 million dollars, talk about inflation! Here’s an old car stuck in the snow.

We went through lots of little town like Rifle and Dotsero, here’s Parachute and their view.

So, we missed the wing-eating contest (I know how rude to eat his wings!) But we rode the train, bungee ride, horses and bouncy thing.

Here’s the rubber chicken football.

The kids ate headless chicken cookies and we had chicken fajitas for lunch.


We did the chicken dance, I bowed out after a few minutes, but Grace got a medal for going for more than 10 minutes.



Here’s the rest of the crew waiting it out.

They had a cage where you could pet a chicken. Again Grace had highly honed skills (from where I don’t know) and was able to pick up the chickens at will and pet them.


We all got sunburned and then thought, hey we’re so close to the border, let’s drive across! So, we did. Here we are leaving colorful COLORado and going into Utah (we’re saying ‘Utah sucks’ in these pics)




Here’s what Grace and Hannah were doing in Utah.


We drove almost to Moab and saw these grand canyon walls, again the Colorado River running through it.








Also this guy and his boat, I think this is what people saw when Noah was building his boat….doesn’t seem right.

We drove back to Fruita and I got the LAST hotel room till…I don’t know. But all the hotels were full from the festival and graduation, and I got the last one, woo-hoo! We ate dinner and I took the girls back to the festival to listen to the concert. A great ending to the day. I swear we had a whole week of vacation scenery bundled into one day.

After a breakfast at the hotel we started the drive home. But first we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Hannah, she’s 2 today! We stopped in Glenwood canyon again, but at the end of the canyon where it’s turning back into green hill and then stopped in Silverthorne for lunch.



Joel yo-yoed in a canyon, in a festival, over the Colorado River, in Utah, near Moab, in the snow and at near the Continental divide on this trip. I think he’ll be like that dancing dude who tapes himself dancing all over the world, Joel will by yo-yoing all over the world.

Bunny too has been all over this trip and showing his age of almost 5 years old.

Again the scenery was varied and beautiful as we drove past. We stopped before the Eisenhower tunnel and tried to find the Mount of the Holy Cross, but I don’t think you can see it right now anyway. So the kids took the opportunity to play in the snow and throw snowballs. Finally the view turned back into hogback and Green Mountain and we were almost home. Now we’re all resting for Hannah’s party tonight.