Canton to Denver CO

In November I took a trip up to Denver to visit Rick, Kelly and Violet for a week. This was my first visit to their new house in the Denver area. it was a really busy week with so many things going on. We did a bunch of family things, built some legos, did some sight seeing, etc. Denver is a interesting place, I had a good time getting to know more about the area. See what all we got into for the week!

All good things must come to an end so I headed home today. Rick drove me to the Denver airport and I got on a Southwest flight for home. It was a really fun week getting to spend time with the kids and seeing Denver in more detail. Still more things I'd like to see on the next visit :-). I guess after I left Rick and Kelly spent time working on their medieval lego village that they've been working on in the dining area - looks like its coming along :-) Thanks for a good visit - had a great time!

So we met for dinner at a Pho restaurant near the Gaylord Resort in Denver. They had a interesting fish tank in the lobby with some interesting discus fish. We had a good dinner and then headed to the Gaylord Rockies Resort to see ICE - The Polar Express. As anticipated, the Gaylord was a neat venue, all decorated for the holidays. We toured the ICE area where they have activities and holiday shops to cater to the visitors and guests which was nice. Its a different layout than the Gaylord in Dallas. We were able to get into ICE a little early and it was great. The Polar Express exhibit was well done (as usual). The artistry of these ice sculptures is amazing. Violet went down the ice slides and seemed to like all the displays. I especially admire the nativity sculpture they do at the end of the exhibit - its very cool and well done. After Ice we wandered through the resort to take some pictures and see what else they had on display - again this is a neat resort that I would stay at if given the chance. It was a good way to end my trip and spend time with the kids.

For lunch today I traveled over to Aurora and met up with Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie for lunch in Aurora. They seem to be doing well and are in the process of moving to a 1 story house in the area to help with mobility. it makes sense. It was fun catching up and getting to spend time with them - they both are looking good. Hope the move to the new house goes smoothly.

This morning we went out for breakfast to a place called The Atomic Cowboy, known for the Denver Biscuit Co and Pizza. We got a huge sweet roll as an appetizer, and ordered breakfast. No skimping on portions here, there was a lot of food for sure and it was good. No wonder there's a consistent line to get into this place, its really good. After breakfast, we headed across town to Bowlero and threw a few balls down the lanes for a couple hours. Rick and Kelly and Violet are really into bowling, I believe they come here every week on a regular basis. Bowlero is a nice bowling alley and it was fun throwing some down the lanes!

This evening we went to a Mavericks vs. the Nuggets game in Denver. Good luck that they were in town when I was visiting so we went. Rick got some some good tickets and it was a lot of fun. Ball arena is not bad, easy to get to and park and get out. The game was a good one, it was part of the Emirates Cup Series, the in-season tournament the NBA has started. One take away I thought was funny, is the Nuggets have their version of comic relief that they call "The Average Joes" who get out there and do some comical stuff during time outs. its the same as the Mavs Fanatics. it was fun. I think everyone had a good time and of course, on the way out we had to hit the gift store - can't miss that!

Violet had a Belt Advancement Ceremony this evening at Taekwondo. She advanced to a Yellow Belt with the Green Stripe. I don't know exactly what that means but its a good thing. She seems to really enjoy this class with the other kids and Master J. He does really well with the students, and he has some older student helpers which do a good job of wrangling the little ones and keeping on target. They seem to stress discipline, and self control which is great. These are things that will come in handy for Violet down the road and help build her self confidence. Congratulations Violet!

Rick and I drove over to Golden Co after breakfast to take a tour of the Coors Brewery. Coors has been in Colorado for a long time, so I had to go see what it was all about. I thought the tour was really good, the guide was informative, and had some really good facts and stories about Coors and its history. I thought the way they conducted the tour and sampling of beers was well done - things were spread out and we weren't rushed along the way. Only disappointment was the bottling portion and such was not really up and running on the floor, but that's ok. There was a lot of history on display here so I highly recommend taking the time to go see this. It was fun! Wish we had more time to tour around Golden, looked like a neat little town - something for the next visit!

We headed downtown this morning to have breakfast at a diner called Sam's No. 3 in downtown Denver. Its very close to where Rick works. Its a pretty neat place with quite the ambiance inside. Interesting artwork on the walls from local artists I believe. The food was really good. After breakfast we wandered around downtown a little to see the Gas and Electric Building, and some other sites of interest. I wanted to find a Colorado Souvenir shop and we located one not far from the restaurant. A Place called "Where the Buffalo Roam" - just up my alley! Unfortunately, they weren't' open :-( We ventured a little farther down the street and found another souvenir shop called "Simply Colorado" that was open. They had some neat Colorado themed things which i took full advantage of (of course). There's a lot of renovation going on in downtown along 16th street with the end result of a more walking based area. Looking forward to seeing what it looks like in a year or so when they have it all completed.

In the evening Violet and I got into a Christmas themed Lego set of Santa's Sleigh and reindeer. Violet took the lead and I was just there to help support the effort :-) She does pretty good following the directions and I only had to re-direct her a few times when the pieces weren't in the proper order. Mia called during the build and Violet and her gabbed for quite a while which was great. The two of them do well together. We continued on with the build which took a little over 2 hours and we finally had things complete. This will make a nice decoration at Christmas time!

In the afternoon I walked over the Molly Brown House to take a tour. This is the famous Molly Brown from the Titanic and one of the heirs of the silver mining boom in the 1800's. I learned a lot of history about her and the area, and her legacy. She and her husband purchased this house after they became wealthy and she was quite active in the downtown Denver area helping to build one of the churches and such. The house is pretty neat, with some cool stained glass windows (right up my alley) and some neat artifacts of the time period. I was the only one on the tour so that made asking questions real easy. The young lady guide was very informative and pointed out a lot of interesting facts about Margaret Brown and her legacy. it was well worth the walk over here. I recommend it if you are in the area.

After the Denver Art Museum, I wandered over to the Colorado State Capitol and went inside for a look this time. There were scheduled tours in the afternoon but the timing didn't meet with my agenda so I just wandered the hallways and took in the views. They have some really neat murals on the walls of the center atrium which depict the history of Colorado, these were really neat. Some of the ornamentation around the staircase to the upper floors was really cool and very old. Like most state capitols, there's a lot of ornate details to the interior which is neat to see. I then went outside and walked around the capitol to see some of the statues they had in the courtyard - a Indian with a buffalo. Overall, I think this is a good looking state capitol building - well done Colorado!

I headed downtown this morning to go to the Denver Art Museum and check out the Wild Things exhibit. Maurice Sendak who wrote the book, "Where the Wild Things Are" was featured in this exhibit documenting his life's work in books and artwork. They had a plethora of his works on display from his early works to some of his last works. They also had all the original art panels on display for "Where the Wild Things Are" - which was very cool. I really had no idea what Mr. Sendak had done other than the Wild Things book so it was very enlightening to see all the other work and contributions he made to literature. I thoroughly enjoyed this!

Today I headed over to Violet's school for a Thanksgiving lunch with Parents and Grandparents. Violet's school is very nice, I really liked all the decorations for the book fair going on and the artwork on the walls. I met up with her at the designated time and we ate in the cafeteria with her best friend and her mother which was nice. I will say, they don't provide much time to eat for these kids - maybe 25 mins or so? The lunch provided was good (turkey of course) and it was nice to be able to attend this with Violet.

In the evening, we took a trip over to Home Depot so Rick could get new blow up Christmas decorations for his yard. Violet picked out one, there were so many to choose from it was a tough choice. Afterwards we headed over to the Parkview Mall and went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Thats always good :-)

After dinner we went inside the mall to find Santa. They had a really neat Santa setup which I really liked. We got in line and Violet went and sat on his lap and took pictures. We then walked around the mall a little and checked out some of the stores, in particular the Lego store :-) Got some good shots around the mall - the theme of this mall seems to be a mountain resort. They have a really cool food court area with a big fireplace in the middle - very cool. It was a good evening at the mall!

So this morning I headed downtown to take a walking tour of Denver through one of these tour guides setups. The weather was particularly colder today, with a wind chill driving the temps into the teens. Oh boy. I got downtown and found the guide at the meeting spot - I was the only one on the tour so I got a personalized version so to speak. My guide was really nice and very informative. We started out at the State Capital at the mile high marker in the steps of the capital building. Interesting history there of how they measured this and had to change it at some point. 5280 ft is the magic number. We then started walking around the city and hitting some of sights that stand out, didn't go in them but the guide pointed them out such as the city library, the Denver Art Museum, etc. We did go in The Brown Palace Hotel, a famous location in Denver with quite a history. They were just completing decorating for Christmas with poinsettia's everywhere in the lobby. I would like to stay here sometime. We then continued on to the arts district to see the convention center, the performing arts district, Larimer Street, 16th street and then onto Union Station where the tour ended. Over the 2+ hours I learned quite a bit about the history of Denver and current goings on. It was nice to be able to ask questions 1x1 and my guide offered up quite a bit of information. I ended up having lunch at a bar/grill inside Union Station called Terminal Bar. Union Station is a working train station so there were several travelers in the bar and the station.

After Lunch I took the bus over to the Denver Mint to take a tour. You can't take any pictures so I only got shots from the front. Denver mint is where they print coins of all kinds. On the tour they explain the process of minting the coins, the history of the mints, and had quite a bit of memorabilia on display about minting. Fun fact - the US mint is one of the few profitable branches of the government each year and their profit is targeted to be put automatically against the federal deficit. Wish other things in the government were like that. I enjoyed the tour, our guide was informative and the whole experience was very interesting. I enjoyed the souvenir shop as well - they had some neat collector sets and books about the Mint's history. I then headed for home.

That evening, we went to a hibachi restaurant for dinner which was great. This seems to a tradition when I'm with Rick, Kelly, and Violet - we always go to a Hibachi place which I always enjoy. Fujiyama's was really good and we had a good chef that was very interactive. A good way to end a long day, I walked almost 12k steps today!

Today was a stay at home day for the most part, Rick and Kelly were working from home so things were quiet. I spent time watching Ricks fish and the dogs, and at lunch we walked around the neighborhood and toured around the area on foot. There's a lot of walking paths through the neighborhoods which is nice. Given the recent weather here, there's still some lingering snow from a previous cold front that came through a couple weeks ago and dumped some snow. This is a planned community and is pretty well maintained with the HOA and such.

In the evening, I went to see Violet at one of her Taekwondo classes and watch the happenings. She really seems to like this which is great to see (finally in person!) The instructor seems very nice, and I like the way they conduct things.'' After class, we went next door to a place called Twisted Sugar to pick up some goodies for desert. Yum, these should be good!

When we got home Rick had made dinner in the crock pot which was really good. We partook in the twisted sugar goodies as well. Then Violet and I sat down and worked on putting together a gingerbread house and decorating it. There was a lot of candy and frosting involved, and it didn't all make it onto the house! :-) it was fun and I believe the house and garden ended up with an A+ for creativity. I headed to bed and had to grab a shot of Violet's beta, "Sandwich" in her fish tank. He's a big blue beta fish with long fins in a Sponge Bob themed tank. Pretty cool!

In the afternoon, we went into Denver to go to the Denver Aquarium. Rick and Kelly have family passes for this place and it was really neat. The exhibits and displays were well done and informative, clean and well kept. All the marine life looked well maintained and they have a really good variety of fish and such on display. Violet even got to pet some sting rays and jelly fish - very cool! Afterwards, we went to the restaurant at the aquarium for dinner which was really good. Today was a great start to this visit!

So I got on an early morning flight to Denver this morning, Melody and I stayed at a local hotel near the airport given we were at a Mavericks Game last night. I got into Denver around 8am and took a Lyft from the airport to Rick's house. Violet had no idea I was coming. I knocked on the door and she answered - Surprise! Wish I got a picture of her face :-). We settled in and played smores and I got reacquainted with Chunk and Misty, and the new kittens Clover and Daisey. We took a trip over to the fish store where Rick does most of his fish shopping and he reserved some fish that will be coming in. The store had quite a collection of fish both fresh and salt water - I can see why he comes here. In the afternoon, we went to the Aquarium (see other topic) and in the evening when we got home, I let Violet go through the suitcase I brought that had her Christmas care package items in it. I think she liked them :-) Good way to start the visit!