Catching up -- how we amused ourselves over vacation

Looking over my posts I see that I didn't write much about our winter vacation activities. And since this blog functions partly as a diary and partly to let my relatives know what we've been doing (and partly what else? hmm), I should spend some time catching up.

Seventeen days the kids had off, counting three weekends, and I had those days off too (that is, I took seven days of leave, four holidays, and the weekends). I worried about how we'd spend all that free time, and made various plans to fill it, but in the end it turned out not to be important. We were all so happy not to have to get up early and rush off to school/work every day that we were all in pretty good moods much of the time.

Which has changed, now, of course, because we've been back to school/work for a week, and it's January, and bleah. But the merry Christmas season is always followed by bleah, January. Some day we'll be retired and the twins will be grown and gone -- and I'll miss them!

But back to vacation activities. We did two special holiday light things: Blossoms of Light at the Denver Botanical Gardens and Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo. We went to Blossoms of Light (not expensive at all, because as members we got two free tickets) two days after Christmas. We drove to Denver in the afternoon so I could have coffee with my old friend Betty and her husband Mark, who were visiting other friends in Denver. Rocket Boy and the twins spent that time at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and then we joined up again and went to the Botanical Gardens.

I enjoyed Blossoms very much. Of course, we went last year, and it wasn't very different this year, but that didn't matter to me. The boys, though, were not especially enthralled last year, and definitely not enthralled this year, at least not by the lights. Mostly they complained about the cold.

What enthralled them was the hot chocolate bar, which unfortunately I don't have a photo of. But basically you got your cup of hot chocolate and then you could add whipped cream, chocolate chips, toffee bits, peppermint bits, and a variety of flavored syrups. Kid A added everything, while Kid B was a bit more selective. Then we took their hot chocolate with us into the Seeds cafe where we had sandwiches for dinner (and RB had a cup of coffee, no peppermint bits and flavored syrups for him). It was a nice evening -- cold but lovely -- and Rocket Boy did all the driving, which made it especially nice for me.

Three days later he drove us back to Denver for Zoo Lights, which we had not seen before. Even though we're zoo members, we had to buy all four tickets, and even with our discount it was pricey. But it had its own charm. The night we went, it was sold out, and we had to wait in an enormous line to go in, but the line moved quickly, and once we were inside nothing seemed crowded. In addition to lights in (some of) the trees, there were all these light sculptures of animals, some of them moving. I particularly liked a moving light sculpture of an eagle. The zoo website had warned that we wouldn't be able to see most of the (real live) animals, since it would be dark and many of them would be indoors. In some cases (elephant house, giraffe house), you could go inside and see them. But some of the animals were still outside. We could see a little blotch of white up on Sheep Mountain -- presumably the Dall's Sheep, sleeping out of doors. We walked past a llama pen and you could dimly make out a llama, lying down and looking at us. And all the penguins seemed to be awake.

We rode on the zoo train and the kids rode the merry-go-round. Everything seemed just a little bit more fun in the dark, and it wasn't as cold as Blossoms was. And, helpfully, there was no charming cafe in which to spend a lot of money on sandwiches. I bought each kid a bottle of lemonade (for some reason, they were thirsty), and that plus the tickets and the train and the carousel was all we spent. I'd do it again next year if the kids want to.

What did we do besides attend lighting displays? Well, we played with our new toys and we ate a lot of treats and we watched a lot of movies. We got the boys to read (or write) every day, and in exchange we let them have an hour of computer time. They had a playdate or two, and once or twice Rocket Boy took them on outings. There must be more than that. How did we get through 17 days?

One of my plans for the holiday was to get some form of exercise every day, and not surprisingly, that didn't happen. The weather wasn't bad, but we did have a number of very cold days. But the main problem is that I have gotten to be a real slug, and that is why I wanted to get a dog, and instead we have Chester the wonder kitty. Mr. Fluffypants does not encourage one to exercise the way a dog would.

But Rocket Boy desperately wanted us to go on hikes, because hiking is as important to him in his role as a parent as reading is to me. I don't get as stressed about hiking with the kids, because that's not something I learned to enjoy until I was older. I have faith that the boys will grow into it. But I do understand that getting kids out in nature is important, and we did manage to take two hikes (in 17 days, sigh). The first was on Christmas Day, and oh my did the twins ever not want to go. We settled for a low-key walk down the Bobolink Trail, and of course they ended up having a lovely time. Silly twins.

The second hike was just before we went back to school/work, and it was the Lichen Loop at Heil Ranch, where we'd gone last summer when my old friend Rita and her kids came to visit. We always said we'd go back in the fall, and didn't, but the winter landscape was fine too, especially since there was barely a patch of snow anywhere on the trails. It just had that barren January look, reminded me a bit of Death Valley at that time of year. Dry and cold, with a sense that almost everything's gone to sleep. And it wasn't really cold, either (you'll note that Kid B is wearing shorts). We even had a picnic, though it was just slightly too cold for it (or we were just slightly underdressed, except for Kid B who was exceptionally underdressed).

When we were there in August, we saw wild turkeys, but I suppose they've gone somewhere else for the winter. But we did see several deer, as tame as sheep. Colorado is such a lovely place to live.