Breckenridge - Part 3

I had to post a couple more pictures from the Roons and Hayslip visit that Rachel emailed to me.  Rachel asked a kind lady to take a picture of all of us at our picnic lunch and it turned out really good considering we had 2 toddlers to capture.  The other two are just Brody and Austin being silly boys. 

Picnic with the whole group

Where does Austin get that mischievous grin? 

Bath buddies

On Friday evening, our friends Ryan and Kelly arrived.  Ryan is a friend from high school and UT and he married Kelly last October in Boulder.  They dated the whole time we lived in Denver so we enjoyed hanging out with them as a couple.  They rode their motorcycle up to Breck from Denver and traffic was so bad on Friday (Denverites escaping to the mountains for the weekend) that it took them 3 1/2 hours when it normally takes 1 1/2 hours.  We ordered pizza, enjoyed some wine, good conversation and a little hot tub after Austin went to sleep.  Austin thought the mo-ser-cy-sol was pretty cool.  On Saturday morning we spent some time packing and emptying out the fridge since we had to b out of the house by 10am. After that, we rode the gondola again with Ryan and Kelly.  Ryan and David splurged ( $18 a person for 1 ride) on an alpine slide ride while Kelly, Austin and I hung out.  We headed back to Main street one last time to grab a quick lunch and then said goodbye to Ryan and Kelly.  

Meanwhile, David had received a text from Southwest Airlines saying that our flight was delayed until 6:10 (supposed to leave at 4:30).  We got on the road to Denver around 12:30 so that we wouldn't get caught in any late afternoon traffic.  By the time we had arrived in Denver, David had received multiple texts that said the flight would leave at 5:30, then 6:30, then 8pm, then 8:30.  At that point, traveling with an almost 2 year old was not looking like fun (as if it is in the first place :)

Now that we weren't in a huge rush to get to the airport, we took the long way into town to extend Austin's nap for a little bit.  We drove by our old house and street (3x I think) while deciding what to do - try to change the flight til tomorrow and spend the night with friends or just gut it up with Austin and get home that night really late).  We headed to the park near our house to let Austin play while we called SWA.  By this time, it had moved back to 10pm due to 1) fog in San Francisco 2) power outage at DIA earlier that day causing delays for many flights 3) later found out a mechanical issue on our plane in San Diego 4) and then the kicker - tornadoes/storms in Denver.... I am getting ahead of myself.    We found out there were not any seats on flights on Sunday until 7:30pm Sunday night and that didn't do us any good.  So we decided to get some ice cream at our favorite place in Denver and give David's cousin's family a call to see if they were around.  They were so after ice cream we headed to their house for a visit.  The flight had now moved up to 8:30 departure so we decided to stay on it and head to the airport at 6pm.  It was great to see Christy (David's first cousin), Corrie, and their daughters Hayden and Maddie.  They took Austin down to the toys in their basement for 20 minutes while the adults caught up.  He was totally comfortable with the girls after 5 minutes of playing Jenga (stacking blocks).  We definitely would have hired them as babysitters if we were still in Denver!  Here are a few pictures from our spontaneous afternoon in Denver.

Digging into his very own Bonnie Brae vanilla

Now that is one determined ice cream-eater

Yummy ice cream mustache

Playing "money" with Hayden and Maddie 

Jumping steps!

Saying Bye-bye to his new friends

We turned in our rent car, drug all of our large luggage, giant car seat, and toddler in a stroller through the airport, checked our bags, got to the terminal, ate some really bad quesadilla (since Austin wanted that), and then found out that our flight had moved back to a 10pm departure.  Great...... we were there and Austin was going to have to either fall asleep in the stroller or stay awake until we got on the plane.  Nice.  He was still going strong though.  Then it moved to 10:30.  At this point things weren't looking good since the sky was black, it was raining and there were tornado warnings in the area.  As we were walking to the gate, David got a text saying it was CANCELLED.  We had to return to the main terminal to talk to the SWA person to get on a flight the next day.  David called immediately as we were heading to the train.  Amazingly there were 2 seats (Austin flew in our lap, free) left on the 9am flight that stopped in Tulsa.  We booked them.  Then we had to figure out a place to stay.  We had to get all our bags (ALL of them) from baggage claim, drag them outside to flag down a vehicle to take us to a "strip" of hotels nearby.  We could have called David's cousin to stay with her but by this point it was 9:30 at night and the airport is 40 minutes from their house plus we had already returned our car.  David found a "driver" in a Tahoe to take us to a hotel....but Austin had to ride in David's lap without a carseat in the pouring rain.  I was in tears by this point.  All (or so we thought) of our stuff barely fit in the Tahoe (there was another poor man with us).  We made it safely to the hotel and were checking in while the driver unloaded our bags, and the green bag was not there.   Oh no!  We had left it at the airport.  David took me, Austin and all our stuff up to the room.  Austin was crying, I was crying, and he left to go find the bag.  I set up the pac n play and Austin just cried (he was scared).  For the first time ever, I laid down in the big bed with him and he fell asleep quickly.  David thankfully found the bag on the curb where we left it.  He made it back, we moved Austin to his pac n play and we fell asleep in our lovely staybridge suites.  (note: 4 days later I realized I had a voicemail on my phone - it was a man at the Denver aiport with a FL area code calling to tell me he was standing next to my suitcase on the curb at island 3...haha, nice man).  The next morning, we rode the hotel shuttle (Austin w/o carseat again, scary) to catch our flight.  It was about 1.5 hours late for some reason but we made it home safely (Austin even slept in David's lap during the Tulsa to Houston leg).  I think this was God's way of telling us we needed to stay longer in Colorado. Speaking of, we taught Austin to say "Bor Ca-yo-ra-do, Li Hus-on" (Born in Colorad, Live in Houston).  It was a wonderful vacation despite the trip home (good story now) in a place that is so special to us and we can't wait to go back!