Gotcha Party

After our wonderful day downtown, we then had a "Gotcha Party" for a friend from Camille's pre-school. She was adopted two years ago, so it was a family party to celebrate the birth of their family.

Because Selah was adopted from China, it was a Chines theme with Chinese dumplings and noodles for dinner (Yum!), but with some American fun thrown in- face painting and a balloon artist.

All three of the girls cried when we made them take a bath and take their face painting off.

Camille and her friend Acelynn as matching kitties:

Doors Open Denver

We woke up to a foot of snow and the snow coming down quite hard (now that it is officially spring, winter has decided to arrive). We contemplated cancelling our plans, which is what we normally do when it snows, but the roads didn't look too bad so we made a decision: If the roads were icy, we would turn around and come home. If they were OK, we'd keep on going. Thankfully, the roads were perfectly fine.

We had to leave really early, but the girls were super excited, so we bundled up in our snow gear and headed out the door, headed for Downtown Denver.

Architects throughout the city organized Doors Open Denver- a two day event where several buildings downtown open their doors to allow the public to tour them. To start, the festivities began with "Box City"- where kids got to come and design a building to go into their city. They had to choose what type of building they want to build, get a building permit, design their building, and then get their supplies and build.

Audra and Camille chose to build a Marriott Hotel, Claire built a toy factory.

The city being built:

 Camille took the window building very seriously:

 After they received their "Certificates of Occupation" we decided to go tour a couple of buildings. It was really cold and the wet snow was blowing sideways, so we knew we didn't want to spend the whole day downtown, but there were some buildings open really close to Box City so we ventured out.

Our next stop: The Firehouse Museum.

This was a pretty cool museum, though surprisingly the girls weren't that into it. Ben was- he learned a lot while I tried to keep the girls entertained.

Then we went to Potbelly's for lunch.

Then our last stop was Trinity Methodist Church- a beautiful church built in 1889 (sorry, no pictures), and then headed home- absolutely exhausted! I took a nap as soon as we got home. It is always fun to go downtown, but it is always exhausting. Nevertheless, we had a great time and plan to do it again next year, when there will hopefully be better weather so we can tour more buildings.

Keota Yearbook

While at the Colorado History Museum, the girls got to create a profile of what they would look like if they lived in the 1920's. They had fun with it, but I do think they look much better in 2017. What do you think?

Audra

Claire

Camille

Colorado History Museum!

Today was a great day- we took a field trip to the Colorado History Museum. We had never been before, but it was absolutely wonderful! We really had a great time, and can't wait to go back.

They have a ton of hands on activities for kids- my girls loved the house and store from the 1800's they got to play in.

There's a great simulator where you drive a Model T Ford. It starts to rain, and actual water comes down on you. It jolts you up and down as if you are on an awful dirt road.

Camille loved this dog toy:

The general store:

They loved this outhouse that made tooting noises when you sat down on it:

Barrel Man Fun!

It really was a fabulous day, and a great break as we are headed into the homestretch of the school year. I felt really blessed to be able to spend this day with them!

Take Your Kids To Work Day

There are a lot of things that Ben does not like:

-Crowds
-People
-Running into work people at social gatherings
-Social gatherings
-Taking a vacation day to hang out at work

But, thankfully, there is one thing that he likes more than all of these things combined:

-Making his daughters happy

And so, he reluctantly agreed to take his overly excited older daughters to work- though he did confide that he was bummed that they were so incredibly excited because he knew he had to take them- they have been looking forward to this for months.

Lockheed really knocks it out of the park with Take Your Kids to Work Day. They have dozens of activities- building graham cracker satellites, marshmallow rockets, lots of experiments and demonstrations.

They even had a real astronaut, and Claire got to ask him a question. They were in a packed auditorium, but she got chosen. She had her question all prepared last night, so she was very excited she got to ask it today:

"Were you scared to go into space?" He was not.

 And, since I rarely get to be alone with just Camille, I decided we would head to the pool. She was so excited that I actually brought my swimsuit and got in with her. I am not a fan of getting in the water with the girls, but today was a special day. Afterwards she said, "We had a lot of fun today, mom!" Indeed!