Cody's Visit Day 4...

Edible arts. Yummy! :)~

Cody actually proving he's at Buffalo Bill's Grave.

Cody and I posing for a picture together finally. It's hard to get together shots when it's just the 2 of you. I wish Jesse could have come with, but he had to work.

Cody pretending to be Big Foot as we hiked to Red Rocks Amphitheater. I mistakenly parked in the lower lot not remembering how far of a hike it was. Our calves were screaming the next day for sure.

Cody making the trek back down the flights at Red Rocks. I stayed on the stage and waited patiently photographing his every move to document the trip for him mom.

Day 4 consisted of heading back to the Museum for one last day of work. This time he helped me with my normal program Edible Arts. We made paints out of yogurt and food coloring, read the kids a story about painting & mixing colors, and let them finger paint & snack their hearts out. When we finally finished cleaning up the aftermath of edible arts we headed to Belmar for lunch and to visit Gimme Gimme Pillow Toast, a local Japanese themed store. Cody ended up getting gifts for his siblings here. From there we headed to Buffalo Bill's grave and Red Rocks Amphitheater. Once again we ended the day with MST3k. Jesse is trying to give Cody a tutorial of the best episodes. Most of the week has consisted of quoting terribly cheesy lines and laughing so hard at least one of us ends up in tears.

Cody's Visit Day 3...

Cody posing for a picture outside Casa Bonita after our fabulous lunch experience.

Cody wearing a mini-sombrero in the Casa Bonita gift shop.

Lego pirate Cody who was in 7th heaven @ the Lego mania store in Park Meadows.

Me @ the glow-in-the dark mini-golf. As Jesse pointed out not as impressive as it was in the dark, but the pictures don't turn up with out the flash.

Where is Cody? Monkeying around on the mini-golf course.

Day 3 Cody and I decided to let Jesse have the car. We slept in which was wonderful and after lounging around the house all morning we decided to walk to Casa Bonita. Yes the famed Casa Bonita from that one South Park episode. Jesse made Cody watch it before he could go. We live close enough that it was a short walk (just under a mile). I think it lived up to the hype for Cody and he know understands why I say everyone needs to go there at least once in their life and it's an amazing place if your a little kid. After Casa Bonita we hitched a bus to the Park Meadows Mall where we mini-golfed it up. It was glow in the dark mini-golf in fact. We some how messed up our score cards, but I am pretty sure Cody beat me... even though I was the only one to get a hole in one. After the Mall we hitched a bus home to meet up with Jesse. I took the car to my 2nd job which turned out to be a nightmare and Cody went with Jesse to band practice. I believe Cody is Ideal Father's newest and youngest fan now. Jesse gave him a sneak peak release of their EP and a t-shirt which I think made both their days. We once again ended the evening with an episode of MST3k.

Cody's Visit...

Having lunch @ Two fisted Mario's Pizza place. They give you children's toys instead of numbers. We got a learning drum, normally you can play with your toy until your food comes but our battery was dead. :(

Cody making his very own good luck charm during the clover art program.

Cody helping the kids make good luck charms out of clovers. He was a really big help. Thanks for coming to work with me Cody!

Cody folding socks with my co-workers. This is a several times a day event at my work place, thus I hate folding socks when I get home. Everyone was glad to have a helper.

Unexpectedly we had an enormous group of kids come to our clover art program. It was a little chaotic and I was so glad to have Cody there to help. As you can see from the picture he took I was vastly out numbered. I believe the total of kids that came to the Clover program was somewhere in the 40's. Yikes!

Day 1 was spent catching up on sleep, eating at the tasty new Native American Restaurant, visiting the Cherry Creek Mall, looking for Cody's nerd game supplies, and then of course the boys played video games together. I use the word together lightly since they played on separate game systems, separate tvs, and in separate rooms, but over the Internet together... Yes I am serious! They were even talking through the headsets with the doors closed. I thought it was just as ridiculous as I'm sure you are right now, especially since I could hear both of them talking through the walls.

Day 2 was St Patricks day. Cody borrowed a green shirt from Jesse since he forgot to bring one... silly kid. Cody came to the Museum with me where he really earned his keep (searching for lost kids, painting clovers on kids faces, folding socks, and teaching about St Patrick's day). After the museum we headed downtown to check out 16th street, eat lunch, and then visit the Contemporary Art Museum. After the museum we headed to another nerd store on Cody's quest to find Hero Clix (?) and then we picked up Jesse from work. I made some amazing spaghetti for dinner and we watched some MST3K (for all of you non-nerds out there that's Mystery Science Theater 3,000).

Iowa and back in no time...

Cody sleeping in the car. We were barely into Nebraska and as you can see it was still light out. Jesse managed to get sleep in the car too, both trips. Somehow I was not so lucky either time.

Jesse, Cody, Mom, and Logan watching the pendulum knocking down pieces to tell time.

Jesse testing out the air play exhibit in the Science Center.

Jesse, me, & Dave posing for a picture in our lovely safety gear outside the plant.

Jesse and Dave touring the inside of the ethanol plant.

Thursday afternoon Jesse and I headed off for a trip to Iowa. Our radio is wacky and doesn't like to work well with the Ipod, so we sought out different forms of entertainment. We ended up buying some cross word puzzle books... which are much harder to find than one might think. We made it to my parents house just before 2am Iowa time Friday morning. We were beat, we slept in and then had lunch with my parents, visited my grandparents, and checked in on my dad while he overhauled our car. Saturday we got a brief tour of David's ethanol plant, had some amazing tenderloin sandwiches @ Menlo's cafe, and then headed to DesMoines for some research. We went to the new improved Science Center of Iowa. In the last few years they rebuilt the Science Center downtown and added lots of new experiences to it. Our museum is looking into expansion and research is the first part, so I took in all the info I could and photographed just about everything from the cafe to the signage. Cody, Logan, my mom, Jesse, and I spent several hours exploring and having a good time. That night we had dinner with my parents and Dave & Chels. After dinner Dave and Chels joined us at the Shermans for another game night of sorts. Melissa, Ken, & Syd joined us too. We played the X-box version of Scene it, which confused me and 1/2 of us weren't familiar with the controllers, so I think it was rigged. Cody and Dave one. Pssh! Sunday morning Jesse and I went to church with my parents and my grandma. It was Jesse's first Catholic Church service and he was nervous about what to do and how long it would take. I think he was pleasently surprised with the time and he did well with all our weird traditions. Sunday afternoon we visited my grandpa Ron and his wife Ginny. Then we snuck back to my parents were we packed up and got ready to head out. The original plan was to leave Monday morning, but Cody and Jesse were ansy to leave. After saying our goodbyes and heading out from my parents we had to stop to pick up Cody. He's staying the week with us. Cody and his parents had quite the time debating his final packing plan. We thought we would leave around 3pm, but we really left at 4pm. We made it back home by just after midnight Denver time. It was a quick action packed weekend and I am still exhausted from it. More to come on Cody's Denver trip.

Baby Shower...

Everyone went straight for the craft table. I found lots of onesies in various sizes and everyone decorated at least one. Vivian and Mike got 30 onesies hand painted onesies as party favors.

My manager Jennifer made the cakes for the party one of which was a giant cupcake. Delish!

A co-worker gave us an easier decoration idea for the party. String a clothes line across the room and let people hang cute clothes, shoes, blankets, diapers, bibs, etc... It makes for cute simple decorations and then everyone gets to see the presents. We made sure to tag each item, so they would know who the gifts were from. It was a great idea for decorating a big room like the theater.


The present table. I bought reusable non-gender specific decorations that we can reuse for all the other upcoming baby showers. We also made Easter baskets on the table as center pieces. They were Bunny & Chick Peeps with Malted milk ball eggs and Easter grass on nice plates. They made for adorable edible center pieces. Vivian is due on Easter and she's pretty excited about it.

Mike and Vivian opening all their baby gifts. They made out with quite a bit and this was her 2nd baby shower.

**On a side note during this baby shower process we learned that the inventor of the Boppy pillow (new mom's out there you know what I'm talking about) is on the board at the museum. She has since given up controll of the company, but she's got connections and she donated 2 new boppies. One for Vivian and one for Miss Shana, who will be having a boy in July. Exciting stuff!

Recently...

As I've said before I have become a documentary junkie. Recently Jesse and I watched a documentary that was so moving we were both stunned to silence when it was over. I have no problem saying hands down it was the best movie I have ever seen. I warn you it is very intense. It's got the best of Humanity and the worst of Humanity all rolled into one. I was glued to the screen from the beginning. There are times you want to cry for joy and others you want to cry in pain. I held in my emotions, as I normally do, for as long as I could. By the end of the movie I had a box of tissues and I was bawling like a baby. Jesse and I both agree that ghosts, monsters, and aliens aren't the things that terrify us... other people are. It's amazing how good we can be to one another and how awful all at the same time. For you Iowans... Stuart, Ia gets a brief mention in the movie as well, but only in passing and not for a reason we would like to be mentioned. This movie will help you realize how many lives you touch every day. Most people go around in this world feeling lonely, but the truth is everyone has someone and you probably have more someones out there that care about you than you know. People today are too self involved. Take a step back and put others first. If we all did this the world would be a better place. The documentary we watched was called... Dear Zachary: A letter to a son about his father. Below I have listed the link to the movie's web page. It was nominated for tons of awards and reviewed as one of the best documentaries of 2008. If you are brave enough to watch it I think you to will appreciate it as much as I did.
http://www.dearzachary.com

*On a side note a good portion of the film takes place in Canada. For those of you who considered moving to Canada I might rethink it after seeing this movie and reading this link below. Canada might not have as much crime as the US, but honestly it's not a perfect place either. Be thankful for what and who you've got in your life. You never know when things might change.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7537675.stm

And so it begins...

The first of our summer full of visitors arrived yesterday. I had a lovely lunch with my old friend Kasi and her fiance Bo. They came in from Iowa just that morning. They're looking at possibly moving here later this year and they're expecting their first child this May, so I gave them a tour of our lovely museum and we went out to a nice long lunch. It was a nice visit. It's been agest since I had seen her and I have never met Bo, so it was good to meet him finally.

Tonight I have to babysit and this weekend Jesse and I will be deep cleaning our house and packing up for our road trip to Iowa.

Tuesday night is the big Baby Shower night. I've been planning this thing for over a month, so I hope all goes well. As soon as this shower is over we'll be planning the next since 2 of the girls I supervise are expecting this year.

Wednesday Disney's Mr. & Mrs. Incredible are planning to stop by the museum's Superhero Wednesday night, so I'll be working late that night on crowd control.

Thursday Jesse and I will be attempting to beat rush hour traffic by sneaking out of work early to head to Iowa.

Friday morning around 2am we're expecting to be pulling in to my parent's driveway. Don't expect to see us up and around until sometime after noon that day.