GregHowley.com

This weekend was a lot of fun. I've never been the hugest fan of Denver, but in a lot of ways I'd rather be there than Cañon City. We drove up this past Friday morning and stayed until Sunday morning. We hit the zoo, aquarium, and childrens' museum.

We'd thought about seeing fireworks, a movie, or maybe bringing Lia into the hotel pool, but those things didn't work out. First off, the hotel we stayed at had no pool. The movie was out because the "accredited babysitting service" that the hotel offered didn't seem worth it. And as far as fireworks, they took place after Lia's bedtime, so we stayed in the hotel room and quietly watched Farscape episodes on Linda's laptop while eating fancy desserts, and went to sleep early, since Lia wakes up around 6AM most mornings.

The first place we hit on Friday was the Childrens' museum. The museum has a big section for kids under 4 years old, and Lia loved it. She got to play with the magnetic letters on the wall, pick plastic vegetables from a fake garden, and pull gears off this wall-mounted gear mechanism that she was too young to fully appreciate. But her favorite part was the stairs. There were a few sections where two steps led up to a small area with benches and magazines for adults, and she loved to crawl up the stairs, then try to walk down them. She'd always reach for my hand on the way down, and hold it while she attempted to walk down the two steps. I guess a 2-step stairway is less intimidating than a whole flight of stairs. She started going down with both feet at the same time, but eventually figured out that she could turn sideways and step just one foot down. It's cool to watch her learning.

The Aquarium was right next to the Childrens' Museum, so we went there next. We rented a stroller, since we'd forgotten to bring ours (stupid) and quickly learned that the strollers the aquarium rents are cool-looking but worthless. It's essentially impossible for a kid to fall asleep in one of them. So we left and checked into our hotel so Lia could nap. Meanwhile, I went out stroller-hunting on the streets of Denver while Linda watched the napping child.

My stroller hunt was long and grueling. Ross had no stroller, but they had a baby-sized travel pillow - you know those horseshoe shaped ones? Lia's always falling asleep in the carseat or stroller with her neck at some hideous angle, and I'd actually thought about looking for one online. Turns out I got it for four bucks. And she seems to like using it now. There was also no stroller at Walgreens, although I bought some junk food. Rite-Aid had one cheapo stroller left. Less than twenty bucks, which was good, since we now own six strollers. Of course, this is the first one we've actually bought - the five others were gifts, freebees, or hand-me-downs. So now we've got the pimped out jeep stroller, the carseat-fits-in-it stroller, the expensive gift bugaboo stroller, and three umbrella strollers.

After Lia woke up, we headed back to the aquarium with our new umbrella stroller. Those things are actually really useful in that they're lightweight and compact. We saw all the stuff at the aquarium and then had dinner at the aquarium restaurant. The restaurant is actually the coolest thing about the aquarium. You sit and eat dinner a foot away from the glass wall of the tank, which holds lots of fish. Big fish. We parked Lia right in front of the wall, and she had a good time. Halfway through our meal, some guy in a scuba suit swam by and waved.

We'd planned to go see fireworks, but by eight o'clock it was past Lia's bedtime, and it doesn't get dark until around nine, so we just called it a night. Good thing I brought the Farscape DVDs.

Saturday was zoo day, and we got a lot of good pictures. I thought we were getting there early, but there were already people leaving when we showed up. The first animal Lia saw was a tiger, and although it took her a while to spot it, she let us know when she did. She pointed, and said something that sounded very much like "Kitty Cat!". Either that or "What's that?" It's hard to tell when all she's actually saying is "Hui-tyah!". Anyway, she seemed to want to make sure that everyone else saw what she'd seen.

After that she got to see lots of animals, and she got to point at all of them. She liked getting really close to the peacock and the ducks, and Linda even brought her into the petting zoo area. Lia also got to ride a merry-go-round, although she got kind of scared halfway through that ride. But I picked her up from her seat and held her facing me, and she was fine after that. She took a nap in her new cheapo stroller, and got to walk around a lot, although she got a pretty bad blister on one heel.

We came back Sunday morning. We'll bring Lia back to some of the same things when she gets older. And I'll try to post some of the video I took within the next week. Keep an eye on Lia's site if you're interested.