Anniversary made better with family

As many of you have probably already seen from my husband's blog, we recently celebrated our third wedding anniversary! He had a whole trip planned out, and we were able to arrange to stay with his brother and his wife in Colorado Springs. We also enjoyed a few of our outtings with them. We would have done more with both of them, but my brother-in-law's wife is pregnant with their first child! What a blessing! I've gotta say, I'm jealous.

Ron and I got to their house at about 10:30 p.m. mountain time, and found their gorgeous house, which we had never been to before. Unfortunately, Ron had to prove his manhood by repeatedly attempting to drive our stick-shift truck up their 49% grade, winding driveway. Once we got up the side of the mountain to their house, we were amazed. The part of Colorado Springs where they live is one of the most newly-developed, and also one of the most beautiful. From that area, you can see a lot of the foothills, and if you went to the top of the foothill my brother-in-law lives on, you could see Pike's Peak.

Ron and I visited The Royal Gorge with his brother and sister-in-law the day after we arrived. We walked across the bridge, took a tram ride down to the bottom, and rode a sky-coaster on a cable across the gorge. Did you know that the ArKANSAS river flows through the gorge? (My brother-in-law's wife gets a kick out of the way we say that in Kansas, with the emphasis on Kansas.) It flows through Wichita, too.

Ron's brother went with us the next day to Pike's Peak via a cog rail train. That was awesome, too. Ron and I took lots of pictures from the ride up, down, and at the peak. We made sure to bring warm clothing, because even though it was in the upper 80s at the bottom, it was only 38 degrees at the top. I even had to put my gloves on to keep my hands warm! It still wasn't enough, so the three of us got cappucinos at the cafe in the Summit House.

Jason also went with Ron and me to visit Cave of the Winds on what was going to be our last day in Colorado. (We decided that day that we would stay an extra day.) Although I had been there once before with my family when my sister and I were younger, I think the tour we went on was a different one. Ron and his brother made sure they could lag behind the tour group so they could take pictures and be ornery. Jason's wife might have gone with us if she hadn't had to work. I think she would have liked it.

Saturday, Ron and I went alone to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. We rode a motorized, gas-powered trolly to take us as far up the mountain as it would go, and then we walked around to look at all the cool critters. We even saw one of their newest additions: a white lion. Beautiful. We saw all kinds of monkeys, a whole slew of giraffes (about 15 or 20 all together), some hippos lounging in a pool outside, and even some penguins! While we were there, it started to rain, so we found the trolly and rode it around the whole route to make sure we didn't miss anything. By the time we finished riding, it had stopped raining.

That night, the four of us went to this really awesome Itallian restaurant, Zio's Itallian Kitchen. We had a great waiter. He answered all kinds of questions, obliged to some requests, and made a spectacular wine suggestion to go with my meal. He also reacted perfectly to a joke my dad usually plays on the wait staff at restaurants:

I was showing Jason's wife how my dad makes it look like he's bending a fork, using a spoon, when the waiter came to the table to refill our water glasses. He saw me "bending" the spoon, and gave me a look like "What the hell!" I held up the spoon, showing the waiter that the spoon was never bent, and he took a sigh of relief. He said, "I was about to ask you what the hell you were doing to my silverware!" Then he laughed with all the rest of us.

We had such a great time. It kind of made us think more about moving to Colorado. If we do, though, it will be a while.

(BTW, I'll come back later and make links to these places and try to insert pictures.)