Grand Junction Day 2

After a delicious hot breakfast (free from the hotel!--well, included I should say), we decided to see how Malcolm liked swimming.

Here he is in his giant swim diaper! He's gotten so sweet and chunky lately.

He was pretty excited, Or I like to think so.

We of course, had to get video of Malcolm's first time in a swimming pool. Luckily it was indoors and heated so he didn't chill.

Pretty much, the verdict is that he kind of doesn't care one way or the other. He doesn't hate it, but he doesn't seem overjoyed either.

We also tried out the hot tub, because it was only a few degrees hotter than the pool. He was about the same in that one too.

Malcolm's morning nap lasted a long time. So long that both Ryan and I were bored enough we started making extra noise to see if Malcolm would wake up sooner. :)

We made sandwiches, got soda and water from the convenience store, and found a park.
It was COOOOld. We're not good a vacationing in November, we usually do most everything outside. It's free.

mm, full mouth smiles.

It was Shop Small Business Saturday, and we appropriately went to the downtown shops.

The only one we technically "supported" though, was a little Gelato shop.

Down town Grand Junction is pretty cute. It's been recently spruced up apparently, and all the shops are full.

Aren't my boys cute?

There was a great shoe store, some book stores, antique stores, and a really really cool toy store. Some other stuff too, including restaurants, but those mentioned above were our favorites. Oh, and a good bike shop. All the owners were really friendly and Malcolm was always a big hit.

Another thing that was downtown was Art on the Corner. When I read it online I thought it was an art gallery on some corner, but turns out it's literally art on every corner.

Recognize this one? There's one almost identical we took a picture of in Glenwood Springs!

There's even art to play on

And this lovely sculpture just waiting to be frisked:

or leaned on

Or butt touched

Then after a short break/nap time at the hotel, we wandered out to a state park near town and by the Colorado river.

It was getting dark (another thing I don't know what to do with on vacation in November--It's so dark so early!!) so we went on a short walk, then back to the car.

Malcolm's little hat was awesome! It looked especially tall--then we realized his little gloves were in it! ha!

After the previous night's dinner, we wanted to make sure we had something we knew we'd like. So we headed to Red Lobster. And you know what? It wasn't very good Red Lobster. Disappointments all around.

We wandered around the mall near Red Lobster, and I tried on like 12 pairs of gap jeans and found a pair that fit but were the wrong length. They come in the length I need, but they didn't have any in the store! Bah!!
It was heartening to me though that I could find jeans to fit my new body and that weren't even a size 10 either! woop!

The End of Day 2 :)

Grand Junction Day 1

Ryan got Monday after Thanksgiving off, making it a 4 day weekend for him, so we thought we'd hit the road and take a little vacation. We had a really hard time deciding on a place to go. I wanted to go someplace new, but since we'd never driven hours and hours with a baby, we didn't want to make it too far away. We finally ended up deciding on Grand Junction Colorado. Mostly because it had at least some stuff to do, and it was only 4 hours away. Kind of a random destination, but it worked for us.

We also decided to rent a car for the drive. In hopes that we could get some better gas mileage, not put more miles and wear and tear on our own car, but mostly because Ryan loves to drive cars that aren't his own (and dream about buying a new car).

We picked the car (an Infiniti hybrid) up at 7 am and hit the road by about 10 a.m.

Mal did well in the car. He slept mostly, but woke up close to Price. With a little bit of Mommy playing in the backseat he stayed content until we got to Price for a lunch break.

Look at those sweet tired eyes...

We went to Arby's in Price for a feeding for us and Mal.
Then we attempted to stimulate Malcolm enough he'd be okay going back into his seat for another 2 hours.

He was fussy for a while after Price, but fell asleep again for the majority of the drive.

Ryan made me promise we could just hang out at the hotel for a few hours before going out again. I wearily consented and silently plotted in my brain how I'd convince him to make it shorter... :) I'm not a hotel dweller type of vacationer.

I ended up being the super wife that I am and restlessly waited the full two (plus) hours until Ryan was ready to leave.
I had a baby to keep me busy and we went around together to explore the hotel and the hotel room.
Our hotel was a Marriot Residence Inn, so it has full kitchen suites. I picked it because we could get a deal that made it just as cheap or cheaper than staying in a regular non-suite hotel. Then we also had the option of cooking if we wanted, and hopefully a little more room than a regular hotel room. I knew with a baby we'd be hanging out there more than we usually do. I also went for the one bedroom instead of the studio because then we could put Malcolm in a separate room.

Allow Malcolm and I to take

Here's the bed:

(click on this one to enlarge--It's freaking adorable!)

The bathroom:

Malcolm has discovered mirrors and this bathroom was particularly full of them.

He loved smiling at that cute baby in the mirror.

The living room area:

What?! This hotel has a swimming pool??
I don't even know what that means!

Oh look! Feet!

We went out and drove around getting lost in the dark until we settled on an Italian restaurant by our hotel. It was kind of a cute little place, but the food was really disappointing. The pasta was weird and over cooked and Ryan's dish literally tasted like melted plastic smells. Weird. We had bad luck with our restaurant picks the first couple of nights.

Then of course it was early back to the hotel to get baby to bed! That first night he woke up 4 times! Every two hours. I think it was adjusting to a new place.

Thanksgiving

New Awning

There was a windstorm last year that pulled our awning almost off our house. (EEK!) It made it so the posts were not even connected to either the awning or the cement below. We thought we'd just see how much it would cost to replace it, so we got a bid. The awning guy suggested we see if it was covered in our insurance. Duh! Should have thought of that!

Sure enough it was covered and so now we've gone from this:

To this:

Woah! Did the grass die over the day? Nope, old picture. :)

Malcolm was entertained for a long time watching the awning guys out the window.

Here's halfway through with the old one off. Weird!!

I like it! Now we'll have to get some awesome patio furniture and have summer dinner parties outside!