Visit with the Duffins

My sister Carol Lee and her family stopped in Denver on their way to a Duffin family reunion in Idaho. It was great to see them (for the first time in four years)! After 3 1/2 long hours stuck in traffic and VERY narrowly missing an accident (the guy swerved to miss me and hit the person in his own lane. But in my defense, he shouldn't have been changing lanes, going so fast, and should have checked his blind spot), the boys and I finally made it to the hotel which had a really cool park behind it. They didn't want to do anything except play so we had to get some wiggles out before we went to eat dinner. We went to White Fence Farm the first evening and then to the zoo the next day. The zoo was fun but hot and humid. Carol Lee laughed at me when I said it was muggy but at least it rained to prove that the humidity was high.


Jake was too hot and too tired to watch the penguin feeding that everyone else was watching.Boy, did it rain! We barely made it to the monkey house before the downpour started. I thought it would only last about fifteen minutes, but an hour later we decided to make a run for it. Of course the shuttle van passed us on the way to the gates and asked it we wanted a ride. We were soaked by that point, so we just finished the walk. The puddles were more than ankle deep and almost rolled into the wagon but it was exciting! The boys loved it!

Manitou Cliff Dwellings

Josh has been wanting to go to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings since he saw a picture of them in May. So near the end of June, we drove up there to check them out. Unfortunately, the picture he saw kind of said it all and he was a little disappointed when we got there. They were neat--just not very many of them.
We brought the boys' cousin Kyle with us. He sure looks like he could be their brother though!

Because the cliff dwellings didn't take too long, I also took them over to the Cave of the Winds. I've wanted to take them for a while but had to wait until Jake turned 5 to go on the tour. I really like the caves. We saw some great stalactites and stalagmites but my favorite was cave bacon. It's pretty tough to get pictures in the dark of the cave, and although it doesn't look like it Josh really was having a good time.