Over Labor Day weekend, Maggie, Brenden and I went to Denver to visit friends of mine and their 3 boys. Did I mention we drove there? 13 hours of driving there. I was actually amazed at how well Brenden did with being confined for that long. It did make us alter our return drive to try and help him by planning in more running around time.

We had a very good visit. For Friday, our friends had things going on, so we took Brenden down see the Denver Children’s Museum. It was a very awesome place where kids get to just run around and learn about stuff from Firetrucks, to art, to being a vet, to sports. Brenden really liked the simulated grocery store where he pushed a miniature shopping cart around and picked up plastic vegetables and other fun things.

After that, we headed over to the 16th Street Mall and walked up and down it looking for the Tattered Cover Bookstore some of my friends had told me about. We parked, walked to the other end of the mall and didn’t see it. So I finally asked someone and they said “oh, it’s way at the other end”. Turns out, we parked practically on top of it, but we started up a block and missed it.

The next day we went up into the mountains and went to the top of Mt. Evans, which is a lovely 14,000 ft. When we got to the entrance of the summit road at 11,000 ft, there was a weather board there to tell us the temp in Denver ( 80ish ), were we were ( 60ish ) and at the summit ( 40ish, with windchills in the 20s ). It’s amazing how much colder the higher altitudes are.

After coming down off the mountain, we went to this cute little play place called Tiny Town. Brenden loved it! It has all this houses built to toddler size. He kept going back to the same ones, but he certainly enjoyed himself. We even rode their little train.

Sunday was lots of fun at a local rec center that had this amazing water park. It was all indoors and had a lap pool, a lazy river, a kids area and two slides. I rode the slides a bunch and so did Maggie. Brenden had fun in the water, but would occasionally put his face down in it accidently and surprise himself and start to cough water he tried to breathe.

We had a lot of fun with our friends and their family. Brenden got to watch 3 older boys ( ages 2 – 5 ) and learned a bunch, like how to go up and down stairs. He just started practicing it the minute he was shown how to go down the stairs ( he had figured out up already ). The boys loved him and I think enjoyed playing with him.

We’re going to have to make that trip again, but I think next time, it might be better to fly. Or to maybe have an RV so that Maggie and Brenden can run around on the way.

For pics, check out Maggie’s post.