Week with Ashlee

Aunt Ashlee came to visit us last week.
She's pretty fun to have around! 

Some of the things we did during the week were .. ..  

Toured the Budweiser plant

It's right down the road from us and it's a free tour to learn about how something is made.
Plus .. ..if you do drink beer, you get free samples.

One of the coolest parts was learning a little more about the Clydesdale horses. The West Coast Hitch is housed at this facility, and while they are very busy traveling around in the summer, they will be back for a time in July so we will have to go check them out.

 The facility tour takes about an hour, filled with all sorts of information about the whole brewing process. Mark was very curious. He asked question after question and even had the poor kid giving the tour stumped for answers on a few. I thought it was great!!

 

Some of the different types of can tops over the years. Mark and I remembered quite a few;)

 At the end they have this photo booth.  Our girls wanted in on that action ... .. and truth be told, Mark really wanted to wear that blonde wig;)

 

 It was pretty interesting. I don't know that I would do it again unless someone really wanted to see it, but it was worth doing once.

We took Ashlee to see the State Capitol in Cheyenne.  We had gone through it another time, and quite honestly, it wasn't all that exciting a second time. Hopefully Ashlee wasn't too terribly bored :/

 We finished up our time in Cheyenne with a lively game of mini golf. 

 On most holes, these 3 (and myself) waited patiently for the 5th member of our group to finish.

 Bailee held the record for going (way) over par on the most holes:)

 Ashlee came out the winner, but this girl got the most hole in 1's (2 or 3)

 We spent evenings playing games and even taught Ashlee the Europe version of Ticket to Ride.

 We went and ate at the oldest restaurant in Northern Colorado. The Silver Grill Cafe is only open for breakfast and lunch and is a pretty quaint little establishment. While eating our lunch, a major downpour started (like flash flood kind) and so sadly we had to cancel our afternoon plans to do paddle boats at City Park:(

We made a trip to Denver Zoo. It had been pretty rainy all week and as we drove to the zoo, and even when we arrived, I was feeling less than optimistic about our decision. Fortunately, it cleared up and turned into a beautiful day. It was a great day to visit after all. It wasn't the typical crazy crowds because the weather scared people away. It also wasn't crazy hot like we have experienced in the past.

Shortly after we arrived they let the Giraffes out for the first time that day. We were lucky enough to be right there when they opened the doors. You can't see it in the pic, but the one Giraffe just ran laps around the courtyard. I have never seen a Giraffe actually run. It was actually very cool and unusual looking at the same time. It was almost like it was in slow motion just because of sheer size of those legs  .. .. amazing to watch!

 This little Sea Lion really wanted our attention and kept coming right up to the edge of the pool to see us:)

 There is a Elephant at the zoo named Bode. We are just saying this one was Bode (even though we weren't completely sure)

 Sneaking in a little selfie while we waited for the girls to catch up with us

 The girls tested how far they could jump.  Bailee and Emmrey both got as far as the Penguin (5ft)

 Karsyn's best jump was 10 ft like the Salmon

 We went to one of our favorite spots, the Lorikeet Adventure.  We love giving these cute little birds some nectar.

We had one that would lick and nibble on our hand

 

And others that would try to take the entire cup from you

 They ask you not to touch them, and to just hold the cup out for them to drink out of. So you can imagine Ashlee's surprise when this little guy jumped right on her hand to eat.

We treated ourselves to a little nectar as well

Emmrey was really into taking photos on this outing. We finally turned the camera over to her for the last part of our day. We ended up with hundreds of photos of every animal at nearly every angle. Some were questionable, but there were actually some pretty awesome ones .. .. like this.  It is kinda fun to see what gets captured from a little ones perspective.

 On Saturday, our last day together. Mark and I wanted to get up early and go for a hike. We didn't get any takers on the offer. They all wanted to sleep in. So although this was not with Ashlee, this is how Mark and I spent the morning.

We hiked up Poudre Canyon at Dadd Gulch. The trail is about 3.5 miles. We didn't make it quite to the top due to the respiratory virus I have been fighting for a month now:(

It was a beautiful hike and with all the wet weather we have had, the Wildflowers were abundant.

I loved spending the morning hiking with Mark and catching up. We don't do it nearly enough!

We headed back to the girls and pretty much took it easy for the rest of the day. We finished up the week with our pizza and game night and then Ashlee had to head for home on Sunday morning. We sure are glad she came to see us and loved having her!!