Our First Visitor!

GRACE MANN HAS ARRIVED! Yesterday after waking up and getting cleaned up for our visitor, Caroline and I drove to the COS airport and picked up Grace. We were so excited to have someone from home to share our fun experiences with so we started to drive straight to lunch in our favorite area of town, and of course a street festival was going on so that was not a possibility anymore. We defaulted to the only other non-franchise we knew of and ate lunch catching up and brainstorming ideas for her week's visit. After building excitement for the week's activities, we went home to drop off luggage and get Grace settled in and while talking about what we wanted to do, she wandered downstairs and fell asleep leaving Caroline and I with a Jon and Kate + 8 marathon until about 2 hours later. When she woke up, we had had enough of this sitting around, after all, we're in Colorado. We decided to show her a beautiful view of the city from Cheyenne Mountain (where Davis and Hunter had taken us our first night here.) This idea led us to driving our KIA Spectra up through the mountain at a speed of about 5 mph fearing for our lives as we looked over the unprotected edges that would cause us to plummet to our death if one jerk of the wheel occurred. After gaining a little confidence driving, we started to really enjoy the scenery around us. This lasted for another 20 minutes but faded quickly as we realized we had left civilization far behind. Fully expecting the dirt road to end in the city at any minute, we kept driving...and driving....and driving. Finally after an hour of this and the spotting of a sign that said Colorado Springs 11 miles (the other way), we decided to turn around. At this point, we had about 1/4 of a tank of gas left, it was dusk, and we felt like we were in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After a stressful trip back up and through the mountain, we made it back to where we started. Although it was miserable at some points, our spirits were high because we had just made it through a great adventure on our own! After our leisurely afternoon drive was over, we came back to the house and made stir fry for dinner and went to bed fairly early.
Today, the Saltzgiver family invited us to church with them. We experienced their church in downtown, which was great, and went to lunch with their family and some friends at Red Robin! After eating, Ty continued his great hosting skills by taking Caroline, Grace and I to see some hiking trails we need to hit. He drove us up to a place called Seven Falls and pointed out the trails we will definitely be trying out. We came home after that and while discussing our possible trip to the zoo, it started hailing outside (again). Weather in Colorado is always questionable, but apparently the last 2 days have been outrageously different...its been raining all day and hailng for a good bit of that time, with gunshot thunder and purple lighting. We had pretty much given up when I got a phone call from my friend Sally, who is working at a camp in Estes Park this summer. She called to say she and her friends from camp were going to Boulder for the night and that we should join them. After talking about it and realizing that we had nothing better to do (also, it wasn't raining in Boulder), we decided to be spontaneous and make the trip! The drive there was typical of our luck so far as we battled through the horrible weather that seemed to follow us the entire way, but with Boulder on the horizon we knew it would be well worth it. It was beautiful and so cool! We got there and met Sally at a coffe shop on Pearl Street. Pearl Street is an awesome strip mall with brick streets, cute shops all along the sides and very colorful people all around. We walked around to the different shops for a while and caught up with Sally, we still couldn't believe that the four of us were just hanging out with Colorado...none of us are very well traveled and our excitement proved it. Around 6:30 the group of us went to dinner at a sushi place! Caroline, Grace and I weren't too sure about this decision, but decided to go with the flow and the sponteneity theme of the day and roll with it. We ended up LOVING it! I got a Philidelphia roll with salmon and cucumer, Caroline got an Asparagus Tempura roll...and Grace got nachos (2 out of 3 isn't bad). We ended our Boulder adventure by going with the group to Boulder Baked, a dessert shop where you order your own cookie and they bake it for you right there. Topping it off with some coffee for the ride home made it a perfect ending to a very fun day. We love sponteneity.