Happy, happy birthday to our eight-year-old girl! We all love you so much and are so glad to celebrate your special day with you. You always fill the house with wild sights and sounds, and wherever you are, that’s where the action (and your little brother) is. Rock on, baby girl!
Miniature lemon meringue pies
Mythical horses made with Sculpey clay
Today is Zia’s last day as a seven-year-old. I still can’t believe she’ll be eight tomorrow! I used to think about when she would be eight, and wonder what she would be like. I had no idea, really.
She’s full of life and drama and her own ideas, and her back is always itchy and she’s usually bored.
Her favorite foods are skinny Mai fun brown rice noodles and lemon meringue pie.
(Isn’t Cash hilarious in these pictures? Obviously we got a box from Mimi yesterday.)
She used to be into My Little Pony and The Little Mermaid and Friends Legos, but she doesn’t know what she likes right now. That’s a good thing, because she’s figuring out who she is.
Today she’s a mustached seven-year-old, tomorrow she’ll be a whole different eight-year-old.
And here she is five years ago today–licking the beater from her birthday cake.
Our guests left this morning. The house is just a tiny bit strange and empty after ten days of Lucero infiltration. It was hard to say goodbye, but we all had a good visit and made lots of happy memories.
Here are just a few pictures from the other day when we visited Celestial Seasonings Tea Co., based in Boulder.
You can sample new and favorite teas while you wait for a tour, and they give you tea bags for tickets.
It’s fun to see the inner workings of the tea factory, and the tea shop is chock full of cool things.
David’s mom surprised me with these Adagio earrings from the gift shop. Green, gold, and artsy swirls–she knows me well! 🙂
They don’t allow pictures on the factory tour
but I snapped this priceless one just before we went in.
Yesterday we went downtown and walked all over 16th Street. We ate at Mongolian Barbeque.
First you pile your bowl high with all kinds of veggies and raw meat, pick out some sauces, then take it all to the grill where it is cooked in front of you.
It’s really fun and tasty. I got a salmon veggie bowl with curry and lemon sauce.
After lunch we walked to the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank. We had to go through security and there were armed guards with machine guns(!) Cash spotted this tiny Chihuahua and loved rubbing its head–probably way too hard.
When we entered, we each got a bag of shredded money–about $165 worth–from a large bin.
The museum was tiny but very cool. Did you know this bill even exists?
This display shows how “unfit” currency is shredded and then composted.
We made our own “money”!
After the Money Museum, we took a bus a few blocks down to the Denver Mint. Denver is one of the four U.S. locations where coins are minted.
David and I have been there before, so we stayed behind with the prohibited stroller and backpacks while the others toured the mint.
Here we are waiting for the tour to begin. Notice David was the only one who cared about posing for this picture. 🙂
On the tour, each person got a penny and an unstamped penny blank.
A selfie with my very sweet father in law
and my awesome mother in law.
They all left this morning. Adios, amigos–and safe travels back to Santa Fe!
Thursday we went to Elitch Gardens with David’s family. I have to preface this post by saying I’m really not an amusement park kind of girl–I would have been happy living all my life within an hour of Elitch’s and never walking through the gates.
It took everyone else wanting to go to get me there, and now I’m glad we went–it was fun and the kids loved it. And now I’ve got that checked off my bucket list! (Of course, it was never really on there, but I checked it off just the same, hehe.)
Here are some very adorable pics of David and Cash on the carousel. Notice how the chin is held forward these days–no chance of a double chin there. 🙂
Zia and I rode the Ferris wheel! The first time for both of us.
Here we are nearing the top, all smiles…
but this is how we really felt, LOL.
Speaking of terrifying experiences, we also went on the kiddie roller coaster. Cash and I were freaked out of our minds, and the picture the roller coaster people snapped of us showed our eyes tightly closed and faces scrunched up, hehe. Obviously David and Zia had a different experience.
Cash decided to get his face painted, and sat very still the whole time.
Every 30 seconds he opened one eye to ask me, “Is it done yet?”
Spidey!
An Octonauts show. Cash has been watching Octonauts on Netflix lately and really wanted to see the “real” ones.
The motorcycle ride was a big hit, and they went four times.
Cash, Zia, David and I mostly stuck together while the others went in their own groups, but Makayla and Kaylee showed up in time to try these crazy ladders with me.
They were nearly impossible to climb. Zia did pretty good, but none of us actually made it to the top. The ladder would flip without warning, and you were suddenly on your back laughing.
I won this lovely tail for Zia when I had a guy at one booth guess my age. He was nine years off, but he guessed David’s age within nine months.
We did a ton of other rides, ate the lunch we packed, and finally met up with the rest of the family at closing time–tired and ready for bed. We were glad we went, and {very} glad to go back home. 😉
Just a few more pics to add to the last post–after dessert we went to watch fireworks from a high point outside town. We had a great view from a little rocky hilltop (climbing in cowboy boots = skating back down) and it was nice not to have to fight our way through traffic on the way home. Hope you had a great Fourth!
