Go west, young man

One of my dearest friends lives 1,600 miles away. We used to live less than a mile apart. In those days, we'd hang out on each other's couch and talk for hours about everything and nothing. We'd trade duties at dinner because it was so much nicer to cook for two instead of one. We'd hop in the car during the day and go shopping. We took trips to the beach, to the mountains, camped together and dressed up for Halloween parties. It was rare to go a day without talking to each other.

Now, we may go months without talking. We have different schedules, heaps more responsibility, husbands, kids, houses to clean, crazy jobs and all those miles between us.

I miss her and those days dearly.

We've been trying for nine months to visit each other. Various family commitments, illness and changes to plans prevented several other trips here or there.

We emailed for weeks about Sawyer and me flying to visit her family in Denver. We finally narrowed down the dates; I fretted over the expensive airline tickets. And then I bit the bullet. I knew it was a trip I would regret NOT taking.

I can't begin to describe every detail of our fabulous week in Denver, but I can say that we had a fabulous time. Our friendship is just as wonderful and comfortable and stay-up-for-hours talking as it used to be. And now, our boys are friends, too.

Hopefully, there will be many more of these visits in our futures.

Here are some of the highlights from the (more than 900!) photos I shot during our visit.

Sawyer's first flight! 

On the tarmac at Dulles after our 6 a.m. flight


Watching the jets get refueled and loaded as we wait for our flight to Denver

We went to Denver Zoo, where it felt like it was 150 degrees.

Hyenas


Giraffes


Just a little hot


Penguins


Hello, there


Peekaboo!



All three kiddos on the hippo statue


It was hard to keep everyone happy


Riding the train cheered up the boys


The "mingos"as Sawyer called them



Two little monkeys in the monkey house



Sawyer would've played these drums forever



We finished off the day with a ride on the carousel


Elliott, Jennifer and Annie 

We took three kids to a diner for dinner and sundaes. 

Annie was the best behaved.



Dancin' to the oldies


Cheese!



"I want candy" ... the boys each got a quarter to try the candy grabber after dinner 

We visited the "beach" at Cherry Creek State Park. 

The beach, the mountains and skyscrapers


Building sandcastles


Splashing


Swimming


De plane, de plane!


Cheetos at lunch

We went to the Denver Botanic Gardens for a real estate reception

The kids liked the water features best


The flowers and winding pathways at dusk were just gorgeous


I was sad we had to leave. It will be on my list for next time.

We visited the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden

Train heaven


Caboose!


We got to ring the bell on this train


Running the tracks 


The water tower to fill up the steam engines


A streamlined train


My favorite ... the snow plow train


Watching the model train ride the rails


The conductor

After church, we did the sprayground, but a thunderstorm cut our visit short

 

We also spent many hours playing at the Milsteads' house

 
It was like a Thomas toyland!


The boys just wanted to play baseball. 

Our flight home

The Denver airport was so empty at 5 a.m. compared to the day we arrived.


Our flight to Chicago was very full of businessmen. We read every available thing to keep Sawyer busy.


I almost never worry about a water landing ... until I noticed how far we swung out over Lake Michigan.


O'Hare was busy. Luckily, we had plenty of time and didn't have to hurry.


We skipped the shuttle and walked through three terminals to our next flight. And enjoyed the cool art along the way.


The best part? We discovered a children's museum just around the corner from our gate!


Sawyer got to fly the airplane, work in the cargo hold, weigh our backpacks and check the weather from the air traffic control tower. It was a very cool museum.



Finally home to Daddy!