Next stop: Colorado

After saying our goodbye's in California, it was off to Colorado to visit friends and check on our house that we are renting out. We started off our visit with a picnic in Golden at a nice park. One of our friends has a little boy that is a few days older than Keenan, another couple has a little boy that is five months younger and another couple is expecting in July! It was fun to watch the three little boys running around together. It kind of made me sad that we still didn't live in Colorado with all of our friends having babies at the same time.

Here's Eric and Keenan looking at the ducks.

Chad on swing pusher duty with all three boys.

Keenan and Davis hugging.

Kelly and I with our little boys.


We went and checked out our house, I was mentally preparing for the worst... You never know with renters! The inside of our house was packed full of stuff, we think a few more people are living there then we originally thought but, it was clean and looked cared for. The lawn on the other hand, looked like a jungle! All of our (mostly Eric's) hard work keeping the lawn and the landscaping looking nice was mostly gone. No flowers in any of the flower beds, weeds in all the landscaping rocks, beer bottles in the mega high grass... sigh. At least the inside of the house looks nice. We also got to visit with some of our old neighbors, which was nice.

We stayed with my friend Lindsey and her family which was nice. They have 2 young girls so there was plenty of toys for Keenan. Somehow I managed to not get any pictures of her two little girls.

Eric went golfing with his friends so Lindsey and I took the kids to a park and met up with my friend Kristen and her little boy Evan. Once again, no pictures of Lindsey's girls but here's a picture of Keenan and Evan climbing.
Since Eric was golfing Lindsey and I took the kids to a Sushi bar and met up with her husband. The kids were good for a few minutes then they all turned to crazed little hellions. We couldn't eat fast enough to get out of there. As soon as we got to the car I realized I forgot my "to go" bag. Without thinking I exclaimed "Sh!t" to which Keenan immediately repeated it, Lindsey's four year old Reagan then pipes up loudly "I just chugged a whole beer!" (she had a root beer that was in a brown bottle) Neither Lindsey or I could help it, we both busted out laughing. At least there was some humor in our evening!

Our last night in Denver we met up with Eric's brother and his two little girls at Chuck E Cheese's. Keenan was immediately in Heaven. Big, ride able auto's everywhere! He quickly figured out that you needed "money" to stick in the slots to make the rides go and kept requesting more.

The three cousins. Maci, Keenan and Mia. I think Mia was the only one happy about getting the picture taken.

Crowded Beach

Sunday we took the metro to Hedro Park, an Island in the Dnipro River. This was my first experience on the Metro. I have never taken it since it's either a far hike in one direction (far if your lugging Keenan around that is) or a bus ride in the wrong direction to get to the nearest stations.

We got to the beach in the middle of the afternoon and it was packed! Notice the healthy reddish brown hue of the water. We did not get in the... we've heard it's not the cleanest.

We first walked around a little to check it all out. We found sand soccer fields, a basketball court and an outdoor weight lifting area that is made from old railroad materials (?). I guess this is Kyiv's version of Venice Beach...complete with of course speedo's.

We finally found a but of shade under an umbrella and enjoyed a beer. It was another hot day out. We saw way WAY too many speedos and thong bikinis on people who should have been wearing a whole lot more. We also saw a few people, both men and women, just in their underwear and bras. I guess a bathing suit doesn't really cover any more...

Our view from where we enjoyed our beer looked over the river towards the Iron Maiden. I just wanted to show how high she towers into the skyline.We were better prepared this time. We took a backpack cooler full of snacks to munch on.

The metro station that we used was right by the Golden Gate (what used to be the entrance to the city and is now restored). Here's Keenan trying to push the doors open.

Keenan likes to hang from anything that he can hold on to. He's getting pretty strong.

Here's a statue in front of the Golden Gate. Soon as Keenan felt the statue he kept saying "hot hot hot"