DAY 2
Today is the day Lia arrives!! Before heading to the airport, I had to be introduced to the main part of Penny and Joshes life; their dogs. Sally, Ollie and Lew arrived in the morning after spending the night at Grandma's, I had plenty of warning beforehand but I was unprepared for what was ahead of me. I heard them come in and immediately they could sense a different person in the house and they managed to follow my sense into my bedroom. I was bombarded by two of the most excitable dogs I've ever met. Stupidly, I had worn white jeans that morning and Ollie had just been in the lake so of course she jumped up at me and made marks all down my white jeans (it was my fault, I should have been more aware of what was going to happen haha!) They are so cute but it took them a good while to settle down.
After a few minutes of mayhem, we headed off to the airport to pick up Lia. We got to her baggage claim, found her bag but not Lia; it took a while to finally find her (we probably crossed paths at some point in the airport). Arriving back at the house, we gave Lia a tour of the house and, fair to say, she was just as overwhelmed as I was. It still seems too good to be true!
After a long day, we ended the night with a BBQ with the whole family and a dip in the nice and warm hot tub :)
DAY 3
Still jet lag and waking up at the crack of dawn. Deciding to stay at the house today, we managed to do every possible activity there was around the house. Tennis, Basketball, Canoeing, Paddle Boarding, Badminton; the WHOLE lot! Fair to say, at the end of the day we were exhausted and I ended up looking like a tomato from really bad sunburn (I guess it was my fault I didn't put sun cream on...).
In the evening, we went out for a beautiful Italian in downtown Denver and explored around the city a bit. Denver is such a clean and peaceful city, I'd love to live here.
DAY 4
Setting off at 10am this morning, we drove an hour and a half to Vail, up into the Rocky Mountains. On the way our ears kept popping as we were getting higher and higher (I'm still ill so it was agony but totally worth the pain). After the most scenic journey I've ever done, we arrived in Vail and ventured around the village and had lunch by the river. At this point, the altitude wasn't affecting us too much. We found a few trails to walk down after lunch, me and Lia would get out of breath after climbing about 10 stairs, that's how bad the altitude was!! I wasn't too bad overall; Lia felt her hands tingling so she got a bit altitude sickness but not too much. We did quite well considering we went from 5000ft to 9000ft!
Vail is a small, french looking, ski village which is set in the heart of the Rocky Mountains and is just beautiful. If you go to Colorado at some point in your lives, you HAVE to go to Vail!
After a small hike across Vail, we decided to head to the Red Rocks on the way back as we had half of the afternoon left. The Amphitheatre is where some of the most famous bands have played; the Beatles, Sting, U2, and SOOO many more! It was an incredible experience.
We hiked up another trail which took us up the top of the hills to an amazing view of Denver. It was so hot which made the walk 10 times harder with the altitude being so thin as well. We walked for about 40 minutes and then had to head back as we were heading downtown for dinner.
I'm indecisive about bringing my laptop to California, so I'll either see you on the other side or in 2 weeks time, back in Colorado!
