Colorado - Day Three

Today has been crazy! We've been on the go since 8 o'clock today (actually yesterday now). We got up early-ish and had breakfast with Sara and "the Carters." Mike has trouble remembering their last name sometimes and when he's referring to the boys, he'll call them "the Carters."

After some breaky, we hit the road and went to Garden of the Gods. Sara took about a million pictures of us and we bought some postcards. (My favorite thing! I love them.) Then we walked around awhile and took even more pictures before heading back to the Visitor's Center to have a light lunch (Mike had a buffalo burger) and watched a short film about how the red rocks were formed.

After Garden of the Gods, we went to Focus on the Family bookstore, where Denver Broncos kicker, Jason Elam, was autographing copies of his new book. Mike bought a book for himself and Sara bought one for the boys. Cole brought along his football card to have it signed as well. There was a bit of a tense moment when someone said that he wouldn't be autographing anything except books, but in the end - he came through for us! Cole and Carter got to try on his Super Bowl rings and everything! I felt a little bit like a fraud - in line with all those Broncos fans. I don't even like the Broncos and I have no idea who Jason Elam is - even though he apparently holds some sort of record. Dunno. He seemed very personable, though.

Then we headed over to the Air Force Academy.

Mike and I stimulated the local economy once again - but wait until you see Mike in the AFA jacket that he bought...HAWT! We looked around, shopped, watched a video about the every day life of an Air Force Cadet. Then we went outside and Mike wanted to take the trail over to the Chapel, which is beautiful!

I was reluctant, but decided that if everybody else was up for it, then so was I. It wasn't a long hike, but it was a lot of up hill, downhill, up hill again.

And it was freezing! We'd left our puffy coats in the car thinking that because we'd be walking, we'd be too hot in them. Wrong. Definitely wrong. By the time we'd hiked down to the Chapel, gone in and looked around and hiked back to the Visitor's Center, Carter was certain that his fingers would never function properly again!

We came home and had a quick bite with Sara's husband, Bill. We decided that we would take in the Air Force/Denver U hockey game that night. We walked outside to find that it had started to snow while we were inside. Extremely hard! It was quite a bit of a white knuckled trip back to the Academy, but once we were there, we had a really good time.

Cole and Carter sat with Mike, so that Mike could explain a bit more about what was going on during the game.

I sat with Sara and Bill and tried to field any questions to the best of my ability. Air Force knocked off #4 Denver with a score of 5-2! I'm hoping that we've opened up a new sport horizon for the fam. Mike has inspired Cole, at least for the short term. Immediately after we got home, they started playing a little "carpet hockey."

Cole won two mini-games in overtime. I was called upon for awhile to drop the puck for their face offs, but I was tired and retired my referee strikes after only a few plays.

I suspect that tomorrow will hold in store for Mike a lot more street hockey.
We had thought about road tripping to New Mexico, but the weather and the price of gas have given us pause and we decided that we'd rather sleep in and stick close to home tomorrow.

It's bedtime for me! I've had such a good time, but I'm ready to sleep where I sit!

See you all in the morning!