Colorado 2015 | Day Four

Friday | July 31

{Nails, Brewery tours, and eating out for dinner}

Porter cries at 4am and he's soaking wet, peed through his diaper, pajamas, crib sheets, etc. Boo-hiss, this hasn't happened in a long time and I'm zombie-style changing his diaper, searching for a new onesie or something to pass for pajamas, and throw down a blanket over the wet crib sheet because I don't know where the extra bedding is at my mom's house. Also: exhausted. I have become a major pansy with night time wakings, considering I endured much much worse for many years with the other kids. I also give Porter a bottle after all of this because now is definitely not the time to get strict with crib bottles, man.

Cecelia is crying at 6:15 and I lay with her until 7 in her tiny bed, *not* sleeping, but begging CC to let me. Once their clock turns yellow I send her in to Nate who goes upstairs with her. It should be noted here that sister never quite understood the concept of our bedrooms being downstairs, and the main living space upstairs. She is so used to our house with the bedrooms upstairs she would always, always ask to go 'downstairs' when we were already in my mom's basement in her bedroom. Same for when we were upstairs at the kitchen or family room; she would always say 'we need to go upstairs to play in the playroom.' Ah, child. A difficult concept,  I suppose.

Porter is up at 7:45 and I hear mom and Cecelia come down (or is it 'up'?) to get him. I finally catapult myself out of bed after that but I'm still tired and super parched. OMG this dry air is insanity, zero humidity means we are all waking with chapped lips, dry noses and throats, and red eyes. 

Breakfast with the family, I shower, and finally Truman wakes up at 9! Sleepy head is having an excellent time on vacation, I think. The three girls of our group went to the nail salon at 9:30, because it's usually a tradition for mom and I to get manis/pedis when we are together. We can't always make this happen but we have announced it IS happening now and Cecelia loves tagging along. The dudes stay at home and my dad, my brother and Truman go to the driving range while Nate deals with Porter-fights-a-nap. He texts to say that Porter's bottle leaked all over him and P is really displeased with life in general. Fun times, glad I'm in getting my toes fancied and not maneuvering a mad baby right now!



Mom and I get our pedicures, and Cecelia sits on my lap and picks out blue, orange, and sparkle nail polish for her manicure. Mom and I then get regular manicures instead of our favorite gel variety to let our nails rest a bit, but this was a big mistake because we both smudged the polish within seconds of walking out of the salon. Oops. CC was especially adorable during our chick date and very well behaved. We all head next door to get a few crucial groceries, such as La Croix (I am a total goner with this stuff all of a sudden) and sister makes me pick Lime as a flavor to try. I know it's very unlikely that I will enjoy this flavor and Cecelia loves to taste my 'sparkle water', but I don't think she'll love it anyway. But the 'green water' is a must, apparently, so I get it and am not a big fan but whatever. Not sure why I feel the need to include this detail of the day but I really do love La Croix and want one after typing this post. 

Sweet nail, right?


Snacks when we returned home, a classic GoGo creation.



We got back to the house, ate a quick lunch and then me and the big guys went to New Belgium for our favorite brewery tour. The tickets for the tours sell out two months in advance and we totally forgot to check until the week before our trip, and they were all gone. But then Nate kept randomly checking back on the site and found four tickets for Friday at noon, so he swiped those immediately. SCORE. Seriously, if you are going to Fort Collins and you even remotely like beer you should do this tour. It's 90 minutes long, is FREE, the tour guides are extremely personable and FUN, and the company itself is top notch. They are really into leaving the smallest possible carbon footprint, the employees all get a vintage New Belgium bicycle for their one year work anniversary, and the climate is all about having a ball and enjoying life. Also the beer is phenomenal and they give you about 5 smallish glasses through the tour. Yes, five. You even get to pull your own from the tap to begin the tour and we had two different beers right off the bat this way. Our tour guide this time kept calling the glasses 'sippy cups' but there is nothing infantile about the amount of beer one can consume during the tour. After much education about the hops, kegs, sour beers and wine barrels, canning and bottling processes,  and the differences in their many beers you get to slide down a spiral metal slide to end your tour. So yeah, it's pretty freaking fantastic and this is obviously not biased or sponsored or affiliated in any way, I just get very amped up about this brewery tour! Maybe the numerous beers fog my opinions towards the obvious but brewery tours are fun. My notes from the tour: 'so so awesome'. Ha! Also, I say that my favorite beer is either Slow Ride IPA or Fat Tire, which is shocking because I'm positive I've had their most popular beer before (Fat Tire) and didn't like it. But in the past year my tastes have majorly changed and I am not as into wheat/sweet beers. But I freaking love IPAs and hoppy (?) beer now. Nate is very proud of me I think;)














After our tour Nate bought a tee shirt because he is a sucker for purchasing memorabilia after a fun experience like that. My brother bought the same one and I tried to find a shirt I'd actually wear but (shocker) I didn't think any of them would really look right on me/short and boxy. Then dad left around 1:30 to go home and help mom with the children who might be waking from their naps shortly. Built-in babysitters are the best!

Nate, Michael and I then decided we should go to Fort Collins Brewery for our second tour of the day, this one wasn't a place we tried two years ago on our last CO trip. It's a much smaller brewery and isn't quite as national yet, so we knew the tour wouldn't compare to New Belgium but it was still informative and interesting (no free beer during this one).  We each bought a beer after the short 15 minute tour and sat at the bar to enjoy and chat. This might be my favorite part of this day just because we could just sit and chill with my brother who I don't see nearly enough. My favorite beer here was one of their smaller batch ones, the Blackberry Basil Wheat. Nate and Michael did not approve of this one, FYI and since Nate was our driver he stopped drinking beer and changed to water. Someone has to be responsible I guess!

Selfie of me is after the second tour when I was a wee bit tipsy :/


Then we went to Old Towne for coffee at The Bean Cycle. This was our favorite of the numerous coffee shops we tried last time and it didn't disappoint this round either, but I sort of nursed my iced latte because my beer buzz was hitting hard by now. We drove home, reunited with kids, and got plenty of hugs and smiles from the goobers. 

Next it was time for dinner and we drove to at Pablos Pizza for the main event. Taking three small children to a restaurant is always such fun (sarcasm) but it's certainly more enjoyable with four adults to assist in the chaos! Mom and dad love Pablos for their fantastic gluten free crust and it's quite kid friendly and delicious, everyone ate a ton of pizza and behaved shockingly well for eating out on vacation. 



We had to say goodbye to Mike after diner, as he was driving to Colorado Springs for a final night before moving back to Missouri. He's been in Colorado getting his masters until now, when he moves onto the next chapter of getting his PhD in Social/Personality Psychology (I think that is the right term) from Mizzou. I mean, if you know my brother you are aware that he wasn't the most academic in high school and now he's mister scholar! So proud of him, obviously, crazy to think he is moving back to mid-Missouri and my parents are now in Colorado. 

Also, Truman is obsessed with Michael's cat, Margo. Mom had texted me this picture earlier in the day. And then Michael had to leave, wahhhhh.



The kids were sad to see Uncle Michael go but we quickly whisked them to Spooners for frozen yogurt which was a great distraction. And tasty! The kids loved the gigantic gummy sharks we let them get as a topping and I'm not sure they could even finish their entire cups. Porter is an ice cream hound (and pizza, too, for that matter) and had no problem 'sharing' my fro-yo. 




We headed back home, the kids all got a bath, and I put Porter down. Then while mom was reading to the big kids Nate and I walked to watch sunset. 



It never gets old and I know we were such tourists staring at the mountains and orange sky, but come on! We continued to discuss all of the inspiring house paint colors on this walk and I found my favorite, taking a sneaky picture (really awkward if this is your house, sorry!).

Perfect grays!

Love these flowers so much, they were everywhere in Colorado. I can't remember what mom called them.

Home at 8:30 and we did our part of Truman and Cecelia's bedtime. Once they were down Mom, Dad, Nate and I watched Catching Fire. We realized we had all seen it before and apparently I missed the fact that the next movie is already out on DVD, too. Stopped the movie at 10:45 because we were all dozing off/ready to have nightmares from the intensity of this movie. And then I stayed up until 11:45 to finish my book (Gone Girl) and knew I'd have even more nightmares!  Nothing like ending a nice, peaceful day on vacation with lots of MURDER on the mind, right?