This last weekend for our 6th anniversary (yes, it is a wee early given that the actual date is October 3rd) we drove down to Colorado Springs. We stayed at a bed and breakfast there and really enjoyed ourselves. I’ll attempt to give a general replay of most of the events as they happened.

Friday
Friday mid-afternoon we headed to Colorado Springs after dropping Abby off at my parents. We arrived at the bed and breakfast at almost five o’clock sharp. The innkeeper showed us around and the place was nice (you can see our room here) and then we headed out for dinner at Zio’s. Jessica got a dish that was outstanding, one which I don’t have the name for 🙂 However, she enjoyed it so much that I think she’ll go there again at some point and order that dish again. After dinner we drove into the outskirts of cookie-cutter-house-land and watch Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. That was a great movie! We enjoyed it for being a fun and light hearted. Don’t go see this movie if you want a drama, a chickflick or a documentary. The movie was fun. We then went home and went to bed, completely exhausted.

Saturday
Saturday morning held a really big surprise for us, one we hadn’t expected, but one that was really cool. The husband in one of the couples that was at our table had come home from Iraq Friday and so he had stories to tell that really made the oppulance of a bed and breakfast seem rich and beyond what we had taken for granted the night before. Carl (the man’s name) told us about the people he met there. He told us of a man who was a truck driver in Iraq during Saddam’s regime and how one night at a pub he had told his friends, in what he thought was privacy, that Saddam was an SOB . Shortly thereafter he was arrested and spent the first year in solitary confinement and torture followed by four years of a general prison sentence. For what can be translated into four English words. I’m glad we went over to Iraq having heard that story. Carl said that he didn’t meet one Iraqi person in Iraq who hadn’t lost at least one family member to Saddam or his military dictatorship in the four months he was in Iraq.

Breakfast was good, we had French toast (I cheated and had wheat) and a baked apple. After the meal we headed to The Garden of the Gods where we took in the amazing geological and geographical things to be viewed. We then searched for the cliff dwellings in a town called Manotou, also known as Virginia City, Nevada without gambling or brothels. However, we never found then so we just walked around the Tejan Street touristy area in downtown Colorado Springs. We had lunch at a great mexican restaurant, Sonterra Grill, and then headed to Josh and John’s and had some fantabulous ice cream. I had peanut butter and chocolate ice cream that was probably the best I’ve ever had (and I loves me some peanut butter and chocolate ice cream).

Saturday evening we went up to Seven Falls and hiked for a while. I fed the trout at the base of the falls all of the fish food I could buy without changing in bills for quarters 🙂 The falls are pretty at night when they light them up but I couldn’t catch them with my camera because I couldn’t keep the shutter open long enough. You can see pictures on their site that should show you roughly what we saw at night. We then went back into town, changed into clothes that made us look more civilized (the matching Chuy’s mexican restuatant shirts really weren’t nice enough for fine dining, or at least that’s what Jessica insisted). After dinner at MacKenzie’s we tucked into bed and watched an Avenger on my laptop and then went to sleep. We were exhausted from the events of the day but had a great Saturday.

Sunday
Sunday we awoke and ate breakfast with a different couple than the day before, they were from Pittsburgh and were visiting their daughter who goes to College at one of the schools there in CS . We then got our room picked up, checked out of the bed and breakfast and headed to the Super Target where I got a car charger for my cell phone and some gum 🙂 We then went to spend some serious money at the ritzy shopping center north of Colorado Springs (near the Focus on the Family compound exit if you know the area). There we bought some clothes, Jessica actually talked me into buying a long-sleeved shirt that has blue vertical stripes on it. I own almost entirely blue or quite shirts, but none have vertical stripes. This is way outside of my comfort zone but Jess said I looked handsome in it so I took the plunge.

We ate lunch (can you tell we love to eat?) at P.F. Chang’s. We had never eaten there before, but will probably go out of our way to eat there again. Great service, great food, great googly-moogly. The waitresses at Chang’s were as good as the ones at MacKenzie’s and we thought the food was just excellent.

We then went shopping around more of the shopping center and I almost bought a $60.00 whet stone. OK, not really. I wouldn’t pay that much for a whet stone unless Elvis had used it and I got a certificate of authenticity for three easy payments of $19.99. Of course it was at Williams-Sanoma so the price was average for that shop. As we were passing the min-named Victoria’s Secret a couple appearing to be in their 70’s passed by at the same time. I got a great kick out of imagining their conversation had they gone into Vicky’s – I can imagine the woman’s handbag being used to club him into submission as she dragged him out of the store. I suppose I’ve watched too many Monty Python sketches.

We grabbed some Starbuck’s coffee at Jessica’s insistence that we sit down in Starbuck’s and drink it. She drank so slowly it was unreal. I was going out of my mind waiting for her to finish her tall drink (remember at Starbuck’s ‘tall’ is small)… we made great time getting home and Jessica was amazingly insistent that we go to the Library to return some books and get a new Avenger’s DVD while we were without Abby. And then she went into the kids section to find out about some reading program while I tried to checkout at the library and took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get the information. Finally we left the library to go see Abigail, who I missed a whole bunch. Upon arriving at the Kaes’ I discovered my parents were there which was really a big surprise. And then seconds later the Matthew’s arrived and at that instant I realized Jessica had arranged a surprise party for me.

Fun was had by all (or at least thanks everyone who faked it if you didn’t really have fun) and I got a new gas grill as well as some toilette paper from the Kaes since I made a comment about their’s here. More families showed up including the Pool’s and the Jenkins’. I missed all of my friends in CA, NV, MI, WA and TX wish you could have been here.

And that’s what I did this weekend!