We headed to Colorado for the second half of our USA aventure. First stop, my sister's place in Evergreen. It's always refreshing to hang out in Denver's mountains for a few days, playing FIFA with my nephew, watching out for birds and wildlife, and imbibing a few cocktails. We were lucky enough to get one warmish day and enjoyed it strolling downtown Evergreen.
From there, we went into Boulder and crashed at Will and Andrea's for five days. We had so much fun with their two hapa kids, Ellie (4.5) and Zander (2). It was really cute to see how enthusiastic the kids were about Jordan. The first thing they did every morning was come check on Jordan, and also the last thing before bed.
On Esther's birthday, we had a marvelous, sunny, 65 degree day and spent it walking around pearl street. Esther, on that day, fell in love with the city and was overheard saying, "Ok, we could live here." That's a common story though, people are always falling in love with Boulder.
Our last day in Boulder, we watched the Packers and Broncos both beat down in close games. Will and Andrea invited they friends who have kids, and in total there were toddlers roaming around, and one other baby two days younger than Jordan. Will smoked some pork and we enjoyed the best/only BBQ i've had since Home Plate in Beijing. As you can see, Jordan was quite a hit with the ladies.s
With our last 4 days, we headed to the Glenwood Springs/Aspen area to visit Jordan (my friend from college) and his family. That drive on I-70, through Summit County and Glenwood Canyon, is just so spectacular, it's almost worth the 3 hour drive just to see that. But once there, we found more to make the trip worthwhile.
We went to Aspen one day and, while easily the coldest day of our trip, we still had a great time. Big Jordan and I suffered 5 runs worth of cold while Nicki and Esther hung out in they city. Afterwards, Esther and I rode the Gondola up to the top to check out the view. We lasted about 45 seconds at the top before the cold forced us off.
We spent the rest of our USA time hanging out back at my parents house and relaxing in between multiple trips to Target, Esther's new favorite store. I didn't remember Target having so much cheap stuff, but unbelievably, it seemed even cheaper than shops in China.
We then shipped Jordan back to China just in time for the Chinese New Year craziness. Hurrah!
~Kev
