road trip extravaganza . part 2

ahh, on the road again! upon leaving albuquerque, we were all entirely too amused by this horse calmly enjoying the wind blowing through his mane at a brisk 80 mph, and since i am not below snapping pictures while whizzing down the highway, i’ll share our amusement with you…

the ride to denver went rather smoothly, emmitt read while daddy went…crazy?

as anticipated, entering colorado lead us to our celebratory stop and ultimate tourist photo-op. i’m pretty sure nothing makes you feel more tourist-y than yanking your car over at every state sign, dragging out your tripod/camera, unloading the kids & posing for photos while other cars gawk at you while zooming by! on the flip-side, now i have a permanent visual record of all the states the boys have visited…tourist-y = win! 🙂

*irony : colorful colorado’s not so colorful colorado sign*

we stopped in colorado springs for an hour or so to let the boys stretch their legs (where else, but mickey d’s…*side note* if anyone out there reading this own’s a subway or fastfood restaurant other than the golden arches it would be really, REALLY wise of you to install some play areas so parent’s aren’t forced to take their kids to the SAME PLACE to play…who’s with me!?)…i digress… we stopped to let the boys stretch their legs & meet up with carri, my roomate from college!

i’m going to get wordy & honest for a quick second. i’m horrible at keeping in touch…horrible? make that horrendous. and the worst part is, i know it. so for anyone out there who i haven’t kept in touch with (which, let’s face it, is just about everyone) i want you to know that i think of you, that i hope your life is everything you want it to be & to be prepared because i may pop in on you at any minute…right carri?

and break! it was beyond wonderful to see carri. even for only an hour, we got to catch up; she met the boys; and we laughed like we used to! thank you carri for taking your lunch break at the golden arches on such short notice!

just to forewarn you, the remainder of this post focuses primarily on our denver cuisine 🙂

dinner revolved around a famous restaurant known by locals as ‘the cricket’. featured on food network as the ‘WORLD’S #1 cheeseburger’ we just had to try it out!

the burgers were delicious & we were impressed, but not as impressed as we were with our morning stop at a little place called ‘the shoppe.’ featured in sunset magazine, get this, ‘the shoppe’ is a coffee shop+cereal bar+cupcake shop = AWESOME!

and don’t you just feel like the coolest parent when you tell your 3-year-old he’s having cupcakes for breakfast? oh vacation, i love you!

the interior was an awesome mix of modern, eclectic & grunge…

ok now as if i haven’t already bombarded you with enough pictures from this stop (like i said we were REALLY impressed), we have to quickly highlight the bowl of cereal chad ordered, which was probably the most amazing bowl of cereal either one of us had ever seen! *for reals* literally, almost half a box of special K with strawberries, then mountains of fresh strawberries on top of that, sprinkled with white chocolate chips & topped with huge wallops of whipped cream….now THAT’S a bowl of cereal!

if you are ever, ever in denver be absolutely SURE you hit up ‘the shoppe’ – it’s totally worth the stop!