My Rocky Mountain High

I was lucky enough to travel to Colorado recently to visit my BFF, Tiffany.  The travel itself was exhausting and crazy, as it always is, but it was worth every second.

I was supposed to fly from Lexington to Dallas then Dallas to Denver on Thursday night.  I arrived at the airport in Lexington with plenty of time to check in and get through security.  Turns out I was really super-early as there was terrible weather in Dallas, and I wasn't able to leave Thursday night at all.  I went home, slept for a few hours, and arrived back at the airport on Friday at 4:30 AM.  After hours and hours of traveling, I arrived in Denver around 9:00 AM.  Tiffany was there waiting to whisk me away to Fort Collins.

I spent Friday morning hanging out with Tiffany at her amazing house with the beautiful view of the mountains.  Tiffany's decorating is the perfect combination of eclectic, funky, vintage, and comfortable.  Simply put, it's stunning.  We spent Friday afternoon walking around Old Town, and then I got to see my other fantastic friend, Mike.  Tiffany, Mike, and I were all friends at Butler University, and we have remained friends ever since.  The three of us got lots of treats from Whole Foods and cracked up the rest of the night.  There was even a genuine spit-take from Mike.  Classic.

How gorgeous is this guest room in Tiffany's house?  

Saturday morning, Tiffany and I drove up to Estes Park.  We had huge plans to stay at the Stanley Hotel; the Stanley is what inspired Steven King to write _The Shining._   We were even going to stay in the room where he stayed: room 217.  We were on the road, about five minutes from the hotel, when Tif's phone rang.  Someone from the Stanley was calling to say that a pipe had burst and we couldn't use the room.  Now, if you know Tiffany, you know she rarely gets mad.  This was one of the times I could feel the rage coming off her in waves.  The woman from the Stanley ended up giving us another room for free and threw in breakfast as well.  We were disappointed, but really, we just wanted the bragging rights of staying in room 217.  We decided to make the best of a free room, and we went on our way.

After checking in, we went to our lovely room with this view:

Incredible!  The day before, I was in Kentucky: now I got to look at the Rocky Mountains!  The only problem with the room was that it was 81 degrees, and the Stanley doesn't have air-conditioning.  We turned off the heat, opened the windows, and prayed it would cool off before bedtime.  We had a bite to eat (and maybe a drink) in the hotel restaurant before our ghost tour.  Spooooky!  Our tour guide, Teri, was very sweet and knowledgable about the history of the Stanley hotel.  It was really fascinating to hear how it all was started and what has happened on the grounds.  Tif and I, as usual, cracked each other up during the tour, but we were also respectful of Teri and the rest of the group.  I did ask Teri if she knew about the "burst pipe" in room 217, and she didn't know anything about it.  There was some sort of paranormal conference that weekend with famous paranormal experts.  Tif and I think that someone else offered to pay out the nose for room 217, hence the burst pipe story.

This is my "Will there be ghosts in our room tonight?" face

After the ghost tour, we hung out in the room for a while and watched _The Shining_ which plays on a continuous loop on the hotel's TV system.  We had another quick bite in the restaurant, then headed out for ghost stories by the campfire.  We assumed that this would take place outside because that's where campfires are, right?   We even stopped by the gift shop and bought matching furry hats because it was chilly up in the mountains at night.  The sign even said that blankets would be provided, and we were ready for some marshmallows and specters.  We bundled up and wandered the grounds looking for the fire.  We finally found it...in a fireplace.  The ghost stories were INSIDE.  We laughed and took a seat, but after about fifteen minutes, we had to flee.  It was about 85 degrees in that room, and we just couldn't take it anymore.  Then we thought we would treat ourselves to dessert from room service, but every time we called the room service number, we got the restaurant's voicemail.  Sigh.  In addition, the room had only cooled down to a balmy 74 degrees or so.  We reluctantly closed the curtains for the night so we wouldn't wake up with the sun, turned off the tv, and went to bed.  (This is an important detail.)

A trick of the light or purple orbs at the end of the hall?  

The next morning, we woke up a little late due to the time change.  Darn you, Daylight Savings!  We went to the restaurant and ordered about five things on the menu because, you know, it was free!  During breakfast, I thought to ask Tiffany if she had closed the doors to the TV armoire sometime in the night.  She hadn't. As I hadn't either, we wondered how the doors closed.  After breakfast, we went back to our room and experimented with the armoire doors.  It would have taken a fair bit of force to get those doors shut; we knew it wasn't the wind because we had closed the curtains in the night and no breeze had gotten through.  Did a friendly visitor shut the doors for us?  Maybe.  There have been numerous reports of strange happenings in room 413, so perhaps we didn't need room 217 after all.

Ghosts!  Specters!  Haints!  We're scared!  (But we're also adorbs in our matching hats.)

We left Estes Park Sunday morning and did a bit of shopping in Boulder.  We also met Mike again for dinner at the Happy Sumo, and the sushi was incredible.  We picked up Tiffany's daughter in Thornton where she had spent an exciting weekend with her grandparents, and we were off again to Fort Collins.  We stayed up as late as we could Sunday night to squeeze in every last minute we could together.  Sadly, I realized that I'm not twenty anymore, and I didn't make it too late before I had to go to bed.  I blame the altitude for my exhaustion because it certainly can't be that I'm getting older.

My trip was over way too soon.  Tiffany and Frankie took me to the airport Monday morning.  It took no time to get through security, and I meandered through the airport for a while, sniffing back tears because I already missed my friends.  My flight boarded, and then we were stuck on the tarmac for a while because there was bad weather in Chicago.  We finally arrived in the Windy City, and I had an almost three hour layover.  After three gate changes, I finally got on a plane to Lexington and arrived home around 10:00 PM.

The visit was way too short, but it was fantastic.  It was just what I needed before I start the insanity of the next few months.  There's nothing like good friends to make a girl feel better about anything that may be worrying her.  Thanks, Tiffany and Mike, for showing me such an amazing time.  Love you guys!  And thanks to Trevor for taking such good care of the kids while I was gone.  You're a good man, T.

Sweet November

I adore November.  It's my birthday month (yay!), Thanksgiving, the beginning of winter in my mind, and, most importantly, November signifies that Halloween is over.  I'm not a complete humbug, but Halloween is not my favorite occasion.  I can't even really call it a holiday because it's not something I want to celebrate.  I have no beef with the whole idea of Halloween; I enjoy being freaked out just as much as the next gal.  But what I cannot stand is the hype and the candy.  Well, I personally love the candy, but I don't love what the candy does to my kids.  And when did Halloween start becoming like Christmas?  School parties, greeting cards, decorations...it's all too much.

This Halloween has been especially trying for me.  Dallas is in a stage where he is scared of pretty much everything.  The Halloween decorations all over our neighborhood didn't help anything.  A house down the street from us had two blowup Halloween decorations in the yard: a giant pirate ship manned by skeletons and a giant treasure chest with a skeleton that popped out like a jack-in-the-box.  Dallas was so freaked by the whole scene that I have spent the last week driving out of my way just so we don't have to pass "the chest guy" in the car.  The chest guy has haunted my poor boy's days and nights.  He talks about the chest guy all the time.  Seriously, all day.  If he hates the darn thing so much, why does he play it over and over in his head?  Who knows.

Surprisingly, Halloween night went pretty well.  It started off a bit bumpy because Lottie refused to eat dinner due to sheer and utter excitement.  She couldn't focus on anything other than the promise of trick-or-treating.  The lack of food in her system caused a few meltdowns before her costume was even on.  Thankfully, she was able to pull it together and get her Jessie groove back.  Dallas got dressed with no problem, unless you count the fact that he changed his mind about his costume on an hourly basis.  Fireman.  Pirate.  Fireman.  Pirate.  Pirate, for sure.  Definitely fireman.  He finally picked pirate, and he was ready to go with his hook and sword.

We trolled our street as it started to get dark outside.  At first, Lottie wanted either Trevor or me to go up to the doors with her, but that ended quickly.  She was a real pro, striding confidently from house to house with one mission on her mind: more candy.  She chastised the rest of us for not walking fast enough.  "Quickly, you guys!  Quickly!"  She was so grown-up: confident and independent.  It was so gratifying and heartbreaking all at the same time.  Dallas was a little more timid, but he was beyond sweet.  He very politely spoke to everyone we saw, he thanked the people who gave him candy, and he even told most of them he'd see them again soon.  He was quick to reassure people who greeted him as if he were a pirate, "I'm just pretending.  It's really me, Dallas!"  He begged to go to a house that had an inflatable haunted house in front of it: the whole love/hate thing rearing its ugly head.  I eventually agreed to take him to see the spooky house, and he just stood in front of it for a long time.  He didn't want to walk through the inflatable, so we walked around it together.  I was proud of his attempt at bravery even though it must have cost him dearly to be within two feet of something that scared him so much.

The evening started off bumpy and ended with two tired kids who were past their bedtimes.  But they had fun, and that's all that really matters.  Of course, now we have to deal with the loads and loads of candy, but that's another blog...

A ghost, a skeleton, and Dallas walk into a Halloween party...

It's hard being the second kid sometimes.  As parents, we know what crazy things the second kid will try based on what the first kid has done...if the first kid got caught.  Second kids get the hand-me-down clothes, the unfinished baby books and photograph albums, and comparisons to the older sibling.  As much as I try not to compare Lottie and Dallas, it happens.  I'm only human.

Dallas is now in a phase that Lottie never really went through: the imaginary friend phase.  Dallas's imaginary friends aren't the normal, run-of-the-mill friends, though.  No, not for my boy.  Dallas's imaginary friends are a skeleton and a ghost, and quite often, they all spend time together at a Halloween party or a Halloween store.

A few weeks ago, we took Lottie and Dallas to the local Halloween Express just to look at the costumes and decorations.  Dallas made it approximately eight seconds in the store before losing his mind.  I should have known not to even bother having him go inside when he started to quake at the inflated black cat at the entrance.  He was pretty hysterical, so I took him outside with me.  We couldn't even sit on the steps leading to the store, though, because the cat was looming over us.  We sat in the car and listened to "Wheels on the Bus" ad nauseum until Lottie and Trevor emerged from the store, totally unscathed.  Ever since then, Dallas has had a love-hate relationship with anything scary or Halloween-related.  He loves to read Halloween books from the library, but he can't stand the thought of watching any Disney movie with a villain.  (So, that basically leaves...nothing.) He constantly wants to talk about Halloween decorations, but when it comes to seeing them, he's still unsure.  And now we have the new pals, the ghost and the skeleton.  These imaginary friends don't hang out with us on a daily basis; I mean, I don't have to set a place at the dinner table for them or anything.  But in a sense, they're always with us.  Dallas is usually pretty precise with his words, but when it comes to the ghost and the skeleton, he tends to ramble.  He talks about them on the swings, at school, in the bathtub, during snack time, in his bed, in the car...you get  the picture.  Often, the stories involve things he and his pals have done at a Halloween party or things they have seen at a Halloween store.  And it's not just any party or store: Dallas always throws the party and he also owns the store.

Sometimes the skeleton brings cookies to Dallas's Halloween party.  Once, the ghost pushed the skeleton into the water at Dallas's party, and Dallas had to save the ghost.  Then the skeleton got a time-out.  I wonder where this party is taking place?  The YMCA?  Lake Cumberland?  California?  And who administers the time-outs?  'Cause I know I'm not invited to these shindigs.  The ghost seems to always be the victim of the skeleton's pranks; the skeleton has also been known to spit, hit, push, and kick other people.  The worst of all of skeleton's traits, though, is his lack of sense of humor.  Dallas often laments, "Only the skeleton doesn't know any good jokes."

I did a little research on the Internet about imaginary friends.  Apparently, doctors used to think that kids who had imaginary friends were lacking something in their real lives: not enough friends or time with other children.  The current perspective, though, is that kids who make up playmates tend to have better verbal skills and social understanding than kids who choose not to create friends.  It also tends to be associated with strong creativity later in life.  Imaginary friends are no longer considered a "red flag." Whew.  My kid's not a freak; well, at least, not for that reason.  ;)

Overall, I don't mind the skeleton and the ghost.  In fact, I sort of like them.  It's fascinating to hear the stories, and I'm glad that Dallas is included in the adventures.  We've had some rough roads recently with Dallas's food allergies and him feeling left out at school; any form of inclusion he can get is pretty wonderful in my book, even if it's all in his mind.  Because, after all, to quote Albus Dumbledore, "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it isn't real?"