Our youngest daughter's new apartment is ready for her today, so we were waiting at the gate when they opened. Steve and his dad took the newly repacked trailer of treasures with them and headed straight to the apartment, and I took Steve's mom and headed downtown to pick up our son (in-law) who just happened to be in town and offered to help us with the move. When we all got there, we picked up her keys at the office and headed over to the apartment to get started. Our daughter had to work today, but said she would get off as early as possible.
It is a beautiful apartment, and we were excited to get started.
But of course, it has to get worse before it can get better.
Our daughter made it home in time for a late lunch, which was great, and her room-mates parents and sister were there as well. I had made a pot of green chili the night before, so we all enjoyed it where ever we could find a spot to sit.
And before long, it was coming together nicely.
Steve's parents left a little early and headed home. The rest of us finished with the finishing touches and then headed to a fun dinner together at La Fogata.
We are so excited for our daughter! She has the perfect room-mate, in the perfect location, in the perfect apartment, with the perfect room. We know that she will be very happy here and are excited for her to start her future in this great place.
Tomorrow morning we will repack the trailer with all of the leftover treasures that we need to take back to Havasu with us, and will head out on our journey home.
It is a very rare occasion that Steve's parents get to have all of their kids together at one time.
Steve's dad decided that a special dinner was in order, so we made a reservation at Bone Fish Grill for a nice evening together.
We even had an extra special treat, one of the grand kids, our youngest daughter, was able to come as well.
We were so happy that we could make this special dinner work out, and just look at the smiles on their faces as the evening drew to a close.
A huge thank you to Steve's parents for a wonderful dinner with as much family as we could include! It was a magnificent evening!
When we got home from the cabin, we realized that we just might have time to go to dinner. Our daughter has been working late every night since we got here, and we have been busy with all that we need to get done. This would be our first real downtime with our daughter since we got to Denver, and we weren't going to let this slip away!
Pasta Jays is an old family favorite restaurant in Boulder, CO. And it was the first thing that came to mind when we asked our daughter where she wanted to go for dinner.
The purpose of tonight was to just sit, eat, drink, talk and enjoy, so I have very few pictures and am happy about that!
Life is busy, and any chance we get to spend some quality time with this girl is like a dream come true. She is having a great summer, and just really taking time to enjoy life right now, and that makes us very happy! She is happy in her work life and her personal life, and that is all that we can hope for as her parents. We are so proud of who she has become!
When our part of the stair repair was complete at the cabin, we still had a few hours to enjoy, so our daughter and I took Steve's mom or a walk to Apache Lake.
The land back behind the lake has recently been broken up into large parcels, and the first of the cabins on one of those parcels is now under construction.
We hope that the view behind our cabin never gets ruined by the parceling out of the land, but only time will tell.
After our walk, we went back to the cabin for some finishing touch ups of the paint, and were rudely interrupted by a huge thunder storm. but once it settled down, we went our for a little afternoon fun, and this time Steve and his dad were finally able to join us.
Our daughter's favorite pass time is crawdad fishing so we went to the lake to see if anything was biting.
And sure enough, they were! We caught a record number of crawdads in a record amount of time!
The stairs are all done, and we even had time for some fun before we had to head home from the cabin. We would have loved to stay longer, but we had to get the girl back home for work tomorrow.
It's Saturday night, so our daughter and Steve's mom went up to town to play bingo. It ended up being a very profitable night, winning $11.50 at pickles and another $20.50 on bingo! What a night!
Then on their way home, they had two bear cubs run right in front of the car, and one stopped and stood up on it's hind legs and looked at them before continuing on. As they turned onto the cabin drive way, there stood a beautiful doe right in front of them.
To win at bingo, and see such beautiful wildlife doesn't happen on just any ordinary night, so this had to be the luckiest night ever at the cabin!
The main stairs on Steve's family cabin were built in about 1973, and had seen many years of snow and sun. They had become very soft and unsturdy, so one of our goals for this trip to Colorado was to rebuild them.
Steve and his mom and dad went up to the cabin on Thursday and started tearing out the old steps. It was a big, messy job, since much of the wood had rotted and was full of mold. But they got it all torn out, and then the thinking began.
The old stairs were very uneven, and had a wall foundation that would dictate the grade of the new stairs, so Steve and his dad really had to do some calculating to make the new stairs fit into the old space.
He and his dad built three new stair jacks, thinking that the first one would be the hardest, then the other two could be made from the pattern of the first, but unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. None of the area around the rock base was uniform, so each stair jack had to be hand cut to its own specifications.
By the time our daughter and I got to the cabin, the new stair jacks were in place and supported and were ready for a coat of primer.
and then a coat of paint.
Once they were primed and painted, Steve and his dad went back to work, cutting the stair treads. But once again, since the stairs weren't build to a normal stair specification, pieces of Trex had to be ripped to make the treads fit.
The finished result was beautiful and should last for many years to come. Steve and his dad did a great job!
Steve and his parents headed to the cabin this morning to get a head start on a stair rebuild project they are working on. Our youngest daughter and I stayed behind to enjoy a girls day. She suggested that we do lunch at a new restaurant downtown called Milk Market.
It is like an upscale food court, offering all kinds of different food, but all of the restaurants are owned by the same chef. And the food is much better than you would get in an ordinary food court.
We chose to share a poke bowl and an udon curry bowl from two different restaurants.
Then we bought an ice cream and went outside for a stroll.
Even the outdoor space is owned by Milk Market, so food and drinks can be enjoyed outside as well as inside. We had a fabulous lunch and walk before heading up to the cabin to meet up with Steve and his parents.
