We had the best time in Denver last week! The trip was short but sweet. I decided to break it up into two posts so it’s not so long. Are you ready for a fun recap of a quick trip out to Denver?!
Thursday was the start of our trip but every mom knows it doesn’t actually start Thursday, it starts when you begin to really dive into the packing of everyone’s things. And while I was packing I totally regretted the fact that I did not order the travel cubes everyone talks about from Amazon. Lesson learned for the next trip!
Thursday
Since Thursday really was the start to our trip we’ll begin there. Our flight was at 9:30 am so we didn’t have to wake at an outrageous hour to get up and get out the door but we did have to get up early enough to leave the house by 7:00 am. We are so lucky that Tampa International is only about 20-30 minutes away from us without terrible traffic and not only that but TPA is probably the nicest, easiest airport I’ve ever flown out of. We love everything about our airport. The best part is probably how they divide every airline up to different TSA checkpoints. This makes for an easy TSA process.
I have to tell you I really didn’t know what to expect for Caroline on the flight. Caroline is a really good girl but she does like to be cooped up somewhere for over 2 hours. Our flight thankfully was only 3.5 hours long but it was on the side of a more difficult flight for me. I love to fly but I’m not a fan of the tight spaces, dry air, antsy toddler, and overall dirty feeling you get while being on an airplane. Maybe one day they’ll reinvent all airplanes to be more spacious, that alone would make all the difference.
Caroline was pretty good throughout the flight but she got extremely fidgety at points and there was really nowhere for us to go. We did everything from watching a movie that surprisingly she wasn’t super interested in to coloring and yes the crayons went everywhere, to reading a book, to playing on the phone. I kept wishing I was even better prepared to entertain her, but I’m not sure I really could have been. I think the thing that would have really helped would have been her having her own seat, even then I know she would have had some bad moments. And let me tell you the nap didn’t last long enough at all.
When we finally landed in Denver we went and picked up our rental car and went through 3 rental car seats! Yes, 3! The first two were awful and disgusting. Then a super sweet man got us a nice one. It was just hard to put in. I thought the rental company would put the car seat in the car for you. Boy, was I wrong! In the end, John and I got the car seat in as best as we could. That being said, I still don’t know if I’m convinced to bring our own car seat with us the next big trip.
After our crazy adventure with the car seat, we headed straight to John’s Aunt’s house. We were there in Denver for his cousin’s wedding and many people were visiting at his Aunt’s at the time so we swung by there and had a great time seeing everyone who also flew mainly from Tampa! lol!
After visiting, we went to Union Station. If you visit Denver on a quick trip, you need to go see Union Station. It was super cute, trendy, beautiful and yummy. We kept saying we wish we could go back. We stopped there and ate a delicious burger, fries, and cold beer. It was just what we needed. I realized at that point I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast that morning at 6 am and it was now about 4 pm EST. So I was in need of some food. We walked around Union Station for a little then headed outside before we needed to leave. As we were leaving, we hit up the free ping pong tables they have set up outside. John and I love to play tennis together but haven’t taken the time to since Caroline was born so this was a good replacement. Caroline loved watching us too!
Once we got back to the car we had to pay a huge parking fee. We did not realize how expensive the public parking garages were across the street from Union Station. Tip: If you’re going to Union Station, try to find some cheaper parking that’s not directly across the street. Downtown Denver is beautiful and would have totally been worth the walk if we weren’t in a time crunch.
After visiting Union Station, we headed to our hotel and got cleaned up and ready for the rehearsal dinner. Caroline LOVED our king size bed. She was so cute crawling all over it.
That night we ended it with spending lots of fun time with family! Caroline loved playing with all her cousins and we had a great time with John’s cousins.
Friday
Friday morning we woke up pretty early and headed down to the hotel’s free breakfast. If you’re ever staying in Denver and don’t mind driving far to downtown and the mountains, you should totally check out Embassy Suites, it was just lovely. We had free drinks at night, free breakfast in the morning, and a nice bedroom living room split so we didn’t have to always be in the bedroom when we were in the hotel. I love hotels like this. They always make traveling easier.
After breakfast, we decided to head out to the Red Rock Amphitheater. As a Floridian, I love to see any type of mountain, rock, or hill. The Amphitheater is definitely worth checking out. If you’re into hiking they have some fun trails you can take too. My brother-in-law and his family did some trails, we decided to sleep in instead. 🙂
After Red Rock, we needed to eat a quick lunch before the wedding so we stopped at non-other than the Grand Great Ole Chick-Fil-A! So good and yummy anywhere you go!
Once we were all showered up and ready to go we arrived at John’s cousin Kathleen’s wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and Caroline kept it together for the most part. Thankfully she is used to going to Mass every weekend and Kathleen’s wedding was a full Mass. So beautiful.
After the wedding, we had some time in between so I decided to let Caroline take a nap. Bless her heart, she was so tired that when we woke her up to go to the reception downstairs she kept saying no, no. She didn’t want to get up, she was soooo tired.
But man did Caroline have a fun time at the reception or what. Every time I would go to sit down and mingle she wanted to get back up and go to the dance floor. She was cracking us up!
Once we went upstairs, it was a rush to get her into bed. Caroline was so tired. She was completely exhausted and cried/whined until I put her down in her pack n play.
I hope you enjoyed this first part of our trip to Denver! I’ll be posting Part 2, much shorter next week!
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XO,
holley
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