First steps!

On Friday, Jane took her first two steps on her own! She's been walking around with me or Liz holding her hands in the last few weeks, but this was the first time she took steps on her own. Wow, it's very exciting, but as Apple says "this changes everything!"

Colorado Rocks!

Last week we got back from a trip to Colorado. We were there for a week, attending a wedding in Ouray and also visiting family in Colorado Springs. It was a fun trip, and Colorado was beautiful. And, Jane was great and did really well throughout all the traveling we did, even with the time change.

Here's a travelogue...

We arrived in Denver last Thursday, July 30. It was Jane's first plane ride (and our first plane ride as parents w/ baby in tow), so we were a bit nervous about how things would go. But everything went really well -- Jane slept most of the way and was otherwise really good on the plane. Phew! We drove from Denver down to Colorado Springs where we were visiting family. We stayed in Colorado Springs for one night, and then it was off for a drive through the Rocky Mountains to Ouray, a small town surrounded by mountains in southwest Colorado for a wedding.

The drive to Ouray was long, but really good. The scenery was amazing! It seemed like every mile I said "wow." The highest point on the drive was Monarch Pass which was 11,000 feet. The views were incredible. We also went through several river valleys which were lush and green. We took US Route 50 through the mountains, going through towns of various sizes, many of which started as mining towns: Canon City (home of 13 penitentiaries!), Salida, Gunnison, and Montrose. The pictures we took just don't do the scenery justice.

When we got to Ouray late afternoon on Friday, July 31. Ouray is a very small town of around 800 people with only paved road. But it's a beautiful setting at the head of a river valley and surrounded by mountains on three sides. We were there for one of Liz's old friend's wedding. We spent Friday night at a rehearsal dinner party. And Saturday in the morning we hiked up to the Box Canyon Falls, a local waterfall, and then up a mountain to a bridge that had great views of the town. Saturday evening was the wedding, and it was very nice. It was an outdoor wedding under the mountains. Again, Jane was great throughout the wedding even though she was it was way past her bedtime.

We took off from Ouray on Sunday morning to head back to Colorado Springs. The drive back was just as great, in fact, it took less time, and in some ways the scenery was even better than the drive to Ouray. We got back to Colorado Springs in the late afternoon.

Back in Colorado Springs, we spent the rest of our time (about 3.5 days) visiting with Cathy and Doug and their kids. It was great to see them -- they moved from MD back in February, so we haven't seen them since then. We went to a pretty park with Cathy, Gammy, Braeden, Abby, and Jane for a picnic and some playground time. That was fun; there are some pictures of me on a seesaw -- that's my best event. (Oh yeah, we had to drive on Rollercoaster Road to get to the park -- not making that up.) And, we visited the Cheyenne Mountain (yes, the home of NORAD) Zoo with Cathy, Gammy, Braeden, and Abby. Jane liked the monkeys (as did Dad) and the giraffes. The zoo was literally on the side of the Cheyenne mountain. Liz, Jane, and I went to Garden of the Gods, a park of natural rock formations. I took a lot of pictures there, and then we visited Manitou Springs for some lunch. If you hadn't guessed, Garden of the Gods was beautiful, as was pretty much all the scenery we came in contact with.

We got home Thurs, Aug 7, pretty late -- our flight out of Denver was delayed -- so we were tired.

Take a look at all the pictures we took.

This is a map of our travel routes:

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