Colorado, 2

The last couple days of vacation the girls and I tried to stay busy so Arnie could rest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read about an "easy hike" that was great for dogs....we took 2 wrong turns, which made it about twice as long, but we made it to rainbow lake. When we got there we were the only people around. the girls took off their shoes and waded in, I sat down on a stump, hooked Wrigley's leash to my foot and started giving Haddie a bottle. All of the sudden a few other people showed up along with their 10 dogs...none of them on leashes. You can imagine how that went. Wrigley was going crazy and pretty much tied herself around my legs- which caused all the other (soaking wet) dogs to come check her out, all while Haddie was SCREAMING and the dog owners were paying no attention (or we totally amused by the lady with her hands full!) I finally just let Wrigley go. She got soaked and muddy but had a good time. After we finished the hike we went to town and found a dog wash!

 

 

 

Wrigley's twin.

 

 

The last morning we were there it was rainy so we decided to try to Breckenridge Rec Center pool, Arnie felt good enough to go with us. It was a great pool and a good way to burn off some energy before we packed up.

 

 

 

Our campsite for the week.

 We headed down to Denver and the girls and I did some shopping while Arnie rested.

 

 Saturday morning we ran into a gas station to look for doughnuts, the girls spotted the malts.....when on vacation, right??

 

See sometimes I do like her :)

It sure wasn't the vacation we hoped to have and we are so sorry Arnie was feeling so crummy. In hindsight, I wish we had come home and had him checked out, but I'm still happy to have made some great memories with the kids. I love the mountains, hopefully our next trip will be better.

Colorado, 1

Sunday morning, after Brandon's wedding we got up early and headed for the mountains.

 There was an awful accident on the interstate so we were stuck for a few hours. (Haddie always rides in a car seat, she just got to get out while we weren't moving.)

 

 

 

....still not going anywhere.

 

We stopped for the night at a state park just inside Colorado. We didn't have much time to enjoy it, but we did take a nice walk.

Our first morining day we set out for a hike....we thought it was going to be a pretty easy one, but I think maybe we took a wrong turn. BUT we made it (and considering what was going on with Arnie, I'm super grateful he didn't collapse at the top!)

 

 

 

Only Gracie could run up a steep hill at 12,000 feet!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girls thought this would be a good mountain home for Grandma and Grandpa, there is a campsite attached....they said Grandpa could have the camper and Grandma could have the house :)

 

 

 

Brandon's Wedding.

Before our trip to Colorado we spent the weekend in Lincoln celebrating Brandon & Paige. We're so happy for them and were so glad we could be there for their big day.

We stopped to visit Papa when we got to town.

 

Brandon came over to hug Maggie before we went down the isle- she was so happy!

The reception was at the UNL Alumni Center, Grandma Margaret was on the Board of Regents when the building was
dedicated so the sign above Maggie's head has her name on it.

 

Haddie was tired of all the noise so we took a walk over to the TriDelta house and looked in the windows and talked
about when Mommy used to live there.

TROUBLE!

Arnie Update

Arnie will be thrilled that he's the topic of my post (can you hear my sarcasm??) Considering where he's been, he's doing great. A couple of weeks ago when we were in Lincoln he wasn't feeling great, we thought it was a stomach bug and surely it would pass. We headed for the mountains and he did okay the first day or so we were there but then he got really uncomfortable. He went to see a doctor in Breckenridge, she diagnosed altitude sickness, gave him some fluids and some nausea medicine and we thought things would improve. He tried to tough it out but we could tell he wasn't feeling very good. Friday we decided to pack up and head down, hoping getting to lower elevation would improve things. He did a great job driving home and seemed to be feeling decent. After another visit to the doctor and a trip to the emergency room they finally did a CT and discovered he had perforated his colon. There was lots of infection making him feel pretty awful. He spent ALL of last week in the hospital, came home Friday afternoon and is finally starting to feel human again. He's lost a lot of weight (I think he weighs less now then when we went to college) and is tired of having a drain in his abdomen (hopefully it will come out later this week). Yesterday he went to work for a few hours and he's back there today. There is likely another surgery in his future to ensure this doesn't happen again but it will be awhile before we have to worry about that, for now we can just focus on getting him feeling better and his strength back.

It's all been completely miserable for Arnie, but there really were a few small blessings in it. First, thank God they found it and while it's awful, it's fixable. Second, I've never been so grateful for the Olympics in my life, if we had been at the hospital for an entire week with normal daytime television we would have gone crazy, at least we had entertainment! Third, We had all the people we needed....Maggie was already in Omaha when Arnie went to the hospital, she's such a worrier that not having to tell her what was going on was good, Dick and Betti were home and could help with the little girls all week and Jen and Amy weren't back to school yet so they could be my extra hands. It took a village!

Haddie hung with me at the hospital a lot, she was such a good girl!

 

 

 

 

Maggie was in Omaha having a great time during her Grandma and Grandpa days! She'd have
been worried sick if she knew Arnie was at the hospital so it was the perfect distraction!