So after we visited Washington we made our way back down to Angel and Louis’ house. We were able to have some fun that evening with the trampoline (image below) but that was where the fun ended. The next day our plans had an abrupt change.
We planned to stay for at least the rest of the week and visit further – also maybe make a beach trip or something too. The next day we were all outside and the kids were playing. One of Angel’s kids had hit Arabella with a stick. Arabella came over to us crying as she was hurt. We asked what happened and she told us. About this time Angel was listening to what was happening too. She called her kid over and had her go inside. We asked Angel to have her daughter apologize to Arabella… however, that was quickly shut down and we were told that public humiliation is not something she exposes her kids to.
Yeah, that didn’t sit very well with me or Maryia. If our kids hurt someone else we would at least have them apologize to them. One thing led to another and then everyone was up in arms about what went down. Angel was telling us how she went to school to be with kids and she knows how to handle these situations. Louis quipped as we left “well we knew someone was about to overstay their welcome, it just happened to be you guys”. We basically took everything we brought with us and loaded it up and made our way back. At least getting out of that situation as quickly as we could. That night we stayed in eastern Oregon. We figured that we would try to turn this bad thing into a good thing for our family. Give us some new experiences.
The next day we visited Elgin, the place the wife was from for the first short while of her life, then we made our way into Idaho (photo below). We visited the capitol building here as well. Not many great photos came of it- however, here is a cute one we took in the elevator!
After spending the night nearby looking at the area to see if in the future we would ever want to live there (we would not want to) we kept moving on. Next up? Utah!
Utah had a really pretty state capitol building, but it was blazing hot when we visited. Not fun to carry a baby in. Thankfully the inside had AC. Where should we go next? Well.. we figured we would visit Grams in Colorado. There was no quick way to do that – so we figured that since we were on this sightseeing tour, we would stop and see the Wyoming Capitol as well. East we go!
The photos below show us crossing into Wyoming. The state capitol was under construction but we got to see it (it was the building with the gold dome and our car outside). We then headed down into Colorado. Ara and Lijah were again sent out for the normal state sign photos that we take. We headed right to the capitol building. It didn’t impress us as much as Washington or Utah (and we couldn’t compare Wyoming, and Idaho was forgettable). The photo below of the inside of the building is the Colorado capitol building.
We also went to visit the Columbine Memorial. In my age group, you grew up with the Columbine event in reality. It happened before our eyes. We took the time to visit – it is a really nice memorial to all of the lives that were lost. The wife caught a moment where I gave Ara a flower. We also stopped by the school, but (not surprisingly) they had security everywhere so it was hard to even stop for a second.
We visited Michael and Sarah (Maryia’s brother and his girlfriend) and met little Gabriel who also met our kids.
We also stopped that day to say hi to Micah (a friend we had from college) as we generally will visit you if we are in your area. We got to visit her and her dad. Elijah peed on her but she took it like a champ. Ironically that was the last time we spoke to her in person – and one of the last few times we have spoken to her at all.
On down to southern Colorado near Alamosa. We surprised Grams and visited her, she was so excited to see the kids. We only stayed the night as we didn’t want to burden her too much. Below is one of the photos that we took with the kids sitting with her. Also had the wife get in for a group photo. It was great to visit her, it helped put things in perspective. I also captured a sunrise photo the next day – it was beautiful.
After we had said our goodbyes to Grams, we started to wrap up the trip by visiting New Mexico and its state Capitol before heading back to Arizona.
just Pray
note: this post was published on 07/29/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of July 2017 to keep chronological order.
