Sunday, July 5, 2009

Mom's Visit

Last week, my mom drove from Montana for a weekend visit. She claimed it was the typical "how are you, miss you, let's do fun stuff together" trip, but I know it was to inspect my foot and see how I was healing so she could report back to Dad and they could increase or decrease the current level of worrying from afar as needed. I apparently did not pass the test because the parents have determined that I should be healing faster. Meh.

In the meantime, Mom and I had a blast. Mom managed to reach our apartment on schedule Wednesday evening without getting lost as usual. I immediately took her out for potato-stuffed burritos followed by Coldstone ice cream. When we couldn't possibly eat anymore, we pumped up her air mattress for her first night in the living room, as our apartment is guest room free.
The next morning we visited the Denver Botanic Gardens. Eventually. First we had to drive around repeatedly in circles of one way streets as there was construction at the entrance of the gardens and the location of the temporary parking lot wasn't apparent. After attempted parallel parking which lead to a great deal of swearing, I found an end spot in a neighborhood where we wouldn't have to walk too far to the entrance. The garden entrance was elusive, as even on foot we couldn't tell where to actually get in. Finally figured it out and it was beautiful. It's been a rainy year in Colorado and we got some stunning shots of the gardens. Of course, the pictures don't reveal the fact that we spent most of our tour on the perimeter of the gardens (in the shade) and I hobbled along at a slow pace while Mom attempted to name all the flowers, even though most of them were properly labeled. Fresh lemonade partway through the gardens helped cool us down and all in all it was a great trip.

















Of course Mom needed to see the grad school where little brother Sam will be in August. Unfortunately, Garmin had an error requiring a download and without my GPS I was lost in the tangle of downtown Denver. Denver overall is laid out in a very predictable North-South, East-West pattern, except for downtown which is a mess of streets, I'm told similiar to the layout of Paris. I showed Mom most of downtown Denver, not including the grad school, but hey, she got the idea. I headed North, where I know my way around and we ended up shopping for the rest of the afternoon.

The remainder of the trip included Tapas and wine, margaritas on the patio, a chick flick, manis and a pedi for Mom, a trip to James' parents house for an amazing dinner, the farmer's market, coffee, and lots of walking. In the end I got a small bout of the flu but overall a fun trip filled with all the girly stuff I love (well, every once in awhile).

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