June 28, 2011 - Denver/Kansas trip days 1-8
I already talked about tuesday when I came in.
Wednesday - Got up early and had breakfast. My sister and I went to get our nails done. I had the schlock type nailpolish - kind of a deep pink/fusha color. Looks nice. Then we went to her hairdresser and got my hair colored and cut. I actually had my hair completely colored a med brown with some highlights. looks nice. I won't have to call my girl for at least another 12 weeks (sometime in late August-mid Sept). We got back to the house and had some chicken on the grill. We kept it on the lighter fare. Of course, my sister and brother in law eat so late. It wasn't bad, about 8:30pm.
Thursday - we got up fairly early. I was already awake because I am still on Buffalo NY time. We got going around 8:30am. It took us 8 hrs to get to Derby/Witchita KS. Drove on I-70 all the way down there. It was about 450 miles away (thats like driving from Buffalo NY to Wilmington Delaware). We stopped for lunch (a place called Village inn - its suppose to be a chain, I am sure Vic knows what I am referring to). Took a few pics along the way. It sure was a boring ride all the way down there. I always thought Kansas was flat but not all of it was. Kansas is extremely windy and It sure was humid and extremely hot there - probably about 105-110 degrees. Whew! We checked into our rooms and met everyone downstairs to go to my aunts about 10 miles from their house in Derby KS. My uncle was funny - he made these wings for us (bringing a bit of buffalo to Kansas). We were mostly outside and inside, but a lot of the wings never made it into the house because the guys outside were "sampling" the wings. I could only down about 4 of them because my uncle was making them really hot. Apparently a batch that didn't make it in were so hot that my brothers teeth were hurting him. we got back to our rooms about 9pm. Went down to the bar downstairs for 1 drink and went upstairs to crash. It sure was a long day.
Friday - The rehearsal dinner was for the attendees, ushers and immediate family members. We hung out at the hotel room for about 4 hrs, until about 3:30pm. Sister, Brother-in-law, brother, parents and I went to this restaurant that served heavy foods (I had sirloin tip with mashed potatoes). IT was good. Started to drink about 3pm and never stopped. We all got together with the rest of our side of the family (probably 20 of us at this time) at this brew pub and had lots of drinks. By the time I got to the restaurant, I was tipsy. Then we went to the rehearsal wedding after party at this place called "Old Chicago" Lets just say, the alcohol was flowing freely (I drank double 7-7's). Lots of finger foods. We all had a great time. Got to catch up with my younger cousins. Drove back to the hotel with my parents (my brother beat me back to the room). All I did was walk into the room, drop to the other bed (I had the bed near the window) and collapsed - clothes and all. My brother laughed at me when I got up the next morning.
Saturday - I vowed to myself never to drink like that again. I know Norma, I have to curb the alcohol but within reason. At least I didn't get so slobbered that someone had to carry me back to the room. We went to this restaurant in Witchita called "xcetera" Its actually pretty good. Highly recommended if you come to Witchita, its over on Mosley street. Waiter/waitress staff are wonderful and the prices weren't too bad (roughly 7.50 was the going price at the restaurant for all breakfasts). We went back to the room and hung out. My brother and I decided to take a walk to see where the reception was. It was only a few blocks from the hyatt where we stayed. After we got back, we settled on the room for the 3 days. It only cost me 195 for 3 nights not too bad. Wedding was at 4, went with mom and dad again. Dad's GPS got us there alright, but to the next parking lot next door..LOL!! The wedding was beautiful - a non denominational church. Kaci, the bride was on the right and we were on the left (I am the grooms cousin). Kinda strange, usually we sit on the grooms side. I guess depends on the church. After the wedding, they gave us bubbles but the wind was so fierce it blinded a few of us. It certainly was a hot day. They actually got a party bus for the whole wedding party to go to the reception together. Very cool. We got to the reception, they blocked a few tables for the grooms family. So, all the guys sat at one table and us girls sat at another. My aunt laughed at us because of the planned seating we had. After we ate, anything goes. I guess Matt and Kaci took dancing lessons and gave us a spectacular show of their dancing skills. Made it for an interesting show. He even dipped her a few times. Spoke to Kaci afterwards and she said it wasn't big deal with the dips. We stayed at the reception until 9:30pm. I drank pink lemonade all night (straight - no alcohol). Dan, Kevin and I decided to walk back from the reception and mom/dad and kelly drove back. Turns out that Kelly had too much to drink. We went down to the bar and had a few drinks (I did drink a Arnold Palmer with Vodka - only 2). Kelly took 2 sips from her drink and Dan escorted her upstairs and came back down. Dad and Kevin went upstairs to their room and mom and I stayed down. She left about midnight, by then I was drinking water. Talked to my aunts friend for the longest time. Liked her. Apparently her husband and my uncle play ice hockey together (there isn't much that my uncle doesn't do - 1 star general in the national guard, hockey player, likable guy!). I got up to the room about 12:45am. Kevin was snoring in bed. I did wake him up by closing the door kinda loud and flushing the toilet while the door was open. Thought he slept through everything. Oh well.....
Sunday - checked out at 10:30am from the hyatt and went to my aunt and uncles for the day. They made breakfast so I ate some eggs and bacon. Wasn't bad. My uncle has this smoker grill that he had about 8 large links of sausage - hot and mild. He continuously took off a link of sausage and served it to us. Talk about an enabler. I could tell my aunt and uncle were so happy to have us out there finally. They were on cloud 9. You'd think my uncle who is a 1 star general be more military and serious. He is not. Maybe he puts a game face when he's on base. Talked about flying to Puerto Rico so he could get his flight miles in. Like it was nothing. Anyways, I had so much sausage - I don't want to see a single sausage for the rest of the year. We were there until 4-4:30pm. Checked into the holiday inn. With all the travel he does, he also gets frequent hotel stays. He got 4 rooms for us. We each got our own. I was in 632, Kelly was in 615, Kevin was in 602, my parents were in 601. We hung out in our rooms for a bit (I took a short walk downstairs, they had an outdoor pool but it was 95 degrees out and hot!). We just stayed in the hotel dining for dinner. I ate steak, it was actually pretty good. Mom and dad had the same thing. My sister and Brother ate this chicken concotion. It looked terrible. They both just pulled the chicken from the slop and ate that. IT was on their permanent menu too. It had tortilla shells (cut up) with cheesy rice. Yuck! Felt bad for them. We got back to our rooms (stayed and had a glass of wine in my parents room for 30 minutes) then went outside with mom so she can have her cigarette. It sure was a very warm humid night (around 82 degrees at 9pm). They had a deck on the 2nd floor. Then went back to the room. Each of these suites had a sitting room and a king size bedroom, 2 bathrooms. I was totally impressed that Holiday inn had such a set up.
Monday - I set my alarm for 7am. got up before - 6:45am. Got a shower, packed up the few things I had out and called my sister. Dropped my bags in her room and we went to breakfast in the breakfast dining area. All I ate was yogurt and fruit. My stomach was in knots with all the slop, heavy foods I ate. I was pretty good. Called my brother and woke him up. Told him to come downstairs for breakfast. (mom and dad were still sleeping). We left Witchita at 8:30am. Stopped a long the way, Stopped at the cathedral on the plains (very nice old church). Took lots of pics. Then we stopped at the worlds largest prairie dog. 8000 lbs. We got there alright, the 8000 lb prairie dog was this statue (they never said it was alive). Saw all these other animals. Small donkey (I was feeding him with food and he never wanted me to leave). 6 legged cow. Yep, 6 legs. he had 2 legs on his back. Kinda crazy. My sister and I got prairie dog t shirts. Then we stopped for lunch. The place we originally picked off the internet was closed down. We stopped at Hanks diner. It was this cute little country diner off the highway. This old man stopped to talk with us. Apparently he was their mayor of their town, senator and representative of Kansas (I think his name was John Goodman). Im sure they are still talking to us to this day. We got back at 5pm. Apparently mom and dad decided to not go on their exersion before driving to Denver (Apparently where they were stopping didn't have anything there), so they came back here to the house in Denver. We ate Chicken and grilled romaine. It was good (yep, more chicken). Stayed up and talked until about 11pm. Dad got tired, he turned in at the same time I did. I slept like a rock last night.
Tuesday - Today - my sister and I got up and went walking. did about 2.8 miles but we just walked. The air is a lot thinner here in Denver. It felt like I ran 3 miles. my chest felt like I didn't have any air in my lungs. I did ok though. Of course, we all decided to veg out today. So here I am right now. My sister will be home about 4pm. Dad is next to me working on some gulf things on his laptop. I need to go into the laundry room and grab my clean clothes from the laundry room. Tonight we will have spagetti. I guess Dan will be making dinner tonight. Other than that, its only noon denver time. I will check in the next few days. Sorry for rambling. I promised you guys a whole lot of reading material.
Wednesday - Got up early and had breakfast. My sister and I went to get our nails done. I had the schlock type nailpolish - kind of a deep pink/fusha color. Looks nice. Then we went to her hairdresser and got my hair colored and cut. I actually had my hair completely colored a med brown with some highlights. looks nice. I won't have to call my girl for at least another 12 weeks (sometime in late August-mid Sept). We got back to the house and had some chicken on the grill. We kept it on the lighter fare. Of course, my sister and brother in law eat so late. It wasn't bad, about 8:30pm.
Thursday - we got up fairly early. I was already awake because I am still on Buffalo NY time. We got going around 8:30am. It took us 8 hrs to get to Derby/Witchita KS. Drove on I-70 all the way down there. It was about 450 miles away (thats like driving from Buffalo NY to Wilmington Delaware). We stopped for lunch (a place called Village inn - its suppose to be a chain, I am sure Vic knows what I am referring to). Took a few pics along the way. It sure was a boring ride all the way down there. I always thought Kansas was flat but not all of it was. Kansas is extremely windy and It sure was humid and extremely hot there - probably about 105-110 degrees. Whew! We checked into our rooms and met everyone downstairs to go to my aunts about 10 miles from their house in Derby KS. My uncle was funny - he made these wings for us (bringing a bit of buffalo to Kansas). We were mostly outside and inside, but a lot of the wings never made it into the house because the guys outside were "sampling" the wings. I could only down about 4 of them because my uncle was making them really hot. Apparently a batch that didn't make it in were so hot that my brothers teeth were hurting him. we got back to our rooms about 9pm. Went down to the bar downstairs for 1 drink and went upstairs to crash. It sure was a long day.
Friday - The rehearsal dinner was for the attendees, ushers and immediate family members. We hung out at the hotel room for about 4 hrs, until about 3:30pm. Sister, Brother-in-law, brother, parents and I went to this restaurant that served heavy foods (I had sirloin tip with mashed potatoes). IT was good. Started to drink about 3pm and never stopped. We all got together with the rest of our side of the family (probably 20 of us at this time) at this brew pub and had lots of drinks. By the time I got to the restaurant, I was tipsy. Then we went to the rehearsal wedding after party at this place called "Old Chicago" Lets just say, the alcohol was flowing freely (I drank double 7-7's). Lots of finger foods. We all had a great time. Got to catch up with my younger cousins. Drove back to the hotel with my parents (my brother beat me back to the room). All I did was walk into the room, drop to the other bed (I had the bed near the window) and collapsed - clothes and all. My brother laughed at me when I got up the next morning.
Saturday - I vowed to myself never to drink like that again. I know Norma, I have to curb the alcohol but within reason. At least I didn't get so slobbered that someone had to carry me back to the room. We went to this restaurant in Witchita called "xcetera" Its actually pretty good. Highly recommended if you come to Witchita, its over on Mosley street. Waiter/waitress staff are wonderful and the prices weren't too bad (roughly 7.50 was the going price at the restaurant for all breakfasts). We went back to the room and hung out. My brother and I decided to take a walk to see where the reception was. It was only a few blocks from the hyatt where we stayed. After we got back, we settled on the room for the 3 days. It only cost me 195 for 3 nights not too bad. Wedding was at 4, went with mom and dad again. Dad's GPS got us there alright, but to the next parking lot next door..LOL!! The wedding was beautiful - a non denominational church. Kaci, the bride was on the right and we were on the left (I am the grooms cousin). Kinda strange, usually we sit on the grooms side. I guess depends on the church. After the wedding, they gave us bubbles but the wind was so fierce it blinded a few of us. It certainly was a hot day. They actually got a party bus for the whole wedding party to go to the reception together. Very cool. We got to the reception, they blocked a few tables for the grooms family. So, all the guys sat at one table and us girls sat at another. My aunt laughed at us because of the planned seating we had. After we ate, anything goes. I guess Matt and Kaci took dancing lessons and gave us a spectacular show of their dancing skills. Made it for an interesting show. He even dipped her a few times. Spoke to Kaci afterwards and she said it wasn't big deal with the dips. We stayed at the reception until 9:30pm. I drank pink lemonade all night (straight - no alcohol). Dan, Kevin and I decided to walk back from the reception and mom/dad and kelly drove back. Turns out that Kelly had too much to drink. We went down to the bar and had a few drinks (I did drink a Arnold Palmer with Vodka - only 2). Kelly took 2 sips from her drink and Dan escorted her upstairs and came back down. Dad and Kevin went upstairs to their room and mom and I stayed down. She left about midnight, by then I was drinking water. Talked to my aunts friend for the longest time. Liked her. Apparently her husband and my uncle play ice hockey together (there isn't much that my uncle doesn't do - 1 star general in the national guard, hockey player, likable guy!). I got up to the room about 12:45am. Kevin was snoring in bed. I did wake him up by closing the door kinda loud and flushing the toilet while the door was open. Thought he slept through everything. Oh well.....
Sunday - checked out at 10:30am from the hyatt and went to my aunt and uncles for the day. They made breakfast so I ate some eggs and bacon. Wasn't bad. My uncle has this smoker grill that he had about 8 large links of sausage - hot and mild. He continuously took off a link of sausage and served it to us. Talk about an enabler. I could tell my aunt and uncle were so happy to have us out there finally. They were on cloud 9. You'd think my uncle who is a 1 star general be more military and serious. He is not. Maybe he puts a game face when he's on base. Talked about flying to Puerto Rico so he could get his flight miles in. Like it was nothing. Anyways, I had so much sausage - I don't want to see a single sausage for the rest of the year. We were there until 4-4:30pm. Checked into the holiday inn. With all the travel he does, he also gets frequent hotel stays. He got 4 rooms for us. We each got our own. I was in 632, Kelly was in 615, Kevin was in 602, my parents were in 601. We hung out in our rooms for a bit (I took a short walk downstairs, they had an outdoor pool but it was 95 degrees out and hot!). We just stayed in the hotel dining for dinner. I ate steak, it was actually pretty good. Mom and dad had the same thing. My sister and Brother ate this chicken concotion. It looked terrible. They both just pulled the chicken from the slop and ate that. IT was on their permanent menu too. It had tortilla shells (cut up) with cheesy rice. Yuck! Felt bad for them. We got back to our rooms (stayed and had a glass of wine in my parents room for 30 minutes) then went outside with mom so she can have her cigarette. It sure was a very warm humid night (around 82 degrees at 9pm). They had a deck on the 2nd floor. Then went back to the room. Each of these suites had a sitting room and a king size bedroom, 2 bathrooms. I was totally impressed that Holiday inn had such a set up.
Monday - I set my alarm for 7am. got up before - 6:45am. Got a shower, packed up the few things I had out and called my sister. Dropped my bags in her room and we went to breakfast in the breakfast dining area. All I ate was yogurt and fruit. My stomach was in knots with all the slop, heavy foods I ate. I was pretty good. Called my brother and woke him up. Told him to come downstairs for breakfast. (mom and dad were still sleeping). We left Witchita at 8:30am. Stopped a long the way, Stopped at the cathedral on the plains (very nice old church). Took lots of pics. Then we stopped at the worlds largest prairie dog. 8000 lbs. We got there alright, the 8000 lb prairie dog was this statue (they never said it was alive). Saw all these other animals. Small donkey (I was feeding him with food and he never wanted me to leave). 6 legged cow. Yep, 6 legs. he had 2 legs on his back. Kinda crazy. My sister and I got prairie dog t shirts. Then we stopped for lunch. The place we originally picked off the internet was closed down. We stopped at Hanks diner. It was this cute little country diner off the highway. This old man stopped to talk with us. Apparently he was their mayor of their town, senator and representative of Kansas (I think his name was John Goodman). Im sure they are still talking to us to this day. We got back at 5pm. Apparently mom and dad decided to not go on their exersion before driving to Denver (Apparently where they were stopping didn't have anything there), so they came back here to the house in Denver. We ate Chicken and grilled romaine. It was good (yep, more chicken). Stayed up and talked until about 11pm. Dad got tired, he turned in at the same time I did. I slept like a rock last night.
Tuesday - Today - my sister and I got up and went walking. did about 2.8 miles but we just walked. The air is a lot thinner here in Denver. It felt like I ran 3 miles. my chest felt like I didn't have any air in my lungs. I did ok though. Of course, we all decided to veg out today. So here I am right now. My sister will be home about 4pm. Dad is next to me working on some gulf things on his laptop. I need to go into the laundry room and grab my clean clothes from the laundry room. Tonight we will have spagetti. I guess Dan will be making dinner tonight. Other than that, its only noon denver time. I will check in the next few days. Sorry for rambling. I promised you guys a whole lot of reading material.
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