When we decided to go out to DC, there were two momentous occasions we knew
we would be traveling back to Colorado for:
1) The birth of our friend’s daughter, Miss Alice
Ann Nelson
2) The graduation of Jenn’s brother-in-law, Dan “Man-Class”
Hagerman, from pharmacy school
As with any trip when you have kids, the trick is what the heck to do with
them. For the first event, we decided that it was most important that Jenn go
back and help out with the new baby, especially since I was at a new job and
she had earned a break from the kids. For the second one, neither one of us
were going to miss this event several years in the making. With the promise of
good old-fashioned college debauchery and a very real fear of taking our kids
on an airplane, we begged my sister and brother-in-law to watch them for the
weekend. Without a second thought, or really consulting Peter, Steph gave us an
enthusiastic “Yes!”
I can’t overstate what a gift this was.
A weekend to stop being parents and just be married adults was amazing. At one point Jenn and I were literally pacing
around her sister’s house for about 15 minutes because we didn’t know what to
do without a child to wrangle. Meanwhile, they were going to the zoo, the
bouncy house and the park, having a great time. Peter bought Brynn her first
comic book (“magazine!”) and changed his first poopy diaper. It’s a miracle the
kids wanted us back. God Bless the Lovegroves.
We had such a great time. Abbey and
Dan are phenomenal cooks and threw two parties on graduation day. The first, a lovely luncheon with family. We had burgers/brats, played lawn games and got
to know Dan’s family. The second: a
beer-infused, meat-laden tribute to college worthy of my fantastic
brother-in-law’s hard work. We dined on
a huge tub of slow-cooked brisket, two kegs and a sweet cake shaped perfectly
like an open bottle of little blue pills (no, not those little blue pills). In
true college form, someone happened to have pulled pork and a half-keg from
another party and dropped it by. To
finish the epic night, Abbey found someone she didn’t know sleeping on her
couch at about 1:30 in the morning. Classic.
The next foggy morning, Paul made a great breakfast and we said goodbye to
Jenn’s family. This was a tough one
since this will be our last time seeing them until we get back next year. After a year in 2011 where we went back to
Wyoming six times, it’ll be tough not seeing everybody.
We hit the road with heavy hearts, but they
were lightened by the last part of our trip: Sunday Night Dinner with the
Nelsons! It’s been WAY to long for me,
so I was pretty excited. Holding baby
Alice was the highlight of a night filled with highlights that included
Maggianos for dinner, doing math problems with Ryan and going to the Avengers
movie. To anyone who knows me, math, kids
and comic book movies are pretty much my ideal night. What a great evening.
And yet, no matter how much fun we were having throughout the whole trip,
it was amazing how much we missed the kids.
We thought we needed a few nights away to remind ourselves of who we
were. It turns out that who we are has
become so wonderfully intertwined with those munchkins, it’s hard to be
ourselves without them around. After
everything, coming home and having them tackle-hug us was one of the best parts
of the whole weekend.
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