Although I have been super excited to leave Provo for a while now, our trip to Boulder, CO for Joe's thermodynamics conference wasn't one of our top trips. Waking up early on Monday to get ready to leave, Joe had disappeared from the bed and was sleeping in the chair in Kyra's room because he has a soar throat and the humidifier is on in her room every night. He only got a couple of hours of sleep and he had to make his presentation that night! I actually woke up with a sore throat as well and less sleep than I had wanted. So Monday we were exhausted most of the day, but Kyra did take her first real plane trip and did awesome! Joe's presentation went well and we walked around a little around the UC campus (which was a mess of construction in the middle). Tuesday Joe went to a couple of sessions but I mostly hung out in the hotel room, still exhausted from the lack of sleep (feeling terrible and having horrid pillows) and sick. We did meet up with my friend Rachel from high school and her boyfriend for dinner though (highlight of the day). Wednesday my brother came to visit in the morning and as Joe died in bed (with a sinus infection) and Kyra took a nap, Colin and I went swimming in the hotels pool. Pretty much the rest of the day was dying in the hotel room. Thursday Joe was super dizzy and nausea's so Kyra and I left him in the hotel room and walked down the Boulder Creek Trail to the bank and took a stroll down the Pearl Street Mall, which was pretty cool but would have been more fun if Joe was with me. Thursday night Joe called his mom (who is a nurse) and discovered he was so dizzy and nausea's because he was over dosing a bit with the drugs he had (he bought the wrong Mucinex), so he stopped taking everything but his prescription. Friday Joe had meetings all day so I hung out in the hotel (because it was so dang hot and a bit smokey) and went out to eat with another wife from BYU who had 2 cute little girls. I did finally go to Chipotle which I had heard good things about, but I definitely prefer Moe's because it had free chips.
Sorry, didn't take any pictures in Boulder, it was kind of a rough week with the heat, the fires and being sick
Dallas, Texas 6/30-7/8
We flew into the Dallas Fort Worth Airport on Saturday and lost our luggage (apparently it stayed in Oklahoma City where we transferred planes), but it wasn't too bad because we were going to Joe's Aunt's house who was about to supply us with things we were missing. The annoying part about it was that on our flight, almost nobodies bags came in, so we waited an hour for the bag before giving up and checking with baggage claim about our bags. Texas was nice though. Joe's Aunt has a nice house in Krum on 10 Acre's of land with 3 cows, 3 dogs, a ton of cats/kittnes, a lamb who thinks its a dog, and a llama.
Sunday we went to church and Joe borrowed a couple of clothing items but I was fully supplied. Monday Joe's cousin Porter showed us around Denton and took us into a mini mall aka a random junk store, a big used book store with all these crazy passages and hidden rooms, comic book store, a candy store and a coffee house where we got a smoothie. On Monday night and Tuesday all the family showed up for the family reunion.
It was fun to spend time with Joe's immediate family and his Aunts family. His uncles family from Missouri was nice but a little too obsessed with their IPads, which kinda made me glad I don't own one. His Aunt Gabi (from the IPad family) was super nice and funny though, she is from Germany and is awesome, I couldn't imagine someone not liking her. One of Joes cousins from the MO family had 2 little boys, and although they were cute, one of them started picking on/attacking Kyra on one of the days so we had to make sure she had a body guard for the rest of the trip (he was a biter and beat up on her a bit). Kyra was really good though, excited for all the new toys that were there and she was social instead of cling to Joe and I, which was good because the family wanted to hold her. Joe's Aunt's family that we stayed with had their own excitement within their immediate family. One of her daughters (Joe's cousin) had a baby on July 3rd and named him Colin (which made me smile because that's my brothers name and birthday). So to help out, Joe's aunt took care of her other 2 kids, Jack and Hazel. Jack was hilarious, super friendly and adventurous. The girl Hazel was the complete opposite, she kept to herself and ignored almost everyone else...a bit of a snob, but she was cute and friendly when her own aunts and uncles (Joe's cousins) were around her. She was REALLY not good at sharing and unfortunately she (Hazel) had a blanket just like one of Kyra's so Kyra was always trying to take her blanket when she got tired, or her stuff animals which frequently led to Hazel getting upset and pushing Kyra away.
Texas was fun though, we went to a water Park one day with Joe's family, Porter, and Gabi's son Jon. It was fun and Kyra loved it! She actually started to enjoy going underwater, coming up with a smile instead of coughing, and it was nice to have Joe's parents willing to watch her so we could go down slides. Another day we went to Fort Worth and saw the cattle drive and walked around Fort Stockton, a historical area turned into a tourist trap. It was a bit warm but fun. Next we went to the water gardens, which is a little park area in the city with different water fountains. Afterwards we went to this restaurant called Joe T. Garcia's, which looked like this crappy little restaurant from the front but turned into a big nice restaurant where there are only 2 things on the menu (enchiladas or fajitas) and it was super good and a total hot spot.
 |
| Kyra's first Horse encounter, she loved it! |
 |
| It was warm but there were some fans with water misting out in front of the visitor center, Kyra had fun playing in the mist |
Our last day in TX we went shopping (because Joe's siblings and cousin wanted to go so we figured we would join). We went to North Park in Dallas and there were lots of ridiculously priced designer stores mixed with the usual mall stores. There was a lego store that we went into, that was amusing, but for the most part the stores were completely out of our budget (even though I wouldn't spend much money just for a designer name anyway).
