mountain vs malls

We had planned on going to the Rocky Mountain park on Saturday...

As we got closer to having to make a decision, it became apparent that mom and sister were not too interested in going up to the mountains. Sister wanted to take a look but did not seem to want to deal with the cold weather. Mom had been there in the spring/summer so she was not too eager to go again. RyanC did not express any preference though he did have a terrifying encounter with the chipmunks when they sniffed his hand unexpectedly in the last trip with grandma.

Hence we did what most people reportedly do on the weekend after thanksgiving -- we went shopping instead. We chose Colorado Mills since none of us had been there before. It's not Malls of America but it's supposedly a big place.

It took us more than an hour to get to the mall west of Denver. I had assumed that we would end up circling the mall for half an hour or more before finding a parking spot. I was partially right. We circled the outside of the big mall once or twice before I finally declared that I have a headache and we should just go in. See, the parking not was not full and we could have parked right away. However, we were looking for signs to a particular store so we could park closer to where we wanted to be. It turns out that Colorado Mills only have signs for some stores and we had to go inside to find the rest. BLAH!

Mom and sis soon went their separate ways to shop while wife and I walked around with the two kids. AidanC had the stroller so we had to take turns carrying RyanC. RyanC had a blast running around the mall after we took off his jacket and the 2nd layer of clothing. He was really excited to see the marry-go-round too - he pointed to the spinning horses/people and laughed. Funny thing is that he did not demand to go ride there. I was too afraid to offer out of fear that he would want to ride non-stop and we are too cheap to do that.

As luck would have it, we found him some steps he could climb up and down so he had fun with that. He was also very happy with this free play area in the mall - we spent almost an hour there before we finally were able to wrestle him away. He had fun pointing at the bugs/butterflies hanging from the ceiling and climbing and running around with other kids. He seems to prefer hanging out with kids smaller than him though.. maybe because smaller kids don't jump on him or his hand by accident...

As we started leaving the playground, wife pointed to a brown teddy bear at this store's display and said "look! It's a big teddy bear!" RyanC happily ran inside the store, hugged the bear and started carrying the big bear outside. I stopped the little robber just in time and was able to get him to say goodbye to the dear without incident.