Amazing Customer Service

I was wowed by the incredible customer service I experienced during our trip back home today. It all started when we dropped off our rental car at Enterprise. The guy who checked in the car was super-friendly at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m., and he helped me unload our luggage. The shuttle driver was also very helpful and friendly.

I am always pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of the security lines at Denver International Airport. The security workers know what they're doing, and they offer helpful advice before you realize you need help. For example, I was looking around to find the special line for families of children that have food and/or liquid in their carry-on baggage (read: Julia's jar of baby food). Before I knew it, someone directed me to the correct line. I should also mention the help with collapsing and opening the stroller for the xray conveyor belt - much appreciated when my hands are full.

After we made it through security, our next stop was breakfast. Evelyn had pancakes on the brain, and our only option was a sit-down place. I figured I would get everything I truly needed for both girls at a place like that (as opposed to McDonald's), and I was right. The waitress provided me with every little extra thing I requested, and she never acted like it was out of the ordinary.

I need to write to Southwest Airlines to commend one of their flight attendants. Overall, we girls had very pleasant experiences flying Southwest for this trip - (decent-sized) snacks, drinks and friendly staff. But today was even better. I needed to make Julia's cereal, so I rang for a flight attendant to bring some water. When she came back with the water, it was almost as if she could read my mind: How in the world am I going to make cereal in this cramped space and keep Julia from making a huge mess? The flight attendant said, "I have grandkids, and I know how to make baby cereal. Give me the container and the cereal, and I'll be right back." That's exactly what happened - in just moments, the flight attendant returned with perfectly-made cereal.

Behind the Scenes

Evelyn had a chance to go behind the scenes today. The first stop was the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Even though we visited this museum Friday afternoon, Evelyn requested to go back because she hadn't seen everything she wanted to. No problem, since Uncle Eric has a membership that we borrowed. After checking out the space exhibits, we headed to the dinosaur area. When we walked past the laboratory, we were lucky enough to see a scientist cleaning a fossil. Not only that, but the window was open so that we could talk with the scientist. He told us about the ankylosaurus plate fossil he was cleaning. Since Evelyn loves dinosaurs, she knew exactly what the guy was talking about. She even got to touch the fossil. Very cool for a little girl who loves dinosaurs.

The next stop was the RTD maintenance facility. Evelyn's Uncle Eric works for the Denver transportation district, so he managed to make an appointment to tour the yards where the light-rail trains are serviced and cleaned. This is also the place where they "live," and Evelyn was able to see some of the trains leave for shifts. She helped move a switch to change the direction of the tracks the trains travel on. She walked through the engine wash area - I don't think Evelyn was as nervous as I was that the whole thing would start spinning and spraying while we were in there. Great stuff for our Train Girl.

Julia's Real Birthday

Today marks the day when sweet little Julia Carolyn Luster came into the world. Most of the weekend was devoted to Julia's birthday, so not much happened in the way of a celebration today. Julia mostly tagged along with Evelyn on her Denver adventures. But she was able to visit with Uncle Eric and Aunt Heather shortly before bedtime. Happy birthday Sweet Babes!

Julia's First Birthday Party

Originally, Julia's birthday party was scheduled for Saturday evening. Since the weather was predicted to be sloppy and wet and cold all day Saturday (which is what ended up happening), we postponed the party. It was a good thing, too, because this afternoon it was sunny and warm. Just perfect for a birthday barbecue.

Julia entertained her guests while they ate lunch. Then it was time for cake. I made two birthday cakes - a cut-out number one and a baby cake. The baby cake was strictly for Julia to play with or eat, and it had candles that spelled her name. After Evelyn helped Julia blow out her candles, it was time to dig in! Well . . . it turns out that Julia gets the prize for cleanest cake-eating baby. She grabbed the cake with her entire hand, but Julia didn't get what she expected. She didn't know quite what to do with the squishy cube. After a few more attempts of poking at the cake with her index fingers, she gave up and decided it was nap time.

Julia didn't get around to opening her presents until after her supper and bath time. Somehow everyone knew that Julia is a little bookworm because she made out with eight books. As you can see in the picture below, it didn't take long for Julia to dive into her books.

Julia's Birthday Dinner

The family headed over to Ted's Montana Grill in downtown Denver for Julia's first birthday dinner. There were enough of us to book a reservation (thank goodness, especially on a Saturday evening) - Troy came in earlier this afternoon for his cancer research conference, Grandma Linda and Grandpa Phil drove in this afternoon from Nebraska, and of course Uncle Eric and Aunt Heather came along since they live in Denver.

As I'm sure you can imagine, Julia didn't partake in any of the yummy beef or bison burgers, but the rest of us did! We each got different toppings on our burgers, which made for a delicious mess. At the end of the meal, Julia got a complimentary birthday dessert: a HUGE snickerdoodle cookie with vanilla bean ice cream. She shivered after taking her first bite of ice cream, but after the initial shock (of taste? of coldness?), she had several more bites.

Major Snow Day in Denver

The snowstorm that was predicted for the Denver area came to fruition, big-time. All day it snowed, rained and slushed. What do I mean by "slushed" you ask? Big potato chip sized clumps of slushy snow fell from the sky. If you were outside during a bout of that weather, you got completely soaked. (It happened to us a couple of times today.) We girls found fun, indoor activities to do since it was so yucky outside.

First we headed to the local library (with my brother's library card) to check out some books. As luck would have it, we happened to be there when a preschool story time was going on, so Evelyn joined in. Following Julia's morning nap and everyone's lunch, we headed to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (again, using Eric's membership card). Julia let us spend two hours there, and we took in the children's discovery area (dinosaurs for Evelyn!) and a temporary weather exhibit (hurricanes and tornadoes for Evelyn!).

We ended the day by having dinner with Eric and Heather at their place. Evelyn and I "broke in" to their house earlier this morning to start a pot roast in their crock pot, so by 7:00, dinner was served with very little effort. It looks like tomorrow will be full of more snowy/rainy weather, so we'll just have to wait and see what we will do in the way of sight-seeing.

Flight to Denver

The trip today from Baltimore to Denver went well. What I mean is that our flight was on time, and there weren't any problems acquiring our rental car (Toyota minivan - fun stuff). The girls painted a different picture, especially with Julia.

Let's start with the good news first. It was Evelyn's best flight. Considering this flight was a little over four hours long, that's saying something. She only had problems with her ears bothering her during the first 20 minutes of the flight. After that, she was fine. She ate her McDonald's lunch, then she colored, watched a Thomas video on the portable DVD player and finally colored some more. Oh, let's not forget the trip to the bathroom. It was a tight fit, but we got all three of us in the airplane bathroom so Evelyn could use the facility.

Julia, on the other hand, had the worst flight ever. At this age, she likes being held, but she reaches a time limit for how long she wants to be held. Four hours is MUCH too long for the little Sunshine. The last hour of the flight was just horrible, with Julia writhing and crying in my lap. She was also very tired, I'm sure. She only had a short cat-nap in the car on the ride from our house to the Baltimore airport this morning. After hitting the road in our rental, it didn't take long for Julia to fall asleep in her car seat.

I wonder what the trip home will bring . . .