Family Fun Times

A few months back I realized that there is a very solid chance I won't get to see much of my family for the next two years. Obviously, this jolted me into action and I made plans to see all the grandparents and the kid sister (okay, she's 22, but will always be my "kid sister"). Over Memorial Day weekend I flew to Philadelphia and spent the weekend with my paternal grandma and all the associated aunts, uncles and cousins. We like to use Grandma's birthday as an excuse (91 this year!), but it's also the only time everyone gets together.

On June 18th I flew to Denver to visit Paige (kid sister). I was a little concerned that she wouldn't be able to get the weekend off, since she works crazy long hours as a restaurant manager at Root Down in the Denver airport (which is delicious, btw). Somehow, she managed to get four days off in a row and I got to spend some quality time with my sister. To be clear, "quality Time" translates to "pit 17 lbs of cherries."

Originally, we planned on going camping, but there were some complications so we ended up doing a couple day hikes instead. Of course, we managed to get royally lost trying to find the first hike (Three Sisters, outside of Denver) and ended up in a totally different park on a totally different hike. It was awesome. Monday we drove down to the Garden of the Gods. I had hopes of doing some bouldering, but 5 minutes after we arrived it started raining. Really raining. Real, crazy Colorado rain that drenches you in ten seconds flat. Being badass Alaskans, I ran back to the car and grabbed the umbrella and we resumed our walk. Rain in the Lower 48 is amazing, because it sends 90% of people dashing to their cars and bailing. We had the park pretty much to ourselves until the rain stopped for a prolonged period. Paige was very tolerant of me constantly commenting on how much I want to climb some of the faces. Garden of the Gods is a very well developed climbing area, with lots of sport and some trad routes. They require day permits and the access trails are amazingly well marked, but I have no problem paying a day fee to use well-maintained parks.

But how can I talk about spending time with Paige without talking about the food. Holy crap, the food! Paige interned at a restaurant called Root Down, then was on the opening staff for their sister restaurant, Linger (located in an old funeral home, which is awesome). Then she was asked to help open a new branch of Root Down in the airport and is now the youngest manager in the companies history. Which is awesome. Tangent about how awesome my little sister is aside, we went out to dinner at Root Down on Friday with Ealum (who we love and is staying with Paige for the summer).

It. Blew. My. Mind.

Going out to nice restaurants with someone who worked there (and has good relationships with the staff) is like, the best thing ever. Based on the parade of appetizers and unexpected samples, they really love Paige. The dinner was, and I have had some tasty meals, the best dinner I have ever had. I'm not even going to try to describe the food, since I won't do it justice and Paige may rip me a new one for lousy descriptions. Needless to say, the food coma was excellent. Saturday we went to Linger for brunch, which was, of course, delicious. 

Naturally, I had to mock Paige and Ealum for the constant picture taking and food porn. Neither of them were willing to play the phone game (stack the phones and whoever touches their phone has to buy everyone's dinner).

After Denver, I met up with my Dad in Minneapolis and headed off to visit my grandparents. Given that they're both in their upper 80's (longevity definitely runs in my family), I feel obliged to visit while everyone is still alive, coherent, and functional. Whenever I visit my grandparents, Grandpa has a list of chores that he needs help with or hasn't had a chance to get around to. This week, it was a patio thingy. This winter a big storm knocked a branch off the old maple tree that landed on their garage, so they had the tree removed. So Dad, my aunt Diane and I, with Grandpa's supervision, dug up the remainder of the tree roots, which involved a chainsaw and an axe (the stump grinders didn't remove much of the roots), and put in 36 bags of sand and some pavers. The end result is a 7'x7' patio thingy (island?) that will house.... well, something.

Anyway,  now I'm home and it's time to start dealing with moving and all of that stuff. I have 2 weeks left of work (last day is July 11) and have thus far managed to not check out. Hopefully I can maintain that until I leave. More Netherlands stuff later. This post is waaaaaaaay too long.