Rating the Hotel Sornell

Hi Everyone-

I am finally sort of relaxing after our wonderful week in CO. We started out at 3:45AM on Saturday the 14th and left at 7:15, arriving in Denver promptly at 9:30AM. We were picked up by a beautiful black Silverado 4X4 which has a big cargo area for our five bags, 2 snowboard bags and 3 carryons. Saturday was pretty quiet. Sunday Michele took Bridget and I to her neighborhood exercise class that she told us later was really a boot camp type class taught by her personal trainer neighbor who does triathlons. That was followed by a walk with the dogs and a late lunch with Shelley and Chris. Monday we headed up to Boulder for some sightseeing and shopping. Tuesday, Jay, Colin and David spent the day fly fishing while the girls golfed and prepared a corned beef, cabbage and Smithwicks Ale dinner. Michele and David worked Wednesday, so we went to the golf course. We had a wonderful grilled steak dinner for Colin's birthday followed by an ice cream cake.

Thursday, we got up early again and headed to Denver to catch the ski train to Winterpark. The ride was beautiful and we got there about 9:30. The kids rented helmets and hit the slopes on their snowboards. Michele, Jay and I took the shuttle into town and then came back to the mountain where we faced our fears and took the ski lift up to the beautiful restaurant at 10,000 feet. High anxiety, but great views. We had a nice meal and came back down the mountain to meet up with a very tired Bridget and Colin to catch the train back to Denver.

Friday we lounged around for much of the morning, then all of us played another round of golf and went to the brew pub for dinner. Colin was happy to get carded and the waitress brought him a birthday treat.

Saturday we re-boarded the Silverado and headed to DIA for an easy flight home. The kids went back to Madison to catch up on "homework", they said. I think a week with the old folks was just about enough. It was so nice in ET that we did some yard work and put the pier in. Our boat lift guy comes early to Potters Lake so we knew we had that job to do as soon as the ice went out. We woke up to the pier being in this AM, so it worked out.

We got some more yard work in Sunday before I left to pick Bridget up and head to Dubuque. We stayed with Bob and Charleen and had a great visit with them, Cathy, Chris and Keri. The funeral was sad, but very nice and we had good visits with the Vandermillens, Barb and Dennis, Peter and Aunt Pat and some of Mom's old friends. We were glad we went. I drove Bridget back to Madison, helped her get some groceries and headed home.

I had heard from Susan Kneser Kearney before we left saying she would be in town so we met for dinner last night. We spent a couple of hours catching up and really enjoyed ourselves. So, I did alot of picking up around the house tonight and getting my paperwork in order. Jay starts his new job next Monday, so he is scurrying around getting stuff done for that.

We highly recommend the accomodations in Denver and the hosts can't be beat! They are fun, funny, upbeat even with tooth pain-Michele got 2 root canals the day after we left after being mis-diagnosed by her dentist and given pain meds. And the bed and hot tub are great.

Hope everyone else is doing well. It was good seeing the Wisconsinites that came to DBQ. Have a great week.