Roaming Blackshire's: Day 116 - 123: Visitors, Thanksgiving, Zipping, Elk, & Pirate Puppers

We had our first visitors! Sylvia and Matt came out to Colorado for Thanksgiving. It started out a little bumpy with their Monday flights getting cancelled, so they arrived Tuesday afternoon instead. They got in, got settled, and we headed into downtown Loveland for dinner. We went to Vatos Tacos, and it was delicious. The crowd favorite was the Pork belly taco. I also really enjoyed my lavender margarita. After dinner we walked down to the Pour House for one more cocktail and listened to a local jazz band. The night was great!

Wednesday, I packed up what seemed like half of my kitchen and headed to Dana's to prep for Thanksgiving Day. We made cheesecake (sorry, no apple pie this year), sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and dough for bread. After the food prep we went to Skate City, which is Alanna's favorite place, to meet up with Dana's derby friends to go round and round. Dana's friend didn't show up, but that didn't stop the Golebiewski sisters - no - the Skee-ball-ski sisters from having fun. We did go round and round like Nascar, but we also unlocked a hidden talent. We played Skee-Ball, and we are GOOD at it. Never did I imagine we would be hitting the 10,000 points over and over again. It might be one of the greatest moments in my life. That's a bit extreme, but it was fun. After talking to Mischa about it we discovered that she also has this talent. Time to go pro? Maybe with a bit of practice.

Thursday morning came quickly, and the cooking started around 7:30 am with the Artisan bread. As most of you know the Bills played on Thanksgiving at 12:30 for most, but 10:30am for us. Our company arrived intime for kickoff, and so our day started. We had a bunch of laughs playing various games and celebrated the Bills victory. A couple of Dana's friends came by, one earlier while we were playing games, the other for dinner. Our turkey came out amazing again this year. Spatchcocking the turkey is the way to go! Everything was delicious, and there was a lot left over. We all ate, cleaned up, and headed out because the Blackshire's and Barcomb's had an early morning.

Friday we all got up early and headed out to the Royal Gorge for Ziplining. Sylvia has been talking about the time she went to Argentina and never got to go ziplining. So, we went! It was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive, and we planned an extra hour to stop for breakfast. We stopped at this cute place along our way called Benedicts. Delicious food, great service, and then we were on our way. We checked in for our tour, met our guides Tarzan (real name, we asked) and Teddy, suited up in our harnesses, and we were off! Matt did not join us in the ziplining because you have to hike between zips, and he wasn't going to be up for that. He stayed back and toured the cute little town we were in. We had a blast on all nine zips, and despite some complaining (from the eldest in the group) everyone had a great time. 10 out of 10, highly recommend. Brandon, Alanna, and I were ready to do the advanced course, but time was not on our side. Brandon found a close climb, so we went and did one climb to show Sylvia and Matt Brandon's new passion. He flew up the climb, I gave him a safe belay, and then it got cold quick. We headed back to Dana's to have leftovers and failed to eat them all again.

Saturday, we all slept in a little later than usual. All the fresh air really tired us out! We started off by going to Snooze, a breakfast spot that was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives in Fort Collins. Super cute place with really phenomenal food. The wait for a table was a bit long, so we did some Small Business Saturday shopping while we waited. Afterwards we went to Lily Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. The sky was beautiful, the mountains were beautiful, the whole day was beautiful! Pictures don't do it justice. While on our walk, almost to the car Brandon realized he didn't have his phone on him. He had had it on him during the walk, but it was no longer in his pocket. Brandon and I headed back to retrace our steps and found people just looking at the ground. They were looking at his phone. They didn't know if they should pick it up or leave it there. The best practice when hiking and finding lost belongings is to bring it to the trailhead. I'm glad we found the phone in one piece, and it was quite comical seeing people just stare at it like it was a completely foreign object. Sylvia and Matt were a bit disappointed in the lack of wildlife. They were hoping for deer, big horn sheep, elk, or anything out of the ordinary. With the drive home from Lily Lake approaching dusk, we were hoping we would see some wildlife on the side of the road. We saw quite a few Mule Deer and then we came upon a large herd of Elk. There were hundreds on the side of the road in an open field. You could see different bucks fighting each other and hear the Elk calls. It was awesome!

Sunday was another slow start. Eventually Brandon and Matt went to watch football, as father and son should on Sundays. Nothing really eventful on Sunday as Matt and Sylvia were heading home that day. Monday Bruce had a checkup on his eye. It didn't go very well as his eye has gotten worse in the last two weeks. We were referred to an animal eye specialist and took him today, Tuesday. It turns out that Bruce has a tumor in his right eye, and glaucoma causing him to have almost three times the normal amount of pressure in his eye. The only way to resolve and eliminate his pain is to remove his right eye. Bruce will be having surgery tomorrow, and hopefully feeling like a whole new goodest boy by the evening.

Pictures from adventures are all below! There are a lot, so enjoy!

Things we learned: