Birthday Fun

I pretty much ROCK when it comes to celebrating Ben's Birthday. I used to be able to say I had the monopoly on throwing awesome Birthday's, but then Ben took me to the Straight No Chaser concert for my Birthday, so it's getting harder and harder to outdo him.

Celebrating Ben's Birthday this year has been years in the making.

Before we were married, Ben told me one of his life-long dreams was to stay at the Broadmoor- a 5-star hotel in Colorado Springs. I tucked that bit of knowlege away thinking I might be able to use it someday, but then we had kids and the timing just wasn't quite right. The thought of taking a nursing baby on a romantic getaway just didn't seem that great, you know?

But, finally the stars aligned! A couple of months ago I made reservations, and thankfully Ben's parents willingly agreed to watch the kiddos overnight (thank goodness for grandparents who live nearby!)

Ben was totally clueless. I loved it, but I learned something this last weekend:

1. I LOVE surprises!

2. Ben HATES surprises!

I dropped the girls off at Mac and Ann's and then I came home and said, "Ben- get in the car!" It's about a 70 minute drive to the hotel, and the entire time he kept saying, "So, where are you taking me?" and I kept saying, "don't you trust me?" to which he responded, "I guess not. I'm scared."

About 10 minutes from the hotel I had him take out a card that explained his Birthday surprise getaway. I expected him to jump up and down with excitement (admittedly, this would have been car while in his seat belt, but I expected it nevertheless). Instead, he said, "oh, that's what we're doing?"

Not quite the response I had hoped for.

I should explain, however, why he had that reaction.

We are not "high society" people. In fact, we really don't like rich people. At all. We don't know how to act around them. We don't know how much to tip, and who to tip, and how the whole rich way of life works.

So Ben was a little thrown off- not having time to prepare himself mentally for being around the rich and for being catered to hand and foot. One would think one could just jump right in to the high life, but it takes some getting used to when you've never had it before.

But we were in this together! We checked in and went to the hotel room, and discovered this:

 This was the nicest room! The bed (and the chairs) were so incredibly comfortable that I thought I was sitting and sleeping on a cloud. I may not like the rich way of life, but I could get used to what the rich have to offer!

Below is one of the many lounges- breathtakinly beautiful!

 The Broadmoor is more like a resort- it has several different buildings, or wings, surrounding this beautiful lake. We stayed in the "West Wing" because I thought it would be cool to say that we stayed in the "West Wing." Did we just jump high on the cool meter for staying there?

It was a little windy, but we enjoyed walking around, relaxing, and enjoying the beautiful scenery- and the beautiful hotel. We really did feel like we had left the world behind and we were in our own little paradise. It was great!

 Because we are not used to being "rich", I didn't even think to pack nice clothes. But, of the 18 restaurants in the Broadmoore, all but a few required at least "Resort Casual" (whatever that is). So, we went to basically the only one that would admit us in jeans: The Golden Bee.

This was the highlight of the night! It is an English style Pub- the first Pub Ben has ever been to. We LOVED it! The food was delicious, and the atmosphere was right up our ally- casual and loud! In fact, Ben loved it so much he has been looking up pubs in the Denver area that we can try out to try and find something that compares in awesome-ness.

 This is for my sister, Michelle. It is an ale-barrell that was actually used in England in the 1800's and says, "The King God Bless Him."

Lest you think we are now all hoity-toity, let me tell you our most humbling experience.

In our entire lives, we have never used valet parking.

We have also never had any problems with my little Toyota Corolla. I've had it for 10 years now, and it has been perfect.

But what should happen on the very day that we are going to be using valet parking? Our interior door handle on the driver side broke. The valet parking attendants had to roll down the window and open the door from the outside to get out of the car.

Talk about embarrassing- but I suppose that is just to remind us that we are nothing special- even though we sure felt that way while we were there!

(Another thing to remind us that we are nothing special is that when we went to pick the girls up, Audra cried and didn't want to leave. She wants to move in with Grandma and Grandpa. I think Claire missed us at least a ltitle bit, but when we asked Audra if she missed us it didn't even take her half a second to answer, "na-uh." I guess no matter what we do, grandparents will always be the kids favorite!)