Estes Park Part 4 - DS Snow-Scraping Video

As I mentioned earlier, on our 3rd and last day in Estes Park, we got a pleasant surprise - heavy snowfall! DS had a ball of a time helping DH to scrap snow off the car.

Estes Park Part 3 - Rocky Mountain National Park

These pictures below do no justice to the beautiful scenery of Rocky Mountain National Park. Really, the camera cannot capture how beautiful it was. We saw snow-capped mountain ranges, mountain ranges of different shades of brown and green, pine trees and bare land. Truly, truly, breathtaking.

Here we are, feeling right on top of the world.


The drive through Rocky Mountain National Park was awesome. The most beautiful scenery ever. Miles and miles of mountain ranges and wide open spaces. Just beautiful. We'll love to go back to Colorado again.

Estes Park Part 2 - River Video

Bearing in mind that it was less than 5 deg C, DS was very keen to have a dip in Fall River, which ran right in front of our cabin in River Stone Resort. After much persuasion, Grandpa obliged to what would probably be the coldest dip in water for the both of them. After that really quick trip down into the river, Grandpa said that walking barefooted on the rocks was like walking on ice. And the water, needless to say, was freezing cold!

Estes Park Part 1 - River Stone Resort

Right. I've finally stopped procrastinating and the next 4 posts pretty much completes the holidays we took while in Denver many moons ago.

We stayed 2 nights at River Stone Resort in Estes Park from 25-27 March 2008.

Estes Park is surrounded by the Rocky Mountain National Park and Roosevelt National Forest and is one of the most beautiful places we visited during our 6-month stay in Colorado. There was beautiful mountain scenery to enjoy all around us and a river that ran right in front of our cabin. It was so relaxing just sitting outside the cabin, enjoying the lovely scenery and listening to the river running right in front of us.

This is Fall River, which runs right in front of the cabin.

DH and DS had a great time walking along the banks of the river.


On our third and last day at Estes Park, we were pleasantly awoken in the morning by falling snow. Naturally, DS was so excited that it was snowing heavily. DH, on the other hand, didn't feel the same way because he would be the one driving in the slightly hazardous snow conditions. We were very lucky to be able to play with snow again since it was well into March and already in Spring. The landscape around us changed drastically when covered in snow and we were fortunate to be able to see the the scenery around us both with and without snow.

DS helping DH scrap snow off the car before we made the trip back to Denver.

And finally, one of our favourite pictures. :)

We're Going Home (for 5 days)!

Time flies! We've already spent 6 months in Denver and our little baby is already 8 1/2 months old! Today, we will be making the long journey back to Singapore, before heading off to Taiwan at the end of the month. We will be leaving our serviced apartment here in Denver at 2pm, and will only reach our apartment in Singapore some 33 hours later (at around 1pm Singapore time), provided there are no flight delays on the way.

Colorado Springs - Seven Falls

The Seven Falls, located in South Cheyenne Canyon, just 10 minutes away from Colorado Springs, has been called the "Grandest Mile of Scenery in Colorado". And we totally agree with that! It even snowed heavily on the day that we were there (not entirely expected because it's already Spring. But then again, it seems to snow wherever we go. It snowed in Estes Park too, which I will blog about soon) and that just added to the already beautiful scenery of the Seven Falls.

In the picture above and below, you can see that part of the Seven Falls is still frozen from Winter. The ice is slowly melting into Spring, although, when we were there, we could actually see the water in the falls re-forming into ice because it was so cold!

In the picture below, look carefully and you'll be able to see a long (really long) staircase leading up the mountain. Unfortunately, all staircases are closed until the Summer due to the slippery conditions during Winter, but I can just imagine how beautiful it will be walking up the stairs beside the water falls! We hope to come back one day during Summer time.

Colorado Springs - Garden of the Gods and Cave of the Winds

The Cave of the Winds, located in the hills above Manitou Springs, is supposed to be very beautiful and one of America's "most important show caves". Unfortunately, we were only able to drive all the way up the hill to the entrace of the cave, but didn't join the tour to explore the caves. The tour of the cave takes about an hour and I really don't think either of the kids will be able to tolerate being in a cave for an hour. We'll definitely be back when the kids are older and able to appreciate the beauty of the cave! :)

On the same day, we also went to Garden of the Gods. Once again, beautiful, open scenery with lots of rock formations. Truly beautiful.

Colorado Springs - Manitou Springs

We headed out to Colorado Springs last week, just an hours' drive from Denver. We stayed in Colorado Springs for 3 nights, and took the opportunity to tour around that area. All the places that we visited around Colorado Springs were so beautiful, we wished we could have stayed there for much longer!

I find myself using the words "beautiful", "breathtaking" and "awesome" a lot these days. Colorado is truly a very beautiful place with breathtaking sceneries. We are finding that the camera and video camera cannot capture enough the beauty of the natural landscapes here in Colorado. :)

First up, Manitou Springs. Manitou Springs is just located 4 miles (about 6.5km) west of Colorado Springs. There are still mineral springs throughout this town that are fed by the snows from the surrounding mountains.

Here's DS taking a feel of the cold, cold water at one of the mineral springs. This location was used by a mineral water company to bottle spring water. Of course, it's now a tourist site.

Behind us is a very interesting map of Manitou Springs. This map makes use of miniature houses, cars, buildings, etc. rather than just line drawings or pictures. This picture is also one of the few we have taken as a family of 4, with DD out of her infant carseat capsule for a change! :)

Many houses and building in Manitou Springs have light brownish walls and flat roofs, which are evidence of their Native American influence. "Manitou" is a Native American word for "spirit".

Interestingly (and we haven't figured out why yet), Manitou Springs seemed to be a placed where backpackers and "hippies" gather. In the 2 occasions that we went into Manitou Springs for lunch, we saw many these individuals gathering around chatting, playing games and generally having a good time, backpacks and dreadlocks in tow! :)

City of Golden

As DH approaches the end of his posting here in Denver, we've been taking some time off since last week to do a bit of touring of Colorado. Unfortunately, we can't go very far because DS and DD won't tolerate being in their carseats for hours and hours, but we're not complaining. :) The places we have visited or are planning to visit are just a few hours or less away from Denver and they are beautiful!

We took a day trip out to the city of Golden last week. Golden, just half an hour away from Denver, is a historic town with breathtaking mountain views all around. We had fun walking along the main street in Golden, where there were very interesting, quaint shops.


Golden is also home to Lookout Mountain Nature Center and Preserve. Here are some views from Lookout Mountain, on our way up to the Nature Center.




The Nature Center is a small but very educational place and we spent more than an hour there. DS enjoyed himself tremendously looking at all the stuffed animals (who were not specially killed for this purpose, by the way - they were donated to the center after they died of natural causes or accidentally killed on the roads). There were many touch-and-feel exhibits, like snake skin, deer fur, tree barks, etc. which DS had fun with. There was also an area set up like a viewing gallery, where high-powered binoculars were provided for viewing flora and wildlife in the mountain.

There, we met a very nice lady named Linda, who works at the Nature Center. She very kindly showed us around and provided DS lots of explanations to the items on display.

Our Apartment in Denver

Here is our living and dining area. You can see the open-concept kitchen to the right. The open door leads to the masterbedroom. Please ignore the mess! :) Btw, the baby bathtub in the living room is DD's. But no, I don't bath DD there! DS uses the bathtub as a boat when it's not in use.

Here is a full view of the kitchen. The door at the end of the kitchen leads to the laundry room, where a washing machine and dryer is provided for.

The walk-in wardrobe in the masterbedroom.

The masterbedroom bathroom. This is my favorite feature of this apartment - I love the double vanity sink tops! No rushing with DH in the mornings or evenings! :)

The masterbedroom, which is also very spacious. As you can see, we can fit in 2 queen sized mattresses and a baby crib with no problem. Notice DS having his nap at the right hand corner. :P

OK, I know this is way way overdue (sorry to those who have been asking!), but here are some pictures of our lovely apartment here in Denver. We live in a gated community (also known as "condominium" in Singapore) of about 200 apartments. This upmarket apartment complex is pretty new - about 1 1/2 years old. Besides another family with a 16 month old daughter, I think we are the only other family with children! Most of the tenants here are yuppies, or very serious looking young-ish professionals, most likely unmarried.

Ours is a 2 bedroom apartment which I intially didn't realise was bigger than our apartment back in Singapore. The floor area here is 1308 sq feet whereas our apartment back in Singapore (with 3 bedrooms) is only 1288 sq feet. Although, this apartment doesn't seem much bigger because most of the extra space goes into the walk-in wardrobes and 2 bathrooms.

The facilities in this building is very cool, but too bad I don't have the time to enjoy them! Besides the usual courtyard with a tiny swimming pool and jacuzzi, we also have a fantastic looking gym with lots of exercise equipment, a business office with 2 computers, free internet access, printing and faxing services, and most exciting of all - there's a entertainment room with a pool table, a huge flat screen TV, and free branded beverages like coffee, tea, hot chocolate and mineral water. How cool is that?!? The only thing lacking is a playground, but that'll probably be terribly under-utilised considering the very few children living here.

I have been telling friends that if I don't have 2 kids to look after, by the time I go back to Singapore, I will have a very well-toned body and I'll be able to play pool very well! Hehe. Or maybe not, with all that free hot chocolate available! :P

Because this is a new complex, the apartment is very well-insulated against the cold outside. Windows are double-glazed to prevent heat loss from the apartment and the heating system works very well too. We're usually dressed in t-shirt and shorts for daytime and a light long-sleeved shirt and long pants for nightime.

You can definitely tell that we'll miss this apartment when we leave Denver in 2 months' time. Hopefully we'll be able to find a nice, cosy apartment in Taiwan too. Wish us luck! :)

Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!

From all of us in Denver, here's wishing everybody a prosperous Chinese New Year ahead! Gong Xi Fa Cai in the year of the Rat and please eat all the yummy CNY food on our behalf. :)

Happy New Year!!!

Since this is my first post for 2008, let me start by wishing all my blog readers a Happy New Year! My mum was here over Christmas and the New Year, and we've been busy trying to prepare for Taiwan. Yes, I can't believe how quickly time flies. We've been here in Denver for 3 months, with another 3 more months to go before we have to make the move to Taiwan. So it's back to the drawing board with our search for accommodation and familiarising ourselves with the suburbs in Taiwan. This time, we'll be getting movers because we don't want to have to sell our current furniture and buy them all again when we're in Taiwan. Not that we have much furniture to begin with, but we do have a crib for DD, mattresses, a cheapo dining table set, a tiny TV, pots, pans and crockery. For those of you looking for a travel destination for 2008, come visit us in Taiwan! :)

Our Christmas This Year

Since we were in Denver, we decided to get ourselves a live Christmas tree. This is not something we'll do in Singapore for various reasons. Well, DS and Grandma spent a good afternoon decorating the Christmas tree with lights and hanging decorations. Although, after putting up the lights, I read a warning label on the box that said those lights and wires exposed the person handling them to lead. The lights were made in China. We would be kidding ourselves if we expected DS to not touch the Christmas tree and lights at all. Needless to say, I packed up the lights and had it returned to Target as soon as I could! Seriously, I cannot believe items containing lead are still being sold. The use of lead in items such as these or any items that children will touch should be banned! Especially toys!!!

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For those of you wondering what we'll be doing with the Christmas tree after Christmas, well, DH's colleague has requested for the tree so that she can plant it in her garden. I wish I had a garden! :)

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On Christmas Day, after breakfast, DS spent the rest of the morning opening presents. After opening his own presents, he proceeded to open DD's presents for her, followed by Grandma and Grandpa's presents. What a busy morning for DS! He then spent the rest of the day playing with the new toys he received.

Record-Setting Christmas Snowfall

Christmas this year has been really "white" for us, with Denver experiencing its biggest Christmas Day accumulation of snow on record! Yay! By 8am on Christmas morning, everything outdoors was covered in snow. The first picture above shows the roads and pavements all covered. We couldn't even tell where the roads or sidewalks ended. On a regular day (even weekends), the roads would have been ploughed by 5am in preparation for the morning traffic. But since it was Christmas day, the snow ploughs didn't drive past till past 8am.

The second picture shows nicely ploughed roads and sidewalks on boxing day. It was such a nice, sunny day, but that won't last for long. Snow is forecast for the next day again.

DS is waiting to build his next snowman. This time, Mr Snowman will be much bigger for sure!

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

DH had 4 days off work over this Christmas period, from Saturday to Christmas Day on Tuesday, so we decided to do some sightseeing. The weather was forecast to be good (ie. sunny and not snowing, although still very cold!) on Sunday and Monday, so we went to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Sunday, and to the Downtown Aqurium on Monday.

First off, the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. This is a place I've always wanted to visit since finding out about its existance on Discovery Channel a while back. Red Rocks Amphitheatre is only about 25 minutes' drive away from Denver. It is located in the Rocky Mountains Foothills, so we had to drive a short way up the mountains to reach it. The only one of its kind in the world, Red Rocks Amphitheatre is a geologically formed, open-air amphitheatre. As you can see from the second picture, the rock formations around the amphitheatre provide the acoustics during a concert. Many concerts are held there during the warmer months of the year. Recent famous performances include The Black Crows and The Smashing Pumpkins.

The first picture above shows the steps leading down towards the stage, and people sitting there during a concert will be watching the performance against a very nice backdrop of Denver behind the amphitheatre.

Despite it being really sunny, it was still really cold and windy (see my wind-swept hair in the third picture?!?) when we were there on Saturday, especially since we were at a higher altitude. It was less than 0 deg celcius when we were there, probably about -5 deg celcius. My dad thought it was -10 deg celcius if the wind chill was factored in. It was so cold that DS refused to step out from the stroller. See him in the last picture. :)

Merry Christmas!!!

From all of us here, have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a wonderful NEW YEAR ahead. Enjoy the holidays!!! :)

It Takes Ages For Us To Get Dressed!

This is how the kids and DH look after they are all layered up. Of course, you can't see very much of DD because she's all zipped up in her carseat "blanket". Very cosy.

Dressing ourselves, DS and DD to go out takes an hour. Nope, I'm not kidding. That's the only thing I do not like about this cold weather. It takes forever to dress everybody up!

Other than that, I really love this freezing weather. It feels so good to not perspire ALL the time! :)

Arrghh! I Haven't Posted Since 28 Nov!!!

I can't believe it has been that long since I last blogged! Internet time has been pretty limited in the past week or so. Firstly, DH has been bringing work home, the workaholic that he is. He works on the laptop til late, so I get limited time in the evenings. Any tiny pockets of internet time during the day has been spent doing internet shopping to make sure the two kiddos are nice and warm for the Winter. I've been buying stuff like thermal underwear for all of us, a carseat blanket cover for DD, more clothing for DD since she's fast outgrowing her newborn ones, jackets for the adults, etc. It's been really cold the past few days - between -5 deg C to 5 deg C, so I'm glad we're well-prepared for the Winter!

More later.

16th Street Mall

We went to 16th Street Mall on Saturday intending to do some shopping. Denver's 16th Street Mall is supposed to be the shopping street of Denver, the equivalent of Orchard Road in Singapore or Pitt Street Mall in Sydney. Unfortunately, it was a very disappointing shopping experience. We were there for about 2 hours - from 11am to about 1pm, and the street was very quiet. There were not many shoppers around. Not what you would expect of a shopping street, especially on a Saturday.

16th Street is quite a long street (there's a free bus that runs along it), but there's seriously a lack of good retail outlets there. We wanted to pick up some infant items for DD and my MAC lip conditioner, but there wasn't even a departmental store which sold these items! The closest to a decent departmental store was TJ Maxx (much like Robinsons in Singapore), but they were having some sort of sale. The store was tiny, cluttered with items, and just generally messy.

We walked up the entire length of 16th Street Mall, down again, stopped at MacDonald's for lunch, and decided to head off home.

So if anyone's coming to Denver, forget about 16th Street Mall. THE place to shop in Denver is at Cherry Creek Shopping Mall, an upmarket shopping centre just 5 minutes drive from our place. That's where we'll be this weekend!

We went to Denver Zoo!

We went to the zoo on Saturday, after we got our new stroller on Friday. Our stroller can accommodate both our kiddos, but more on the stroller later. Oh, and please ignore DS's look in the picture. He is in this "I-don't-want-to-take-pictures-so-don't-make-me phase". :)

Denver Zoo is quite similar in size to Singapore Zoo. A notable difference was that the animal enclosures are significantly smaller than in Singapore Zoo, so that leaves a lot of walking space for visitors. As such, even though there were many people at the zoo, it didn't feel crowded. Also, there might also be more animals on disply as compared to Singapore Zoo, since each enclosure is small. The enclosures are also built in a way that the animals are closer to the visitors, but I suspect that this would be more stressful for the animals. The zoo is also not as well-maintained as Singapore Zoo, for instance, rusted hand railings were commonplace. Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves, especially seeing animals that we don't normally see at Singapore Zoo, for instance, the snow fox. The cool weather also makes it more enjoyable for a day out. We'll definitely be back for a visit before we leave Denver.