Mother Daughter Denver Week

When everyone else went home after our family reunion, I got to stay in Denver an extra week with my Mom! We started this tradition five years ago, and it is one of my favorite weeks of the summer. We do all of our favorite things all week long and since we have so many shared interests.  As the second of five siblings, I especially relish one on one time with my Mom!  

Sunday, July 5th was a nice quiet day with my parents. Since church wasn't till 12pm, I slept in till 8am and had a slow relaxing Sunday morning. We had an early dinner. Dad told us stories from his day working with the new mission president. He has so many cool stories from serving with two mission presidents over the past 5.5 years! The newly realigned Denver East Mission president called my Dad to be one of his counselors, so my Dad will serve with a THIRD mission president! 

After dinner, Dad and I had our own mini piano recital, since we didn't manage to have a family talent show at our reunion the week before. Dad and I each played two songs. It was short, sweet, and fun. Mom and I talked for a long time in the piano room after that, planning our week and mapping out when to watch all of the k-drama episodes we want to get in, as well as all of the food we want to eat. 

Monday, July 6th was the official kick-off to my week with my Mom! After a death march of a run trying to breathe thin wildfire smoky mile high altitude air, my Mom made me scrambled eggs and toast, and we had a cozy breakfast together at the counter. 

We watched five k-drama episodes with breaks for lunch (Asian dumplings!) and dinner and piano duets and art. While we played piano duets, my brain was mush and I kept messing up in simple parts! Even though we played for 45 minutes, I fumbled notes over and over. Mom was so patient! It was also very fun when we [I] finally got it right near the end. After diner, Mom and I took PB caramel sundaes (cashew milk ice cream for me) in to watch our final episode of the day. Then we did our daily 10 minute sketch. Ahhh! I love quality time with my Mom! 

The rest of the week was variations on this theme. In addition to all of these other activities, on Tuesday we went on our traditional sock-shopping trip to REI. On Thursday, we spent 3.5 hours at the temple. While my mom worked her shift in the baptistry, I did an endowment session and some initiatories, visiting my mom in the baptistry between activities. It was a very restful experience to stay in the temple for over 3 hours. We got some amazing Korean food for a late lunch on the way home. Kimchi pancakes and japchae are so good! While watching an episode of Crash Landing on You on Thursday afternoon, we also put little gel eye patches under our eyes just for fun, and laughed at our silly shiny under-eyes.

Friday, July 10th was my last day in Denver with my Mom. Sniff. We did all of our favorite things again and it was a great finale to our week. I went on an 8.5 mile run. Garmin said after 2 weeks in Denver, I was 89% acclimated to the mile-high altitude, just in time for me to fly home! 

After lunch on Friday, Mom and I went to Andy's Frozen Custard for a cold creamy treat. We played piano duets and did art after dinner. We finished the last longest episode of our k-drama at 9:45pm and did the best we've ever done taking our traditional "finisher's picture" with the last scene paused in the background. This was our 5th year in a row watching Crash Landing on You in one week together, so I guess it was about time for us to get good at taking a picture afterwards!

I love my Mom and I love our week together. It is so special and fun and happy. I enjoyed having a few dinners and good conversations with my Dad too while I was there. The blessing of good, goodly, loving parents is so incredibly massive, I am more in awe of it every time I spend more time with my dear parents. I feel so blessed and lucky to get this whole week of one on one time with my parents! And to have parents that I want to spend a week of one on one time with!

Dad, performing for our two-person piano recital. He is in his 3rd year of piano lessons, and he sounded so good!

The smoky yellow-gold cast to the sunlight was in full force during my death march wildfire smoke run.

This adorable baby bunny hopped across the driveway when I was walking in after a run.

Dumplings!! My braid almost touched the Dan Dan noodles on my plate when I was taking this picture!

Each day, we chose a topic for a 10 minute sketch. The cute baby bunny I saw inspired us on day 1.

REI heaven!

Bibimbap, kimchi jigae, and gimbap: we enjoyed lots of delectable Korean food together.

Piano duets: they were so fun! We learned 3 new songs this year. Two were in a mid-level duet book, and the third was the Chariots of Fire theme song. We laughed a lot while we attempted to learn these songs. We didn't ever really practice them much separately, so we learned as we went along together. We also played the duet we learned last year: an arrangement of Handel's Passacaglia.

Temple!

Kimchi pancake, seafood pancake, and japchae: this was my favorite Korean restaurant.

I think my stomach is Asian. Yum.

Under eye gel patches! We kept laughing as they got warm and slid south.

We were totally dewy-complexioned and glowing when we removed the eye gels.

Clear air at last! This Rocky Mountain view from my parents' neighborhood is so pretty.

More Rocky Mountain views from one of my running routes.

The good ole flat reliable Highline Canal Path. It makes running at 5600 feet bearable.

I'm all about running in the SHADE as much as possible in that blazing Denver sunlight.

I liked the tunnel-feel of this section of the canal path with the trees lining it so closely.

Another daily sketch. Some days we "cheated" and went over our self-imposed 10 minute art time. This picture took nearly half an hour, as cartoony as it is. The foreshortening and perspective were so tricky, I didn't manage to do more detailed people once I got them to the right size and place.

Crash Landing on You finisher's picture! 16 episodes in 5 days! We decided we might finally branch out to a different k-drama next year. Maybe.

My Mom shined her phone flashlight on us, and I took the selfie.

Finger hearts from the k-drama queens.

One more run past the Rockies before I headed home.

Jay left me a gift by our shoe rack when I got home: he put all of his shoes out on the ground in front of the rack. I am always begging him to put his shoes away, haha. Subtle humor, son. In response, I texted him this picture with no caption.