We had a wonderful past few days. Let's see . . .Thursday (07/24/08), Yiying and the other students went into Denver for the day. They toured the capitol building, went to the Colorado History Museum, and did some shopping at the 16th street mall. When she got off the bus at the end of the day, she said she was tired but very excited! She bought a beautiful new handbag and a few other small things.
Then, on Friday (07/25/08), we kept her out of school for the days so that we could go to the Denver Mint as a family. We awoke early and headed to Denver, catching a 9:00 a.m. tour of the building. It was about 1/2 an hour long, and very interesting. Unfortunately, our tour guide spoke very fast and made a lot of jokes, which made it difficult for Yiying to understand her. I tried to explain as much as I could and I think she enjoyed herself. She bought a postcard as a souvenir. After the tour, we came back home and packed up the trailer for our camping trip, leaving the house at about 1:30 p.m.
The next couple of days were spent in Estes Park, Colorado. She really loved the camping trip. Sarah's horse show wasn't until Sunday, so we had some time to drive through Rocky Mountain National Park and enjoy the campground. On Saturday, two large male elk came within about 50 yards of our trailer! The drive through the park was wonderful, with many herds of mama elk and their babies throughout. The 
mountains are spectacular. I taught her the word 'elevation,' and she enjoyed tracking how high we were getting as we drove to the Alpine Visitors Center, which sits above the treeline. We enjoyed lunch at the visitors center and bought some souvenirs. On Sunday, most of the a
fternoon was spent at the Stanley Park Fairgrounds, preparing to watch Sarah show in Copper Penny. She participated in three classes, taking 2nd place out of three competitors in one, 5th place out of 17, and not placing in the third class that had 40 participants. She was pleased with her effort and we think she did a wonderful job. Her horse behaved, which was a nice change from last year's attempt.The only glitch to our weekend was that, about five minutes after we arrived at the campground, I fell off the steps going into the trailer, and thought I had a broken ankle or foot. Dave took me to the E.R. and, to my pleasant surprise, I had just a bad sprain. So, I spent the rest of the weekend either in bed, with my foot propped up on a pillow in the car, or hobbling around on crutches! It is feeling significantly better now, so I can be up on it but limp quite a bit. Oh well. If that was the worst that happened, I consider it a good weekend!
Yiying is back at classes today. She will spend the afternoon at the CU Student Recreation Center, where she will have the chance to play sports, swim, and ice skate! She was looking forward to the skating. I am going to venture out this afternoon to do some birthday shopping for Sarah. Tomorrow, she turns 15 and we will go to get her learner's permit! Wow. What a milestone. It still seems like she is my little girl!I'll check back in a couple of days and give another update.