We started at Walgreens, simply because it was close to home, and moved on to Target. It was definitely not a mad house by the time we got there and the items I wanted to purchase were all still available (except for one game that we found at the Boulder Target much later in the afternoon). We were pretty much finished and on our way home by 10:30 am. We called the girls on the way and said to get ready to go to Boulder to go shopping and then hiking. I thought it was pretty cute that Kristen made her own trail mix with nuts, cashews, raisins and M&Ms. Very ingenious kid.
Great planning on our part, we arrived in Boulder right at lunch time. Of course our girls were hungry. We stopped for a nice lunch at Wendy's and then headed over to Target. Chris and Grandpa ran an errand which was the real reason for going to Boulder while Grandma and I shopped with the girls. Amy went with Grandma and did all of her shopping for the whole family. I had Kristen and Misha and we started looking for gifts for Amy. We purchased those items right away so that Amy wouldn't see them if we happened to run in to her and Grandma. Luckily, Chris returned and he took Misha and shopped with her. Kristen and I were successful in completing all of her shopping. Once done, we dropped Grandpa off at McGuckin's hardware store and the rest of us hiked partway up to the Flat Irons. The wind whipping out of the canyon was nasty, but once we got closer to the mountain, it was much warmer. We all had layers of jackets on and even scavenged some of Grandma's recent purchases.
All week long we had been focusing on a healthy holiday and had encouraged the girls to fit in some exercise each day. This was just one more opportunity to get their heart pumping.
After finishing our hike, we returned to McGuckin's to pick up Grandpa and headed home for my girls' new favorite dinner. I found a pizza dough recipe for my breadmaker that mixes up in 45 minutes. The dough is perfect for rolling out and filling with pizza toppings for a braided calzone. It garnered two-thumbs up all around the table.