After a day of being cooped up, we decided to meet Chris at Cinzetti's for dinner. It is a buffet-style Italian restaurant that has a lot of delicious choices. The bonus is that kids eat free on Monday night. We all partook heartily--probably one of the reasons we don't eat there very often--we always eat way too much.
Chris had a meeting Tuesday morning in Littleton. Since we had planned to go to the temple later in the day while Grandma watched the girls for us (overnight too!), we both left the house at 7:30 am. It probably made for a long day for Grandma and Grandpa, but the girls had fun. I watched a movie in the car on Chris' iPad while he conducted his meeting.
After attending the temple and having soup at Olive Garden, Chris and I headed over to Mens Wearhouse to look at dress pants for Chris. Just as we were finishing up, Chris received a call from an unknown number. He was tempted not to answer it, but decided to anyway. It was the police calling to confirm that Misha was his daughter and that Larry and Linda Ball were Misha's grandparents, and were indeed supposed to have Misha in their custody!
Back to the beginning of this story. Kristen had gymnastics at the Carbon Valley Recreation Center on Tuesday afternoon. Grandma and Grandpa took Misha and Amy as well along with Misha and Amy's scooters for them to play on while waiting. From what I can gather, Misha wiped out on her scooter. Grandpa scooped her up while she was crying, helped her get in to the van, and everyone drove away.
Someone at the Rec Center saw a little girl crying while being put into a silver van by an old man and called the cops on a possible child abduction. Misha wasn't hurt too badly as they all stopped at the stop sign a short distance away and started watching the prairie dogs. The Rec Center employee did not see this. All of a sudden a police car comes speeding down the road and stops right next to the van--blocking its escape. Grandma, who was driving, wasn't quite sure what was going on, but obliged the officer by rolling down her window to find out. In short order, two more police cars came speeding down the road. Misha was asked to get out of the car, Amy was asked to stand up in the car to make sure she wasn't tied up, and Grandma and Grandpa had some explaining to do.
Misha told us later that all silver minivans in the Tri-town area were being pulled over, so if you were one of those involved, this is why. That's when we got the phone call. I was just listening to Chris' side of things as he told what his daughter's name was, what his parents' names were, where they were from, etc. He hung up the phone and explained that it was a cop making sure that his parents were supposed to have our van with our children in it. We laughed because it will surely be one of those family stories that gets told over and over, but we were also impressed with someone watching out for children and by the quick, yet courteous, response of the police.
Chris and I waited for a couple of minutes before calling Grandma back to make sure they were all okay. Misha was doing fine but had some pretty sore knees. Still, they were going to the park to play so she couldn't be doing too badly.
While we were gone, they also had fun putting together a gingerbread village and decorating it. There were enough houses that everybody got one to work on which was perfect.
Back to our day away, Chris and I did a little more Christmas shopping and then headed to downtown Denver to check in at the Hilton Garden Inn. We had tickets to a play at the Denver Performing Arts Center later in the evening and thought it would be fun to stay in the midst of downtown Denver. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and the walked back over to the Space Theatre to watch Reckless. Let me just say, and Chris will corroborate, Reckless was ridiculous. The writer must have been high when he wrote it! It was crazy and convoluted and odd.