Party on the Platte!

Finally! A perfect weather weekend that everyone keeps saying Colorado is known for! So perfect that it deserves two seperate posts! One for Saturday and one for Sunday! I was beginning to doubt the talk of the beautiful summers here and today doesn't hold that claim very well - it's 50 degrees and threatening rain, BUT all the Coloradans kept promising me that Mother's Day weekend is always the shift for the weather from unpredictable to perfect. This weekend proved that to be true!

Grant and I took advantage of the 80 degrees Saturday and Sunday and filled them with fun outdoorsy activities that wore us out! Sage was pretty worn out as well! Saturday was a day for remembering. We took a trip to downtown's Platte River and Confluence park, the very place we fell in love with the idea of moving to Colorado. Well, maybe I fell in love with it. Grant has been in love with that idea longer than he has been in love with me. :) We spent the entire day around that park Saturday, reading, talking, dreaming, basking in the sun, watching the bikers go by and kids play in the swimming hole, and Sage's favorite activity of the day - playing fetch in the Platte river! Grant wore that pup out - throwing the ball to her for an hour straight. She was so tired from swimming and running that her legs were physically shaking, yet she was relentless, nudging the ball to him over and over until he'd throw it again.  In the afternoon we walked into downtown and met our new dear friends from church, Alex and Catherine, for drinks and derby watching. Then headed ourselves right back over to the park that evening, for dinner and a few more swims for Sager. It was a perfect day.

I love that park. It reminds me of when we were newly dating, when we came to CO to ski and Grant brought me to Denver for the first time on a whim and an intentionally missed flight. We wandered through the park dreaming of living near it someday as the snow was falling around us. Reminds me of the a visit to Brittany in the Springs, when she had to work on our last day there so we spent the afternoon in Denver and decided randomly to tour an apartment complex that sits on the Platte. We ate pizza at a restaurant by the river and dreamed about getting to do that weekly someday. It reminds me of August, when we came up from the big D to see Ray Lamontagne at Red Rocks and spent the whole day in that park together, playing frisbee and throwing the ball around. It reminds me of why I wanted to marry Grant. Why I wanted to move here with him. So thank God for good weather and good reminders!

And thank God for new friends, sunny weather, and fun places like Confluence park! Here's a few pics from our perfect Saturday!

Platte River here we come!

Sager wanting to play fetch already. 

Don't be deceived. The weather was 80 but the water was COLD!

Here's the "swimming hole" with a few brave kiddos already swimming!

The pedestrian bridge into downtown. 

Only in CO would they think to make bike ramps up and down the bridges.

LOVE the amount of bikers here! We will be super "green" before you know it!

My favorite biker of the day. 

And check it out - in full blown pearl izumi gear and all!