A little bit different format for this week’s review, more pictures than my usual recap because it was a more visual week!

The week started off with a walk with Jade The Boxer on Monday morning. I wanted to make sure I got some exercise with her since we had to drop her off for boarding that evening. (Which made me incredibly sad… Our flight wasn’t until the next morning but we wouldn’t have had time to take her in the morning and make our flight.)

Tuesday was flying to Denver, CO and playing with my brother and his family. Wednesday was driving to our family reunion location in Green Mountain Lake, CO (outside of Colorado Springs). Oh… and eating at a Chick-Fil-A… because we don’t have those here in Vegas!

Thursday we went to Garden of the Gods in CO with Kevin’s family. Our first “hike” was on a paved path in the park with the whole fam… Kevin’s family is large with lots of children, so it wasn’t exactly a swift hike. But it was pretty. Then Kevin and I went off and did another hike on our own, this time on trails with a little rock scrambling (not as much as I could usually do, got make sure to not topple over as I am a little heavy in the front!).

On Friday Kevin’s family took the train to the top of Pike’s Peak. Since I am having so much trouble breathing just here in Vegas (pregnancy rhinitis, pregnancy-aggravated asthma, baby pushing into diaphragm) and my breathing struggle was intensified at the cabin (7800 feet elevation) we opted to not go to the 14,000+ elevation of Pikes Peak (but someday we’ll go back… perhaps I’ll do the marathon!) Instead we got to have a day to ourselves. First up, we went to the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

At the USOTC you get to see a short movie about the Olympics, it was pretty current talking about the last games and about the upcoming London games… except that it kept saying “Next summer in London!” After the movie you get led around the compound by a tour guide and get to see several areas of the center: gyms, pools, weight rooms, etc. There are inspiring quotes on all the walls everywhere.

Next we headed to the Air Force Academy. There was a lot of traffic to get there, but we got there just in time to see the short movie before the walking tour started. (The seats in the visitor center theatre would probably be considered uncomfortable by a lot of people, but they were magical for me… they managed to put my body at a precise angle where I could actually get full breaths of air in!)

The walking tour leads you on a short hike over to the Cadet Chapel building, a very iconic building in conjunction with the Academy. It’s made of aluminum and there was a saying somewhere about how it was once stated that the cadets “fight in aluminum, die in aluminum… thus they could worship in aluminum.”

There are several denominations represented in the building.

On Saturday morning I got up and went off on a hike by myself from our cabin. It was warm (we didn’t get to escape the heat by much on this trip) but not so awful I couldn’t head off. The hike was steep and probably felt even steeper to me due to the elevation/breathing and pregnancy. Some gal passed me on the downhill part of the hike, she was trail running. I could only think, “I can’t wait until I can do that again!”

Later that day fire broke out right near us. We were placed on “voluntary evacuation.” I would have left if it was entirely my decision. The smoke was making my breathing even worse, but Kevin felt familial obligation or something like that… so we stayed.

The next morning, about an hour before we left the town was placed on “mandatory evacuation,” so I was happy to get the hell outta there! We did a little shopping in Castle Rock, CO before heading the rest of the way to Denver. We shopped at the GoLite store, a company I’ve had my eye on for a while and I was excited to check them out in person. I bought a running skirt and a casual skirt. Both work now and should work postpartum too… the wonder of stretchiness! I would have bought every color of the casual skirt if they had them available… but they only had one color in my size!

For flying home, I got a little perk for being pregnant.

Hey… I got to sit toward the front so I could be closer to a toilet if I needed and I could get off the plane to the airport restrooms sooner!

This week… Who knows? Walks, hopefully some yoga and I’m looking forward to being back on an eating schedule that works better for me, and includes LOTS of veggies.