Callerado Edjumacation

My dearest Love has graduated and with honors! Suma cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice from Colorado Technical University(CTU). In celebration of his great accomplishment and to commemorate ten years of blissful marriage as of April 4th, 2008, we decided to take a trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado to attend his graduation ceremony. Off we embarked on a four day/ three night adventure together, alone, thats right, NO KIDS!!! Grandma and Grandpa were gracious enough to step up to the plate or rather the changing table to watch all four of the kids for us. And in case I haven't said it enough THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. :-)

We left home Friday morning at 5a.m. and reached our destination at 11a.m. Our room was not ready (one with a king size bed) so we decided to go out for lunch and try our luck later.

~~Later~~

The room was still not ready so we accepted a room with two queen beds. This secretly excited My Love and I because we would each have a whole bed to ourselves but, of course, this being our anniversary trip as well, neither of us admitted our excitement. After we settled in and freshened up we set about the business of graduating. There were robe fittings and rehearsals, photo sessions and a tour of the CTU campus. We also did a lot of standing around waiting for someone to tell us to stand around somewhere else. Finally Pomp and Circumstance! Here is My Love accepting his diploma from the President of CTU. I am so proud of him for working so hard to achieve his goal.


I made the hired/professional photographer really angry by snapping this pic below. He kept yelling, "NO FLASHES" but I had already turned mine off :-p He was just bitter because he wasn't gonna make no money offa me. Isn't My Love so dashing in this intellectual get up?



What Friday was to the graduation, Saturday was to site seeing. Mr. Amazing started out the day by letting me sleep in whilst he went out on the town to shop the CTU gift shop and bring me breakfast in bed. MMMmmmm... nothing better then a Denny's French Slam at 10:30a.m. Just trust me on this one ;-)


Seven Falls, a splendid example of the beauty of God's creation. The falls are actually lit at night and there is a light show arranged to music but only during the summer. (shoot!) We did decide it might be worth it to climb up to the top of the falls to take it all in...
...we were wrong! The first flight was 117 steps +/-. We went up... caught our breath, took in the view...




...then came back down. Whew!!! Were we sore? YES! We weren't about to attempt the second flight to reach the top. But it was a great experience and I highly recommend this attraction. Plus there was a great gift shop at the bottom and the top of the falls.







We met this site on our way to Seven Falls. It is called the Pillars of Samson. I couldn't even get the entire cliff faces in my frame they were so immense and tall. That little black splotch with legs at the bottom center of the photo is My Love standing in the middle of the road that winds between these two giants.


I was so excited that there was a place called Garden of the Gods for us to visit. I couldn't wait to behold the tremendous variety of plants that would be new to my senses. However, much to my surprise, Garden of the Gods is a gathering of rock formations NOT botanical beauties. :-p

It was beautiful nonetheless. Here are my faves, White Rock and the Cathedral Spires.


The Garden of the Gods visitor center was a great place to shop and learn about the surrounding region. They had many taxidermied specimens of local wildlife and even had a short movie presentation about the rock formations. Besides the gift shop the visitor center was a two story museum of sorts. It was very informative and the scenery, although not flora and fauna, was awe inspiring.


That night we ate at Joe's Crab Shack. If you ever find yourself in the Colorado Springs area you must AVOID this place at all cost. Although they gave a rousing and entertaining choreographed presentation of the disco tune Car Wash the service was sub par. The food was edible but I've found the same quality in the freezer section of Safeway. We should have known better than to eat at a landlocked seafood establishment :-p


Since Friday and Saturday were go, go, go, we conscientiously decided to take Sunday a little slower and take time to relax on our vacation. After a private hotel room church service we headed out to enjoy the day and ended up at a flea market. Yippee!!! for me but just yay for My Love. ;-) Lets just say I was very indulged but he did find a treasure of his own which made it worth his while. Tired of walking we decided to see a movie. Drillbit Taylor is not a must see but it felt good to sit in the dark and not think about where we had to get to next.

For dinner we found ourselves at the Famous Steakhouse. It was a charmingly swanky formal sit down without having to dress up kind of place. Everything on the menu was BIG! Not one cut of meat under 16oz! We split a Jumbo shrimp cocktail, Marinated mushrooms and a 22oz prime rib. Soooooooooo delicious! Everything was cooked to perfection with a superb mingling of flavors. We will defiantly be visiting Colorado Springs again even if it is just to eat Famous.

After dinner we went back to the cinema to see Nim's Island. The movie was very cute and I feel good recommending it. It was a sweet close to an even sweeter trip. It had been a long time since My Love and I had spent a significant amount of time alone together with out the distractions four lovely hooligans can bring. We were able to focus our attention solely on each other and hear every word the other had to say... even the unspoken ones.