Saturday in Downtown Denver

D treated us all to a day downtown, starting with visiting Brown Palace. It is one of the most famous buildings in Denver, and has been open every day since August 12, 1892. It is an elegant palace of a hotel. T and I went to the spa (my birthday gift) for a pedicure while being served tea. So elegant!

This is the lobby, where afternoon tea is served. The chandelier was huge.

It is a triangle shaped building, this is how it looks from the outside:

Inside the spa, you can spot the tea cart:

Waiting for our toes to dry:

During that, D took the other two kids to lunch at the Ship's Tavern, a nice little restaurant (one of 3) inside the hotel. Then we rode the elevators to explore the balconies.

Looking down at the entrance to the spa:

The wood paneling and all of the details were so beautiful.

Just a block away is Denver's most famous mall, the outdoor and HUGE 16th Street Mall. We walked that way and found the free ice-skating rink. All you have to do is rent the skates. Unfortunately, J had to hold my purse and watch, and T had a splint on her wrist from falling while ice-skating in Utah... so we just took E out for a bit. T took all these pictures.

E called the skates her "skating shoes" and is still talking about it!

These were hockey skates, and more difficult than I remember other skates to use. Most of the pictures show me almost falling. But, I did not fall :-)

We had to take a break while they smoothed the ice. It got easier after that, and I "almost fell" less.

Look at her crossed legs. She could NOT keep her legs under her for long. She kept telling us "I got it, I got it." So we would let go of her balance bar, and let her try to go. Her legs moved, but she went nowhere... it was really funny!

I love the huge blue bow on D's head in this one:

We were sore that night ;-)