It was 10°F (-12°C) when we got out of bed around 7:40 and the water was just fine — not frozen — and we didn't even run the hot water heater before going to bed last night. :) Had breakfast including some New Orleans Style Coffee with Chicory from Lucile's, a Creole Cafe in Fort Collins. J loves their tea, and E (J's daughter) gave me some of their coffee for Christmas. I also had some yesterday, but forgot to mention it in the blog. It has a very distinct, manly flavor to it. Prepped the RV to move and looked for a place to get propane in the next few days. I left at 10:00 in the RV to go dump and J left in the Jeep to go grocery shopping.

I went to the Town of Castle Rock Public Works building to dump. It's a bit early to dump based on our tank capacity, but the dump will be closed tomorrow for New Years and it'll be closed on Saturday (when we'd usually dump, but the dump station's only open on weekdays), so this is the best day for me to dump. Of course, if we had the macerator, we could dump at a more-convenient time. The dump station had been plowed clear, so I was able to use our short hose which made things much easier than last time.

I went to SJ&DilK's (J's Son J and Daughter-in-law K's) to meet J and pick up GJ (grandson J, age 4) to take him for some one-on-one time. J wasn't there yet, so I helped GJ build something with their new Marble Run set. GA (grandson A, age 8) and GS (granddaughter S, age 2.5) helped too. J arrived, and we left around 11:55 in the Jeep.

We took GJ to McDonald's for lunch. He enjoyed his cheeseburger until J opened up her cheeseburger and took out the pickle. That's when GJ realized that his cheeseburger had a pickle and ketchup on it, two things he doesn't like, and didn't eat any more of it. GJ played on the indoor crawl-around-tube thingy for a while, and when he came back to the table we got him a plain cheeseburger: patty, cheese, and bun. He gobbled it down then played some more. We left around 1:10.

We went to the Littleton Museum. It's a free museum with an outdoor living history museum and an indoor area with permanent exhibits and temporary exhibits. We went specifically for one of the temporary exhibits: A Double-Edged Weapon: The Sword as Icon and Artifact from the Higgins Armory Museum. GJ loves swords, but a museum exhibit of swords wasn't up his alley. He was done with the exhibit after looking at a handful of the swords, and then wanted to go to the permanent exhibits. He loved a water-resources exhibit that had switches at the bottom of a map to turn off and on water from two irrigation canals that run through the area. We spent the most time in a kid-sized historic kitchen. GJ had fun with the plastic food, and served us each a huge meal. Then we used a touch-screen display in another area to build a satellite to relay TV signals. (Martin Marietta built the Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles, Titan II rockets for the Mercury and Gemini programs, and Titan III rockets to launch satellites, at a nearby facility.) Finally, we spent some time in the reading room. There were eight large pillows (two each of red, blue, green, and yellow) that GJ had fun piling up and then letting them fall all over him. I even read him a book during a break with the pillow fun. I spent some more time in the sword exhibit while J watched GJ play with the water-rights display some more before we left around 4:00.

We returned to SJ&DilK's and returned GJ after a wonderful time together. I loaded up the fresh water tank in the RV while J took advantage of the fast Wi-Fi connection. I used the fast Wi-Fi connection too before we left around 5:40 with J in the Jeep and me in the RV.

We returned to K's and got the RV set up.

We had dinner of leftover Carino's Spicy Romano Chicken and a salad. The chicken was better after sitting for a while.

After dinner, I worked up a blog entry, then watched an episode of Desperate Housewives on DVD with J.