A week ago, we attended Granby Ranch’s Summer Solstice. The resort went all out for this celebration that included fireworks, BBQs, chairlift rides, face painting, golf, crafts, a climbing wall, trampoline, massages, pony rides and mountain bike demos. To name a few.

We reallllly wanted to go on this trip because:

1) It sounded fun. Duh.

2) The following weekend would be our dreaded camping trip with the children and we wanted them to have at least one positive experience with the great outdoors. Even if it meant enjoying it from the great indoors of our slope-side condo.

If you’ve never been to Granby Ranch, you must not be a hip, nature-loving family with young children because that is 90 percent of their audience. The other 9 percent consists of suicidal mountain bikers who barrel down the resort’s new mountain bike park. The remaining 1 percent? Toileting-papering, hike-traumatizing city folk like us. Read on …

Congratulations to Julie Weathers, winner of our designer Baby Lulu outfit!

If you’ve had any complaints about boredom from your children, VTech is coming to the rescue! Their fantastic prize pack includes the following:

V-Motion: This is one of the summer’s most educational toys on the market. This Wii-like educational game gets “active minds in motionâ€? when it goes head-to-head with today’s must-have technologies, providing a motion-activated gaming system appropriate for 3 to 7 year olds. $69.99

V-Motion Smartridgesâ„¢: Children’s favorite characters come to life and encourage action-packed play on the V-Motion Smartridges. The prize pack includes a game from one of the summer’s hottest movies: Kung Fu Panda! $24.99

Movie Theater Prize Pack: VTech will also throw in an AMC Movie Theater gift certificate to go see Sensei Panda, along with candy and popcorn to enjoy. Not that we are endorsing smuggling of any kind. :-)

We are thrilled to OFFER three of VTech’s prize packs! To enter, simply email us at with “V-Motion” in the subject line. Please include your mailing address (this prize is available to Colorado residents only). Contest deadline is July 5, 2008.

This is your one-stop shopping spot for a whole lot of mom-worthy information. What do Hanes and Disney have in common? Where can you find fun activities at a luxury mountain resort for free? Where can you enjoy summer shopping, lemonade and sweet deals on the hottest Colorado-based mom and kid products around?

Look no further!

Hanes + Disney = Family Fun
Hanes makes more than just great undies (I should know—their comfy shirts are a summertime staple at my house.) Hanes is also about making dreams come true! The company is partnering with Disney to give SEVEN families the chance to “Vacation in Comfort� during The Year of A Million Dreams at Walt Disney World® Resort. The contest runs through August 30, 2008. Visit www.hanes.com/vacationincomfort to enter.

Park Hyatt Beaver Creek + Fridays at the Park = Luxuriously Free Fun
Want a taste of the good life without taking a gouge out of your wallet? Fridays at the Park return to the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort & Spa. Beginning June 27 and continuing through August 29 (excluding July 4), Fridays at the Park provides FREE activities for all the family to enjoy including gondola rides, live music, fly fishing demonstrations, giveaways and much more. For information, call 970-949-1234.

Colorado Companies + Lovely Confections = Discounted and Tasty Fun
The Sweet Summer Sample Sale is THE place to buy Colorado’s hottest baby and mom items, all discounted 30 - 60 percent! Possibly the best part? The Sweet Summer Sample Sale will be at Lovely Confections Bakery where the true sampling begins! The sale is July 12th from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. For more information on participating companies, go here.

Guest blogger Heather lives outside of Denver with her husband and two young sons. When not blogging at A Mama’s Blog, Heather is an almost full-time stay-at-home mama, who also works part-time a few days a week. When she is not trying to keep up with her two active boys, Heather enjoys blogging about daily life with her sons, pregnancy and birth, and more natural living. On the rare occasions when she has spare time, she enjoys hanging out with her family, gardening, exercising and reading.

My son Ryan is participating in a language development study. He was a participant about two years ago, before he was talking. The research team recently contacted me and said they wanted to have some of the original children participate in their latest round of research, and asked if we would consider having Ryan participate again.

The research involves having Ryan wear a vest, with a slot for a special recording device. It is about the size of an iPod. It records for 16 hours a day and will pick up everything within a 6-foot radius of the child, to “hear� what the child hears, and then determines what the child says.

It is a little odd on recording days, because I am very mindful that anything and everything I say will be recorded. Same goes for Joe. The researchers assured us that they have heard it all- even awful, drug-out fights between parents. Fortunately Joe and I haven’t had one of those yet on recording day, but it does keep you on your toes.

Today was a recording day, and I felt well enough to go to work. The boys went to daycare. I stayed a few extra hours at work to catch up, and honestly I was kind of glad I didn’t have the “pressure� of dealing with the recorder.

All went well, until the last half hour before Ryan went to bed. Read on …

Scene: Typical state university dorm room of 2022—poster of Kermit the Frog, lava lamp, mini stainless steel fridge, UN flag round out the decor. A group of freshman students lounge on the beds and floor. They pass around an Xtreme Red Bull Brand Pomegranate and Ultraviolet Baby Leaf Tea Wine Cooler with DHA and ARA and a candy cigarette. We join the conversation in media res.

Blayden: Steve or Joe?

Emmayden: Joe! Mr. Noodle or Mr. Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle?

Poppy: Totally Mr. Noodle. Did you hear Mr. Noodle died when his head exploded after eating too many pieces of popcorn chicken? It’s too bad they had to stop making them.

Joel: Yeah. When I was like four-years-old that was all I ate.

Cecilia: Me too!

Joel: I think my mom probably wrote about it on her blog. Like everything else.

Hannah-Savannah: Tell me about it. My mom had like five blogs.

Joel: My mom had one, then three, then one again, then two. I bet there are still blogs out there she has hasn’t updated in fifteen years.

Savannah-Montana: Did she have a digital camera? Read on …

At the risk of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld, what’s the deal with trucks?

I realize that I’m practically inviting hate mail by posting this here at Mile High Mamas, where I’d bet more than two-thirds of our audience owns a truck, but it’s been a while since I stirred the pot, so I figured it might be fun for all of us to scuffle over the merits - and demerits - of driving a truck.

If your line of work requires you to haul stuff in the bed of your truck on a daily basis, that’s one thing. But if you drive a truck because you think it makes you look like a honky tonk bada**, then I can’t help but snicker at you.

Trucks aren’t quite as off-putting to me as motorcycles with those decals of naked ladies in silhouette. You plaster those on your ride, and you are setting yourself up for failure - practically guaranteeing that no chick will ever wrap her arms around your waist and press her cheek to your back. Sorry to break it to you.

But trucks do run a close second (and they’re right on par if you’ve installed naked lady mudflaps). Simply put, they’re a waste of space. Since most people don’t use the truck bed on a daily basis, they’re hauling around a lot of extra vehicle weight unnecessarily. The extra space is in the truck bed, where no one - not even a dog - ought to be riding. They’re just plain illogical for both families and single people.

I’ll admit that I know a few women who drive trucks Read on …

I have a niece who for the longest time referred to pickles as “shupet.” Like filet or valet or CABERNET. In fact, for the first five years of her life Megan spoke the most adorable make-believe FRENCH I’ve ever heard. Megan is now 13 and there isn’t A TRACE of foreign in her day-to-day speech and text-messaging. But there was a time when her mother wondered if Megan’s lagging speech development had something to do with a hearing impairment seeing as how “shupet” has but one thing in common with the word pickle: It’s a cute name for a pet hamster.

Luckily, it wasn’t her hearing. And, much to my dismay, she eventually started referring to pickles as… well… pickles.

My three-year-old Kyra doesn’t speak quasi-French the way that Megan did but, like many toddlers her age, she struggles with certain sounds. She says “queese” instead of “please.” She says “wike” instead of “like.” She totally avoids words like “bourgeoise.”But who cares, right? She’s THREE.

Well. As it turns out, there was more to Kyra’s speech impediments than we realized. Thankfully, my husband Allan put two and two together before it was too late. “Do you think Kyra is hearing okay?” he asked me as she was whispering jibberish to herself one day. It had never occured to me that she wasn’t. But he’d noticed Read on …