Cook When You're Traveling!

My husband and I accompanied my daughter and her little family over to Denver for my granddaughter's birthday celebration. The zoo was the main attraction.

But even just a weekend trip can be pretty expensive when you're eating all your meals in a restaurant! Of course, eating out is part of the fun, isn't it?

But this time I decided to bring the food with us. I've never done this before, but now I'm sold!

I reserved two adjoining rooms and upgraded one of them to include living room and full kitchen. I made sure the hotel stay included breakfast. Then I planned a menu for the evening meals, and bought things to pack for lunch snacks. I think I spent $45 total.

It was great!

Friday night's birthday dinner was spaghetti, with meatballs on the side (so my husband and I wouldn't have to eat meat), and a large romaine lettuce vegetable salad I prepared ahead of time and packed in a cooler ~ so we'd have enough for both nights. My daughter brought along birthday cupcakes.

On Saturday after we visited the zoo, we decided to eat lunch at the Denver Aquarium because you can see the fish swimming around you while you eat. We spent $120 there, but decided to skip the cost of general admission to the aquarium (about $80 for all of us) because we enjoyed some of it while we ate. (The kids were satisfied with that because what they really wanted to do was swim a the hotel!)

That evening's entree was Spanish rice with tomatoes and black olives, pork chops for the meat eaters, and again, the salad.

No loading up in the car to go out to eat. Everyone could just relax ~ and really spend time together!