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Best birthday parties for active kids

Gymnastics birthday parties

Kids will go head over heels for this one: For $65, you get one hour in the Meadowood gym for up to eight rowdy little gymnasts ($5 per additional child), followed by a half-hour in the party room indulging in bring-your-own cake and refreshments -- and this is one birthday party where they'll need some excess sugar to burn. Available Friday evenings or Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the parties are open to kids of all ages -- from just-walking to teens.

Best Broncos Super-Bowl coverage in a year the Broncos weren't in the Super Bowl

AM-950/The Fan

Prior to this year's Super Bowl, which didn't include the Broncos (the combatants were the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans), the Fan replayed last year's Super Bowl, which did. The main difference between this broadcast and Orson Welles's panic-inducing radio production of War of the Worlds was that Broncos fans didn't start rioting in Larimer Square after it was over.

Best Broncos Super-Bowl coverage in a year the Broncos weren't in the Super Bowl

AM-950/The Fan

Prior to this year's Super Bowl, which didn't include the Broncos (the combatants were the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans), the Fan replayed last year's Super Bowl, which did. The main difference between this broadcast and Orson Welles's panic-inducing radio production of War of the Worlds was that Broncos fans didn't start rioting in Larimer Square after it was over.

Best kids' gardening experience

Mr. McGregor's Garden, Denver Botanic Gardens

What kid isn't hardwired to dig in the dirt? Unfortunately, today's canned urban society doesn't always allow for an available plot -- so what's a babe with a shovel to do? The Denver Botanic Gardens' Mr. McGregor's Garden is open -- free -- to little diggers and worm-hunters every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., throughout the summer. The pastoral gent himself is on hand then to help them pick and plant vegetables or flowers, providing your wee beasties with a growth experience they'll never forget.

Best kids' gardening experience

Mr. McGregor's Garden, Denver Botanic Gardens

What kid isn't hardwired to dig in the dirt? Unfortunately, today's canned urban society doesn't always allow for an available plot -- so what's a babe with a shovel to do? The Denver Botanic Gardens' Mr. McGregor's Garden is open -- free -- to little diggers and worm-hunters every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., throughout the summer. The pastoral gent himself is on hand then to help them pick and plant vegetables or flowers, providing your wee beasties with a growth experience they'll never forget.

Best flying pumpkins

Denver Urban Garden's Jack-O-Launch Contest www.dug.org

We've all got a contrary little guy sitting on our brains, telling us to do things we know we shouldn't. But most of us have the willpower to keep him in check. Well, this was one event where folks could just let it all go: When their little guys saw a big, round pumpkin and wanted to smash it to smithereens, the ten teams participating last fall -- including the green-wigged youth division winners the Punkcelerators and recreation division winners It's a Bird, It's Plane, It's a...Splat! -- created catapults and let 'em fly, all for the benefit of Denver Urban Gardens and the DeLaney Urban Farm. And guess what? Next fall's gourds, though barely out of the ground, are already quaking in their vines: Heave-ho-ho! You can always say the devil made you do it.

Best flying pumpkins

Denver Urban Garden's Jack-O-Launch Contest www.dug.org

We've all got a contrary little guy sitting on our brains, telling us to do things we know we shouldn't. But most of us have the willpower to keep him in check. Well, this was one event where folks could just let it all go: When their little guys saw a big, round pumpkin and wanted to smash it to smithereens, the ten teams participating last fall -- including the green-wigged youth division winners the Punkcelerators and recreation division winners It's a Bird, It's Plane, It's a...Splat! -- created catapults and let 'em fly, all for the benefit of Denver Urban Gardens and the DeLaney Urban Farm. And guess what? Next fall's gourds, though barely out of the ground, are already quaking in their vines: Heave-ho-ho! You can always say the devil made you do it.

Best community project

Box Canyon Restoration, City Park

Visitors to City Park in recent years may have noticed the Box Canyon ruins meandering behind the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and wondered what the heck it was all about. Well, it was once quite something -- designed in 1953 by noted landscape architect S.R. DeBoer, the miniature canyon waterway ambled through the park before emptying into a lily pond and Ferril Lake, evoking the kind of scenery we're used to seeing up in the Rockies. But over the years it fell into disrepair -- until this spring, when volunteers from Denver Urban Gardens and the Garden Club of Denver joined hands with Denver Parks and Recreation to restore the little gorge by solidifying its rock walls, landscaping it with river alders, ginnala maple, river birch, mountain mahogany, squaw currant, apache plume shrub and other native plantings and building two trails. DUG co-director Michael Buchenau deems that unique partnership a success, which bodes well for the future of similar large-scale restoration projects in public places.

Best community project

Box Canyon Restoration, City Park

Visitors to City Park in recent years may have noticed the Box Canyon ruins meandering behind the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and wondered what the heck it was all about. Well, it was once quite something -- designed in 1953 by noted landscape architect S.R. DeBoer, the miniature canyon waterway ambled through the park before emptying into a lily pond and Ferril Lake, evoking the kind of scenery we're used to seeing up in the Rockies. But over the years it fell into disrepair -- until this spring, when volunteers from Denver Urban Gardens and the Garden Club of Denver joined hands with Denver Parks and Recreation to restore the little gorge by solidifying its rock walls, landscaping it with river alders, ginnala maple, river birch, mountain mahogany, squaw currant, apache plume shrub and other native plantings and building two trails. DUG co-director Michael Buchenau deems that unique partnership a success, which bodes well for the future of similar large-scale restoration projects in public places.

Best sports date night

March 17, 2000, Stevie Johnston vs. Julio Alvarez

Denver's homegrown (now-ex) boxing champ, WBC lightweight title-holder Stevie "Li'l But Bad" Johnston, wasted no time on March 17 reducing his opponent to rubble. Cut over the left eye in the first round, Johnston pelted the gape-jawed challenger, Mexico's Julion Alvarez, with a furious barrage in the second and was soon aloft on the shoulders of his corner men. That meant the 8,000 Johnston fans in Magness Arena -- this was the champ's first Denver fight in four years -- had plenty of time to celebrate the victory over cocktails and relatively early dinners out -- and for the male halves of couples to tell their wives and dates how tough they used to be.

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