This is the last of my February catch-up posts. Thanks for bearing with me.

Last month three Trader Joe’s food stores opened in Colorado. Two are in Denver and one is in Boulder. They’re all about 1 – 1 1/2 hours from here, which is the closest we’ve lived to a TJs in a long time.

Long-time readers might recall that a store opened in Omaha less than a month before we moved from the area in 2010.

Because I’m a crazy lady, and because the boys had no school on the day the stores opened (Valentine’s Day), the day we visited the History Colorado Center in Denver, we made a short stop at the southernmost of the three new Trader Joe’s stores in Greenwood Village.

The Greenwood Village store is in a rather well-to-do area of Denver. It was absolutely packed.

Grand Opening Tip: Bring a friend. As soon as you walk into the store, grab a cart and get in line. The store was feeding a single line around the perimeter. It was about 25 minutes in line. You and your friend need to take turns browsing the store while keeping the cart in line. I put the boys in line while I browsed the aisles nearby.

There was a line of people just waiting for a shopping cart. I grabbed a basket instead. We filled it up to the brim, and Jacob even offered to hold some of the larger items so we could fit more into the basket. He was such a trooper — of course, he loves Trader Joe’s as much as I do so if he could help the basket fit more veggie pasta and tortellini, he would do it.

I was pleased to be able to stock up on frozen goodies, which I hadn’t done in years. However, the Greenwood Village store doesn’t sell alcohol, so I needed to plan another trip up to the next closest one.

A couple weeks later I had a reason to go up to Denver again, and this time I headed up to the downtown Denver store on Colorado Blvd. This is the one with a liquor license.

Getting to this location took much longer than I had anticipated. I figured out some detours through residential areas that kept me away from the incessant traffic lights.

Even though this trip was about 2 weeks after grand opening, it was just about as crowded. Once again I had to grab a shopping cart and quickly get in line. I picked up a few items, but not much. The point of this trip was to pick up some Three Buck Chuck.

Colorado requires the alcohol portion of Trader Joe’s be in a separate store. So one has to exit the regular grocery store and enter the space next door. All I needed was some white wine, but this is what I saw:

There were Chardonnays left and that was about it for the white wines. I picked up a couple bottles and was on my way.

I’ll just have to try another time.

Yesterday it was announced that Trader Joe’s leased space in a nearby shopping center here in Colorado Springs. Oh happy day! The store won’t be open till 2015, but I’m thrilled at having a Trader Joe’s closer to me than the nearest commissary!