Colorado -Day 4 - going our separate ways

We split up Tuesday morning.  Poppy, Uncle Philip and all the kids headed to the Rocky Mountain National Park.  They wanted to hike around Bear Lake.  It was a beautiful visit, as you can see.

There was still a bunch of snow on the ground!

Mamaw, Aunt April and I "went to town", as my grandmother would have said.  We walked and shopped around downtown Estes Park.  It is a great downtown area, with lots of cute shops and restaurants.  But everything is overpriced, which is typical of a tourist town.  We did find one really cool store where they had music memoribilia.  I was able to finally replace Gabriel's Beatles toothbrush mug that he broke last year with a new Yellow Submarine one.  And I bought a new pencil drawing of the Fab Four.  I love our Beatles bathroom!

This is the only picture I have from our downtown visit.  The Fall River winds around right through downtown, so that rushing water sound is never very far away.  We had lunch in a brand new sandwich shop.  It was a fun day.

After a rest time in the afternoon, we hiked up "our" mountain again.  I love how the weather changes so quickly in the mountains.  The light is never the same five minutes after you look at a view.  

Show me your muscles!

Later in the early evening, we decided to walk along the river for awhile.  But Cade's leg was still hurting him so we headed back.  The kids always flocked to the playground that was on the grounds of our cabins.  They even had a shuffleboard court!   We ordered dinner and the boys went to pick it up.  We were all really tired from all of our sightseeing.  

I fell in love with the tree below.  A gigantic blue spruce in the middle of the grounds that was breathtaking.

I thought I'd throw in a couple of Joel-isms that we picked up on during this trip.  We splurged on groceries and bought a little more junk food than we normally would, so one of his favorite things to shout out was, "I love burritos!!!" which meant Doritos.  He figured out the weird animal we showed him was an "underdillo".  And one time in the car he couldn't get out when we arrived at our destination because his foot was "sprinkling"  (had fallen asleep). Love that kid and the way his brain works!

Colorado - Day 3, hanging around the cabin

We decided to hang around close to the cabin for our first full day.  We wanted to explore our surroundings, get our bearings, and just soak up the mountains.

Every morning we would get up and start making wonderful breakfasts.  Huge pots of coffee, bacon and eggs.  We don't eat like that at home, so it tasted so good every morning.  The kids all played on their electronic devices on the trip, but they would usually pair up or play tournaments with games they all had.  We were getting enough outside time all day that we didn't stress over it.

There were some great woods and rocky areas in the hills behind our cabins.  We decided to hike them, and ended up doing it almost every day we were there.  The views were beautiful in every direction.  Cade is missing from this pic.  He had pulled his hamstring playing baseball, and it was too sore for him to hike (or even walk much), the first few days we were there.  But he soon got better.

This is the hill we would always start with on our hikes.  It takes a day to be able to fully breathe in all of that clean, oxygenated air.  The kind we are not used to having because of all the smog and pollution we breath in living in a metropolitan area.  

I jokingly called myself "Julie, the Cruise Director" because I liked coming up with things for the kids to do that were not electronic related.  This particular pic was after I brought out coloring books and crayons for G and J, and the big kids surprised me by wanting to join in!  I love all of these kiddos so very much.

More hiking pics.  This is our cabin from one of our favorite rock perches. Nothing wakes up your muscles like hiking on a steep hill, and climbing from rock to rock.  It felt so good to move like that.  I think my muscles had memories from doing it as a kid all those years ago.

We brought a ton of board games and dominoes.  We never got to the dominoes.  The kids started Monopoly games but always ended up bickering so we stuck to checkers.  And the best way to spend the afternoons between hiking?  NAPS!!!

My mom and I.  For dinner this evening we grilled steaks and burgers, roasted potatoes in the oven, and had a big salad.  We had worked up all kinds of huge appetites with all of that hiking all day!  It was so yummy.  We had hoped to play games after dinner in the evenings, but we would always be so tired by the time everything was cleaned up that we didn't have the energy.  Mom and dad (very smartly) had their own cabin so they could be on their schedule and get away from the chaos.  

Windows open, sound of the river filling the house.  Time for bed.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.