Colorado 2008

I can't believe I've had this blog for over a year. I'm now starting to repeat myself because this is my second entry about a family vacation to Colorado. We had a great time this year. It was much more enjoyable I think because we learned some lessons last year. 1. Road trips are a thing of the past. We flew this year and that was a fantastic decision. We weren't frazzled and tired when we got there which made a huge difference. 2. Sleep more. We didn't really do anything different other than take older kids with us, but it helped. 3. Lowered expectations when it comes to hiking. Mat and I used to try to do really hard, long hikes almost everyday on vacation, but that just doesn't work during this phase of our lives.

So here are a few pictures.












I picked a few more to add to our Flickr page. Unfortunately since Mat and I split up several times to do different things we don't have pictures of everything we did because we only took one camera. One of my favorite activities was the high ropes course and zip line. It was very fun, and I definitely want to do that again. Mat hiked Jackstraw Mountain which is only hiked by about 10 people every year. It's pretty remote. But no pics of that either. The boys went fishing one day with Grammy, Papa, and Aunt Becky. Umm, what else? Oh yeah, we got to go out to eat at the Dunraven Inn on our last night to belatedly celebrate Father's Day with my dad. That was my annual allowance of fettucine alfredo. Yum.

Jackson was a MUCH better hiker this year. Last year he whined and had tantrums and had to be carried. This year he went on two long (for his age) hikes. The first day I estimated that he hiked almost 2 miles. And on the last day I'd say he hiked another 2 miles, lots of it in the snow. At the end of that one I was complimenting him on the accomplishment and he said, "I didn't ever complain or throw any fits!" It's true. Even though he got tired and needed to rest a few times, he was very pleasant.

Lukey kept us all laughing because of this funny speech problem (?) he has. Any words with the sound "air" he pronounces it with "urr." It may not really sound funny, but he just does it all day long. Chair is churr. Bear is burr. Here is hurr. Over there is ober durr. Upsturrs. Downsturrs. Down durr. It's cute evey time he does it - never gets old. Speaking of bears...we finally saw one! I've probably been to Colorado 20 times, Alaska 3 times, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming (Yellowstone and Grand Teton), Utah, Oregon, Washington, um where else do bears live? Anyway, we've never seen a bear in the wild until now. It was quite exhilerating. Luckily we were safe in the car. We pulled over and just stared at him for a long time until he ambled away.

I think one of the best things about our vacation is that this is a short week and we have a holiday to look forward to this weekend! Lakehouse pics to come!