Colorado: Day 4

Wow ... guess I took an extended hiatus from posting to the blog.  Sorry about that.  It's time for me to finish the final couple of days of our Colorado vacation.  Day 4 we just stayed pretty close to the hotel.  We started the day with fly fishing lessons.  We thought that would be more fun than it was.  We didn't even get to fish.  Just learned to cast on the cement.  Boring!!!

 

But at least the view was nice!

Then we headed into town for a little souvenier shopping and also stopped in at the visitor center to find out where a good hiking trail was.  And the kids found a neat statue they wanted to pose with (ok ... I wanted them to pose with it!!).

And then we were off to the trail!  The kids wanted to sit in the ski lift even though it was clearly marked not to.  Ah well ... ya gotta break the rules sometimes!

And then up the mountain we went!

Then we found a little stream we had to cross.  That was fun!

Then we found a little clearing with a bunch of snowmobiles.  We were all pretty worn out by this point so we stopped and played on them for a little while.  This was probably against the rules, too.  But no one was there.  :)

 

 

And on the way back down the mountain, we discovered the coldest lake on the planet.  OMG that water was like ice!!!!  I don't even know how the kids got in it.  Look at Austin's face.  Too funny!

Stay tuned for day 5 ... coming soon!  Promise it won't be another month!  And this will be a good post.  Gonna show pics of our whitewater rafting adventure!

Happy Birthday Austin!

Wow!  My little man is 12 years old today!  I can't believe it.  We're so proud of you Austin!  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last year.  You've grown so much this year.  (Halloween - you were an emo kid, snow day in Texas, 4th of July, fun day at Grandma's, confirmation)

And I had to include some of me and you together.  I love you Austin.  You're my buddy!!

And here's a song just for you.  Can't believe how LOUD you listen to your music.  But feel free to turn this one all the way up and I won't even tell you to put on your headphones!!  :)

Colorado: Day 3

Day 3 was our fun day!  We went to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs.  It was about an hour and a half drive so we left pretty early.  The drive was absolutely gorgeous.  We got to Glenwood Springs around 11:00am and ate lunch before we headed up the mountain to the adventure park.  Here are some pictures of the gondolas that carried us up the mountain and also the view from the gondola.

And the kids wanted to get straight to the fun!  Austin jumped on the trampoline with a bungee cord and Nick, Mackenzie and Lauren climbed the rock wall.  (That's Mackenzie in the first picture way at the top!)

And then I believe we did our first round of the alpine slide but I didn't get any pictures because I put my purse in a locker.  But not to worry ... there will be pictures in a minute.  We rode it LOTS!

And then we went over to the mechanical bull.  The kids all rode and I decided it looked fun so I tried it out too.  All was good except it didn't stop until you fell!  There was no 8 second ride!!  LOL!  Marty decided not to ride cause he said he had ridden one before and it hurt!  So here we have pictures of everyone riding and everyone falling.

And then Lauren wanted to do it again while the boys went somewhere so I took a video.  (Oops - forgot to turn off the camera at the end.)

And then the kids did a few more rounds of stuff.  These are just miscellaneous pictures.  I don't remember what order we did what because they just kept running from place to place.  In addition to these pictures, there was also a human maze, a 4-D show and laser tag.  It's a pretty fun place!  The picture of Lauren is in this wooden box thing that had tiny little passageways that you had to twist and turn your body around.  She was good at it because she's so small.

And now it's time for alpine slide pictures.  The alpine slide is kinda like a combination of a go-kart and a rollercoaster that goes down the side of the mountain.  It's on rails so you can't fall off.  But you control how fast or slow you go.  It was a lot of fun and the kids only had one speed ... lever all the way forward!

That last picture is the view from the bottom.  After the ride is over, you just get to lay back and it hauls you back up the mountain.  It's very relaxing and takes several minutes.

My last ride I got brave and took a video.  I had the camera strapped tightly to my arm so I was videoing with one hand and pushing the go lever with the other.  Seems completely safe!  :P

A good time was had by all!

And then it was time to go back to the hotel.  Here's my family waiting for the gondola to take us back down the mountain.  We were lucky because they had shut down the gondolas for awhile because they had spotted lightening.  For awhile it looked like there was going to be a huge storm.  It got all windy and dark.  So we played laser tag and when we were done the weather was sunny again.  And I thought Texas weather was weird ... mountain weather is just crazy!

And then we were back on the highway to Breckenridge.  This tunnel right through the mountain was so cool and so was the way the highway was high on one side and low on the other I guess so they didn't have to cut out the mountain as much when building the road.

And that's all for day 3.  It was such a fun day!!  The only thing that was bad is that I felt like I was gonna die when we got almost to the hotel.  All that altitude did me in!!!!  A couple of Advils later and I was good as new.  

Day 4 coming soon!