Colorado: Day 2

Our second day in Colorado was rainy and cool.  So we decided to make it a drive-around-and-look kinda day.  So we went for a drive up the Boreas Pass which is located on the continental divide, at the crest of the Front Range along the border between Park (south) and Summit counties. (Yeah I looked all that up!)  The drive up the pass is just on this little tiny gravel service road that is closed in the winter and used by cross-country skiers.  It was a little spooky in the foggy, rainy weather.  But the views sure were pretty!

And then of course we had to stop and take pictures at a pretty spot.  Here's Marty and the kids then me and the kids.  And nobody fell off the cliff so all was well!  And it was COLD!!!

And then we kept driving and driving and DRIVING!!!!  On the wet, bumpy road and about this point we all had to pee so bad!!!  Me and the kids thought we would never get there!!!

But then there it was ... our oasis!  And it even had a working bathroom!!!  Too bad we figured that out a few minutes too late.  :P

And then instead of turning around, we kept going and decided to see where we ended up.  We took a few wrong turns...  Please don't make me go up to 13822 feet!  I could hardly breathe at 11482!!!

And finally ended up in South Park City.  The boys were sooo excited!!!  (You'll see this sign again in a few days.  We had to make another stop by the sign when Mackenzie had his South Park dolls.)

And we saw even more mountains on the drive back to Breckenridge.  Somehow we ended up like 30 miles away from our hotel when we had started right by it!  Can ya tell I was tired of taking pictures of the mountains by this point?  :)

Day 3 coming up soon ... and it's a fun one.  Alpine slide, mechanical bull riding, etc!  Don't miss it!

The First Day of School!

We interrupt my Colorado postings to bring you Nick, Austin, Lauren and Mackenzie's first day of the 2010-11 school year!  Nick is in 8th grade and in his final year of middle school.  Austin just started 7th grade and joined Nick in the middle school.  And Lauren and Mackenzie began their first year in intermediate school (they're in 5th grade).  I have no more elementary school kids!  And Nick will go to high school next year.  OMG!

Lauren stayed up late and picked out the perfect outfit for the first day of school.  Mackenzie has known all summer what he was gonna wear.  As soon as Grandma bought this dancing kitties shirt he said he was gonna wear it on the first day of school.  Their bus comes first so here they are about to go to the bus stop.

And here they are at the bus stop joined by Lauren's BFF Hannah and Mackie's friend/Lauren's boyfriend Mitchel.  Quite a crew there!!  Apparently this is the "cool" side of the street.

And after that picture, Lauren made me step away from the bus stop.  LOL!  But I still got some pictures of the bus picking them up and leaving.  Probably better this way anyway because I get yelled at by the bus driver every year for getting on the bus and taking a picture.  :P

And 15 minutes later it was Nick and Austin's turn.  I took one picture then Marcel walked up and I had to get one of him too (he's Mitchel's older brother and is in the same grade as Nick).

And that's all folks!  Everyone had a great first day and have already adjusted to their new schools.  Nick is the only one who didn't change schools and is enjoying his big man on campus status for now.  Next year will be a different story when he sees how big seniors are compared to freshmen!

More Colorado pics coming soon!

Breckenridge, Colorado: Day 1

We headed out to Colorado last Saturday after I got off work.  We were on the road at about noon.  The trip took us about 16 hours total and the kids did great.  The trip itself was pretty uneventful.  We had one wrong turn which cost us about an hour.  And then about 20 minutes from the hotel, we hit a deer.  Poor little guy!  It was unbelievable how many deer were on the road at 3 in the morning so we were going really slow but this little guy was just dumb and ran right in front of us.

After the long drive, and getting to our room around 4am, the plan was to sleep in.  We did pretty good.  I think I was the first one up and that wasn't until about 9:00.  That is REALLY late for me!  I even skipped running.  We were all up and dressed by noon and we headed out to see what we could see.  Here is the view right outside the hotel and the kids' first view of the mountains.

Then we headed into town to see what we could see and to have lunch.  Breckenridge is a tiny little town.  Basically just 2 streets but it's pretty cool.  Nick and Austin wanted to take their picture in the Rasta Pasta man (we didn't eat there).

And then we found the welcome center.  There was a little museum upstairs and the kids had fun trying on the old-time clothes.

Then we found a pizza place.  According to the kids, it was the best pizza EVER!  But somehow over the course of the week, we found 2 more places that had even better pizza!  :)  And after lunch we went to the riverwalk.  The kids waded in but that water was way cold.  Marty put in his toes and I just felt it with my hand.  No thanks!  Even the kids were cold ... especially Nick who slipped on a rock and got really wet.

And then we went and explored the hotel and found the gameroom.

And then we called it a night.  The kids watched a movie and Marty and I figured out our laptops.  Ya gotta farm even while on vacation!!  :P

Day 2 coming very soon!!

Are You Kidding Me?

I haven't posted anything since January?!  OMG!  Well I guess it's impossible to play catch-up so I'll just start where we are and move forward.  So we'll start with this:  I turned 40 a couple of weeks ago.  Holy cow!  Couldn't even fit 40 candles on the cake.  :P

We're headed to Colorado in a couple of days for our summer family vacation so I promise to post a ton of pictures of that.  Getting back on track.  :)

Hawaii: Day 1

Marty and I went to Kaua'i, Hawaii the week before Christmas.  Originally, we were going to take the kids, too.  But airfare for 6 people was just too much so we promised them a nice trip to the beach as soon as possible.  We flew with air miles so we were pretty much at the mercy of the airlines to get us there and back.  And the trip there was not great.  We left at 9am Dallas time and got to Kaua'i at about 10:30pm Hawaii time which was 2:30 in the morning for us.  We had 3-hour layovers in both San Jose and L.A.  But that was fine because plane rides make for good sleeping for me and movie watching for Marty.  We flew over some mountains.  I think this was New Mexico but I'm not sure.

Then we finally arrived in Kaua'i.  We were both really tired and pretty much just checked into the hotel and went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up pretty early.  I wanted to go for a really short run.  It was my first run after the White Rock Marathon just 4 days before so I was going to try for 2 miles but was still pretty sore.  There was a golf course by the hotel and I ran to it and watched the sun rise and it was really beautiful.  I took these pictures with my cell phone and they aren't great but you can see how pretty it was.

I ran by the golf course and found a little trail by a stream.  My legs were hurting a little but the scenery seemed to make it go away.  But then I came upon a goose.  She did NOT want me to pass her.  She was hissing at me and looking like she wanted to take a chunk out of my leg.  Everytime I got near her, she would hiss but if I turned around to go the other way she was fine.  But I didn't want to go the way I had just come from.  I guess she had babies nearby.  But after a minute or so I found a branch and poked it at her and ran past her.  Of course I had to get a picture of that pissed off goose.

Marty was awake when I got back and we checked out some of the scenery.  Here is the view from the hotel room and the beach right in front of the hotel.  We were on Kalapaki Beach in Lihue, Kaua'i.

After we went to the beach for awhile, we got cleaned up then wandered around the hotel grounds before getting our rental car.  We stayed at the Kaua'i Marriott Resort the first two nights of our trip.  It's a beautiful hotel.

After we got the car we headed north to Kapaa where we were going to have an early dinner.  I have a friend from high school that manages a bar there called the Olympic Cafe and he invited us to dinner.  We were running pretty early so we decided to check out the town.  We found a little market and shopped around.  And the only thing I took a picture of was this chicken!  You would not believe all of the roosters and chickens on Kaua'i!  They are everywhere!!  And they have no sense of time.  They start crowing at about 3am and never stop all day.

 Here's a video that I took the last day we were in Hawaii just so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about with the chickens and roosters.  They are loud!

After we shopped for a little bit, we headed over to the Olympic Cafe.  Here's a picture and also a picture of the sign in the parking lot.  There were houses right behind it and the sign cracked us up!

My friend, Greg, greeted us right away.  It was good to see him.  It had been at least 20 years!!  And we had a nice dinner.  But this was the first time I realized that it was actually kind of chilly in Hawaii.  The restaurant was open-air and breezy!  I was glad that I had brought a jacket!

And we got back to the hotel just as the sun was setting.  It was a fun and relaxing day.  And just as a preview for day 2 ... it was anything but relaxing!  Stay tuned.  :)

How about a little Jack Johnson for my music today?  We heard a lot of him while we were in Hawaii.  This song is called Breakdown.