Summer Break Week 5

Doing this week by week has really made blogging much easier for me.  I'm hoping this will help me get back on track.  As I fill in these summer weeks, I am also hoping to go back and pick up where I left off....at Easter.  So, stay tuned!

Week 5 started with Father's Day.  For Father's Day this year we made a video for Reid.  It was fun to ask the kids questions about their dad and to hear their responses.  I used iMovie to put it together and was pleasantly surprised with all of the features that iMovie had.  I need to make some more videos before I feel completely confident using it, but it was a start.  We also had a great sacrament meeting for Father's Day, which included the Primary children singing "My Daddy" and "When Grandpa Comes".  I have really enjoyed teaching the kids the primary songs.  I get excited to share the music with them and wish I could teach them the whole Children's Songbook.  After church we came home to a quick lunch and then to load up the car for our family vacation.  We enjoyed Estes Park so much last August that we wanted to go back.  We had reservations for 4 nights at the YMCA and were anxious to get there.  We gave Reid his other Father's day gift of beef jerky from the Beef Jerky Outlet just for the trip. We arrived around 5pm at the YMCA only to find that our cabin wasn't ready.  At about 6:30pm I gave up on the idea of cooking dinner in the cabin and accepted vouchers from the concierge to have dinner in the cafeteria.  The dinner was awful.  I couldn't even find anything that looked good, and the kids didn't either.  Even the rolls and dessert were awful.  Bree spit both of them out.  It was really that bad.  We went for a walk to look around the grounds a bit more and even went to the playground to pass some time.  Around 8pm we finally settled down with the boys playing iPad at the Administration building.  Finally at 9pm our cabin was ready and we got the key.  It was really late for the kids and after talking to the manager she decided to comp us the night.  Thank goodness!  The kids didn't end up in bed until 10:30pm and we were all tired.

Exploring the YMCA grounds

I wanted her to look at the camera so I asked, "Where's Mommy?"  Yep, she knew where I was.

The boys loved this spinning thing

Monday we slept in and I realized just how much a late night threw off our plans.  While Reid got some rest at the cabin the kids and I went to the playground.  After playing there we decided to go the activities building and found a foosball table with a ball still in it and so I played with the boys.  We had another gentleman join us who had played a lot of foosball when he was stationed in Germany in the '60s.  For the first game it was me and him versus the boys.  After we won, the boys took on me and Bree.  It was a tight game (who knew I was a decent foosball player?!) but the boys (all 3 of them!) beat us.  From there we wandered up to the deck of the building to find bubbles and the kids had a blast playing around with those for a bit.  After that we were back to the cabin for lunch, a game of Ticket to Ride while Bree took a nap,  and then we all headed into Rocky Mountain National Park for a hike.  We headed to the Alluvian Fan Trail and loaded up for a hike.  It wasn't nearly as long of a hike as we had anticipated, but it was fun to get there and take off our shoes and dip our toes in the frigid water.  Bree in particular loved "flying" in her backpack and playing in the water.

Our cabin was right across from a "gathering" area with a tire swing and, well, not much else.

Bubbles

I asked the boys to sit on the rock at the start of our hike so I could take a picture.  Finn said he wanted to meditate??!!!

What an incredible hiking view!

She's flying!

COLD water!

Reid's really good with the panoramic shots

Kai made some friends.  This other girl liked rocks, too, and apparently she "saved his life".  He says he was falling off the rock and she saved him.  It must not have been a dramatic rescue because we didn't hear or see anything.

Me and my little boys

Being goofy!

After our hike we headed into town for dinner at Penelope's (pretty good burgers) and some time walking the downtown area.  We got some "Grandma's Cookies" and discovered we don't like them at all, and some taffy as well.  We love the taffy from Estes Park.  Then it was back to the cabin for treatments and bedtime.

At the water wheel in downtown Estes

The deer came so close to our deck.  We even saw one prancing.  It was really neat.

The view from the deck of our cabin

On Tuesday we managed to get going much earlier and decided to head to the Wild Basin trailhead to hike to Calypso Cascade Falls.  We got there to discover the parking lot full at 10am.  The rangers said it's normally full by 9am or earlier, so the kids and I hopped out and Reid headed to park the car down the road.  Once we got started hiking we learned that 1.8 miles seems a lot longer when you are going up the side of a mountain.  But it was a great trail that followed the river and so were had a cool mist most of the hike which was nice.  Bree once again loved to "fly" and the boys did pretty well.  Due to recent rains one of the bridges further up the trail had been washed out and so we were passed on the trail several times by park rangers on horses leading pack mules with lumber up to the area where they were repairing the bridge.  It was pretty neat and all of the kids expressed interest in riding a horse.  It took much longer to get to the falls than we had anticipated and I was glad that we had plenty of snacks that filled in as lunch when we got there.  After half an hour of snacking or so, we headed back down.  Poor Finn and Bree were exhausted and both fell asleep in the car as we headed back into town.  We decided to head to Cheesy Lee's for a late lunch/early dinner.  When we walked in sometime after 3pm, we were the only ones there.  There was a large (but disorganized/messy/and dirty) play area for the kids and many board games for people to play at their tables.  Reid and Kai decided on a game of battleship while Finn and Bree (and me by default) played with some of the toys while we waited for our pizza.  The pizza was actually quite good and it was nice to have some downtime and not feel any pressure to leave.  We ate and played until Reid and Kai finished their game and then headed back to the car.  From there we decided to head to the aerial tramway for a ride up the mountain and to catch the views.  We spent about 45 minutes walking around up top before heading down on the tramway and back to town for some ice cream before heading back to the cabin and calling it a day.

Notice the flower that she is clinging to?

Seriously this kid is going through a major posing phase.  It's awesome!

I love my little princess.

Snack break

Kai's really been wanting pictures of just him by himself.  He got a lot of them on our vacation.

Why would he not want to stand next to this for a picture??  I just don't understand.  :)

Poser

Calypso Cascade Falls

Hiking back to the car.  It's much easier going down the mountain.

His first game of battleship

Panoramic of the view from the top of the aerial tramway

On Wednesday the kids and I decided to hit the playground again in the morning.  From there we went into the craft building and I let each kid pick out something to paint.  The boys settled on wood toy planes and Bree got a star coat hangar.  It was fun to watch them paint and I was pleasantly surprised that all three of them took it pretty seriously and did excellent jobs.  Finn needs work on his fine motor skills and things of this nature are normally hard for him, but he pushed through and did a fantastic job.  From there we went back to the cabin for an early lunch before heading to the stables for some horseback riding. Reid and Kai got to go on a 1-hour trail ride and Finn and Bree got turns on a pony.  Poor Bree was doing great until the pony had to blow his nose and then she got so scared she wouldn't get back on him.  I never managed to get a picture of her on the pony because she only lasted about 3 minutes before getting scared off.  Poor thing!  Finn loved his pony ride and really wanted to do the trail ride with his dad and brother, but he wasn't old enough.  I was surprised that my kid who is generally afraid of animals really seemed to enjoy the pony.  Finn is one of those kids who likes anything his brother likes, but still hasn't found his own interests.  I hope this summer we are getting closer to finding things that he truly enjoys for himself.

Kai's first time on a horse and a trail ride (His horse's name was Doc.  Reid was on Joey.)

Finn got to ride a really old pony named Shortcake.  He's been giving pony rides at the YMCA for over a decade apparently.  (The ranch hand that got him out for us told us that she rode him when she was a kid, so I'm guessing it's closer to twenty years that he has been giving rides.)

They told us not to let him eat.  Finn wanted to let him eat.  Finn wins!

Welcoming them back from the trail

I think the wrangler was trying to stay out of the picture.  The other wrangler took the picture and she should have just told her it was no use!

After pony rides it was back to the cabin for naptime.  While Bree napped the boys headed out to play mini-golf with their dad.  It began to storm and so they came back and I started cooking dinner in the cabin.  It was nice to have a family-style meal at the large dinner table there and to enjoy time together.  That night Reid and Kai went to an astronomy class while I put the other two to bed.  They got back about 10pm and were in bed pretty quickly as we had to be up early the next day to back up and check out.

We checked out by 10am on Thursday and began the drive home.  We went home via Golden, Colorado to make a stop at Heritage Square.  I had bought a Groupon for passes at Miner's Maze Adventureland and so we stopped to check it out.  The boys had fun and took quite a while to get through the maze.  Then they decided to use the rest of the activities on their pass by doing the water walkers, the train, and the web crawl.  We also all went up to the alpine slide and each got to go down.  Finn rode with Reid, Bree rode with me, and Kai was old enough to drive his own.  I've never done an alpine slide before but it was a lot of fun!  Bree said "Weeee!" several times on the way down and I agreed with her!

Saying goodbye to the YMCA!

Bree playing with a bobble head moose while the boys were lost in the maze at Miner's Maze Adverntureland

Kai rode the ski lift for the first time and he had to go all by himself.  I was clinging to Bree the whole time and was really really glad when we reached to the top.  No seatbelts and a two year old 30 feet up in the air makes me very anxious.

The web crawl

After our stop we finally arrived home about 5pm.  We unloaded and then I ordered some chinese food for dinner.  It had been a long week and we were all tired.  It was nice to be home.

Friday we played catch-up with loads and loads of laundry, cleaning, and just some good play time.  Saturday was more of the same, as well as some outdoor chores of bush trimming, etc.  It was a good, busy week!