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Sigh….summer went by way too fast.   I can’t believe we are back in full swing of school, homework, sports, schedule, schedule, schedule…  At least we were able to sneak in just one more vacation – Colorado!!   The main reason we planned the trip was to surprise my Grandma for her 80th birthday party.   She had no idea that we were flying out!!  It was great fun having the family together to celebrate her birthday and play a little friendly penny anti poker – a long family tradition.  My uncle John just couldn’t resist picking up another long standing tradition of starting a food/water fight either – I got even by getting the top of his head with whipped cream.  🙂   James kept forgetting his name and just kept calling him “the purple guy” (because of his purple shirt) – too funny.

As per usual, it’s always a challenge trying to squeeze in seeing some old friends while we are visiting.  However, on this trip we did manage to see Derek’s good college friend (and our best man in our wedding), Chris Rice and his wife, Cora. We hadn’t met their new little girl (last time we saw them Cora was pregnant), so it was really great to have a chance to catch up with them!

We also got to spend some quality time with our nephew, Peter.   We hadn’t seen him since October of last year, and…wow!…has he changed.  He’s talking up a storm!  He just loved hanging out with Theresa and James too!    We went up to the rec center by my parents and hit the pool and water slides there and also took him to play mini-golf – what a crack up!

Before going out to Colorado this year, Derek and I came up with an idea to rent a cabin up in the Rocky Mountain National Park instead of just hanging out in the Denver area the whole week.  We weren’t sure who would be game, so at first we just scoped out places that would sleep around 6-8 people….but as it turned out  EVERYONE said yes!!   It definitely changed our search a bit….but we found a quaint little “cabin” in Grand Lake that could “squeeze” in 16 people.   Oh…alright…no way you should be allowed to call this thing a “cabin”….it was at LEAST twice as big as our house!!!!  This thing had 3 floors, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a huge kitchen/dining/family room area and an awesome deck on the front to hang out on.  The crew included all of my family and Derek’s sister Jessica even made it up for a day of hiking with all of us and stayed for one night!   It was really nice getting to spend relaxing time with the family – my brother, Brian, and his wife, Shelly, put on a treasure hunt for the kids, lots of cards and family games, playing in the fort someone built on the property, hanging out on the deck, and of course lots of eating.   The timing was also perfect to celebrate my brother’s 34th birthday at the cabin!!

We got in some great hikes while we were up there – Emerald Lake, a few mile stroll along a river, a hike that started above timber line, and a tough one on the last day to Fern Falls with just my parents.   It was really great hiking up in the Rocky Mountains….brought back a lot of great memories of growing up hiking and back-packing as a kid.   I had forgotten just how amazing the views are hiking at those elevations (and yes, we were definitely huffing and puffing that first couple of days up there being sea level folks these days). 🙂   We had some great wildlife viewing as well – lots of elk, marmots, pikas, some snakes and even a fox right outside the cabin (James was actually the one to spot it!).

Theresa and James finished out our Rocky Mountain trip by both becoming Junior Rangers.  James did awesome answering why we shouldn’t feed the animals and Theresa was able to answer questions about the different climate zones in the park!  🙂

A great way to end the summer….