Colorado

We made it back from Colorado last night on our first real family vacation.  We all had a great time, but it was nice to sleep in our beds again.  I think Jack's words were "I'm so happy to be home!" 

We started out early last Saturday, and had made it almost to Topeka when the excitement started.  Jack decided that his breakfast didn't agree with him, and we (I) spent the next 20 minutes cleaning things up on the side of the road.  We had to throw away his clothes and the towel that I'd randomly tossed in on top of the suitcases as I finished packing the car.  I don't have any photographic evidence of this, but it was pretty remarkable that all that came out of someone so little.  Luckily, things settled down, and whatever was bothering Jack stayed behind in the ditch in Kansas. 

12 hours later, we made it to the YMCA of the Rockies, which is a nice family vacation spot.  Lots of on-site activities and tons for kids to do. 

like mini golf, which Jack decided was his favorite part of our vacation..

...and tetherball on the little playground across from our cabin

Here's us outside our coincidentally named cabin.

If you can't see the cabin name - it's the Heather cabin

Jack's room had bunk beds, which he really enjoyed.  He was still so excited the next morning when he woke up that he wouldn't come out of his room (which is very unusual).

We went on a hike almost every day in Rocky Mountain National Park, and Jack turned out to be a pretty good hiker.  He didn't do a lot of walking...he seemed to prefer to jump or run up the mountains and then get carried when he tired out.

The YMCA had these nice little carrier backpacks that you could check out

With a 2 year old and a pregnant wife, we decided that about a 2 mile round trip was our limit, and luckily, there were some really pretty hikes with mountain lakes and waterfalls that we could get to within our distance limit.

Jack on a little side hike off the main trail...this tended to extend our hikes a little

The climb up was usually ok..but the climb back down sometimes required a little assistance

We saw some wildlife - some marmots, chipmunks or "chickmunks" as Jack liked to say, ground squirrels and lots of elk, or "ilk."  We were driving past the golf course in Estes Park and had to stop to watch a very large, angry elk chase some golfers off the fairway on one hole.  One older golfer decided he wasn't going to move, and for a second, I thought I was going to have to cover Jack's eyes so he wouldn't have nightmares, but a guy in a golf cart sped up just in time to chase the elk away. 

We saw another elk outside a building at the YMCA the next day and Jack told me, very authoritatively, that the "ilk" was looking for a golf cart to chase. 

Jack and I walked through the trees to get this shot while Heather quietly freaked out in the background, sure that the elk was going to eat us or something

Jack did some fishing for trout in the same lake we saw the elk in.  We could see a lot of fish in the clear water, but none of them seemed to want to bite his bobber.  I tried to explain to him that we needed to put something beneath the bobber for the fish to bite, but the precautions the hook required cramped his casting style, so we just stuck with the bobber.

We didn't catch any fish, but Jack didn't let that get him down.  We all had a great time and even slept in late this morning, thanks to our bodies still being on Mountain time.  I think that may have been Heather's favorite part of our vacation.