VACATION!

It has been such a long time since we took a family vacation. Ben had some great vacations when he was in my belly, but other than that the poor kid has really never seen much besides Nebraska and Iowa. We were all so excited to be able to go on a fun vacation this year. I blogged before about how Matt's parents used to own property in Colorado in a place called Crystal Lakes, and his whole family would go camping there every summer when he was growing up. Some of his best memories. Matt took Porter and Paige up their last fall and they had a great time even though it was too cold to do much. This year we were able to go back with Matt's brother and his family and Matt's little sister and her family. We all shared a large cabin/house for the week. It had a gorgeous view from the deck. We did bring our tent, but only ended up using it one night.

We spent a lot of the week hiking and climbing. We had lots of fun hiking and climbing up the rocks behind our cabin. It rained almost every afternoon, and we got wet A LOT! If we were lucky it would just be a quick shower and then clear up again. But some days it would rain on and off all afternoon. It really stunk when that happened and we were nowhere near our car. One day we even got hailed on. The kids thought that was pretty cool.

We also spent a lot of time fishing. All the kids fished and all of them caught at least one fish. Matt had been SO excited to fish, but by the end of the week he was so sick of gutting and cleaning fish. Porter got to clean a fish for the first time, and he thought pulling the guts out was pretty cool. One of the times we were fishing, and a bunch of moose came out of the trees and started drinking and eating in and around the lake. It was pretty cool to see the moose so close up. A little freaky, but mostly cool. One of our favorite things about the trip was seeing some cool animals out in the wild that we don't have here. I loved seeing all the hummingbirds buzzing around and the cute chipmunks.

One day we took the kids panning for gold in a creek.

We also did some geocaching which was fun and a great way to do some sightseeing. My favorite time geocaching was when we found these two caches in this wooded area that had been completely decorated. There were dwarves and gnome figures everywhere, plus other decorations all over the trees and rocks. It was really fun to walk through and see everything.

One of my favorite places we went was Lake Agnes. You have to hike up a mountain for just under a mile to reach it. And it is just GORGEOUS and so peaceful.

We had a nice fire pit out in front of the cabin and the kids loved to roast marshmallows and eat lots of S'mores. The sky out there is so beautiful and just packed with stars. Our last night there Matt and I were sitting out by the fire after the kids were all in bed, and we were able to see some shooting stars. (so cool! I have never seen one before!)

The kids all voted unanimously on what their favorite part of the trip was, and I'll write about that later when I get the pictures off of Matt's phone. It was really just an amazing trip, and I am so grateful that we were able to do it. This little bit barely covers all that we were able to see and do. It was such a beautiful place. I can see why Matt has such great memories of it.