August 28 - Adios Vail, Hola Uncle Bryan!

Every day of vacation JD said "I'm going to get up early tomorrow to walk through the park and watch the sunrise." And then...every day he proceeded to sleep in. On the last morning he actually got up and did it. He said he was the only one in the park and botanical gardens and it was so serene. He also took some amazing pictures!

After cleaning the hotel room and packing up the car, it was time to head out. We decided to drive to Santa Fe for the night and had dinner with Uncle Bryan (he lives about 45min away). We were so excited to see him! He met us at the hotel and we walked to dinner. We took a few wrong turns heading to the restaurant, we finally found it and had some delicious pizza. The next day, we had a long travel day and stopped overnight in downtown Fort Worth. We had a short drive the following day and it was nice to be home(although not fun to be back in the heat and humidity!). I was very excited to see Amelia.

Uncle Bryan

Botanical Gardens

August 27 - Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park

let the adventure begin!

Are you tired hearing about our Colorado adventure? Only 1 more blog after this one, I promise! On our last full day, we decided to drive west (about 1h) to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. It's an actual amusement park on top of a mountain (apparently the only one in existence). The drive from Vail to Glenwood Springs was incredible, so so beautiful. Once we arrived in Glenwood Springs, we had to take a gondola to the top of the mountain to enter the park.

Love them!

In addition to traditional roller coasters, they had an alpine slide, Haunted Mine drop (100' drop into a mine shaft), blacksmith, canyon tours, canyon flyer and a canyon swing. This was literally an pendulum that shot out over the canyon. It looked insane. Since one of us had to hang out with Jillian all day, we gave the kids the option of JD or me to go on rides with them. They chose JD...but he refused to do the mine drop and the canyon flyer! One of the highlights for Julia and Luke was the speleobox (cave simulator with 300ft of passageway).

She loves gondolas

According to the sign, the average time to get through it was 15min. Of course, my competitive children had to race each other. I'll need to verify official times with JD but they were able to get through in about 1min 30seconds. They loved it!

After a fun day at Glenwood Caverns, we headed next door to Glenwood Hot Springs Pool to relax. There was a chlorinated children's pool that Jillian spent all of her time in, while the big kids swam in the huge springs. They had it divided into 2 sections.

JD and Luke

One was the hot springs and the other side was a cool natural springs. This side was huge, complete with lap lanes, a diving board and 2 water slides. It was a fantastic day!

Back at our condo, I did the fun job of...laundry! Julia had fun playing in the creek while Luke was trying to set off balloon rockets in Ford Park. We had an amazing week!

Speleobox

Hot Springs & pool fun 

Evening fun

August 24 - White Water Rafting

Rafting time! On Wednesday, JD and Julia were picked up by a rafting company to go brave some class 3 rapids. They went on a half day rafting adventure and loved every minute of it. They were on a raft with 6 people and everyone had paddles and had to work the boat. Their route took them through the White River National Forest and JD said the views were breathtaking. Unfortunately, he didn't have his phone on him (they got wet) so I don't have any pictures from their day. They did stop mid-way and have a bbq lunch and made it back to the hotel around 2pm. 

While JD and Julia were rafting, the kids and I were on the hunt for 'onion park.' I overheard a mom talking on the bus about it and we found it in Lionshead Village (that wasn't it's official name but a few of the play structures definitely resembled onions). We played there for hours! There were several little kids for Jillian to play with and Luke had fun running around and climbing the rocks. Afterwards, we played a round of mini-golf. And when I say we played a round of mini-golf...I mean Luke played while I chased Jillian around the course. She had fun tossing the golf balls. 

The next day was my turn to go rafting with Luke. The last time I went rafting was approx. 20 years ago in college so I was really excited. We did a less intense experience with class 2 rapids. We drove approx 45min west to the rafting company, put on our life vests, water shoes and met our guide (Cody) and family we were rafting with (nice family from Kansas City with 3 kids). Now...JD assured me I would not get wet on this so I did not wear my bathing suit.

First rapids we hit...a huge gush a water completely soaked me from the waist down. What luck! Our guide was fantastic-he let each of the kids steer the boat, they were able to float in a tube attached to our raft and the kids played a game where they stood on the end of the boat and the guide tried to knock them off (Luke loved this). We had an awesome day!

Mini Golf

Park Fun

Waiting for the bus

August 22 - Mountain Biking & Storytime

Okay dimpled munchkin fans, I'm back to blogging about our Colorado vacation. JD took Julia and Luke mountain biking and this was Luke's favorite day of the vacation. Luke has always enjoying riding his bike and this was his first time actually mountain biking (last time we were there, his bike wasn't mountain ready and he was too small to rent one). And....he loved it! According to JD, he has some natural talent. He was able to go quite fast, maintain control and he didn't fall once. Success! (unfortunately, he also fancies himself an 'expert' mountain biker now so next time we go, we will get him some official lessons).

JD and the kids did both green (beginner) and blue (intermediate) trails. Overall they had a wonderful time.

While they were off riding gondolas and biking down the mountain, Jillian and I went into town and checked out the Vail Library. As luck would have it, story time was just about to start so we stayed for it. There were about 8 kids there all around 1.5-2.5 years old. The librarian (named Cricket) read the kids a story and then they played with bubbles. It was awesome. Later that day, we took a long walk around Ford Park and had fun playing on the playground. JD and the kids eventually found us on the playground and told us all about their awesome day. 

Fun with Jillian

Love him

August 21 - Adventure Ridge

 Our first full day at Vail was spent at Adventure Ridge. Adventure Ridge is an activity park on top of one of the peaks at an elevation of 10,350 ft. We took the gondola up and other than a quick trip back to the hotel for lunch, we were there all day. Last time I was here I was pregnant and couldn't participate in anything so I was happy to hang out with Julia and Luke for most of the day. First up, we did the Alpine slide. This was the only ride with a line and I am so glad we did it first..because it broken down after we rode it and was closed all week.

My little adrenaline junkie

Julia was big enough to ride alone while Luke and I rode together. We went full speed the entire time and it was thrilling. My favorite part was Luke's unabashed "This is awesome!! Woo Hoo's!" and his overall enthusiasm as we hurled down the mountain. So much fun! Next up...well, the kids did everything. They went on a trampoline. There were several ropes course and Julia did all of them. She and JD went on one of them together and had a blast. Luke was too small for the big ropes courses and went on the little one...probably 20 times. Luke's favorite thing was the tubing hill..which he went on over 21 times.

Julia in action (middle of the course)

I'm not exaggerating, the guy working had to scan him every time and told us he had gone down the hill more than anyone else all day! Both kids did the climbing wall and I tried it too! The highlight of the day for me was zip lining with Julia, it was awesome! Overall, we had a fantastic day. 

If you are wondering what Jillian did all day, she had fun traveling up and down the gondola and wandering around Adventure Ridge. She took a great nap at the hotel and had fun watching her big sister and big brother working their muscles. Fantastic day one!!

Love my little man

Traveling back up the hill for more tubing

Ropes Course

Climbing ninjas

August 18 - Double Digits, Happy Birthday Julia!

Julia's birthday was Saturday and she is officially in the double digits now, TEN!! Happy birthday Julia!! On Friday, Julia and Kendall baked her cake and we decorated it with a swimming theme (lane lines...not sure if anyone knew what the squiggles were). We rented out the neighborhood pool Saturday morning for a pool party, with kolaches, donuts, cake and drinks. She had a great group of girls with friends from school, swimming, diving and best of all-coach Abby, her favorite Orca coach! The girls had a cannon ball contest, played lighthouse and Marco Polo. It was the most low stress party ever!

Homemade cake

Everyone squeezed into the baby pool with Jillian

Kendall and Jillian...mermaid twins!

Party favors

Julia...10 years old! (and all legs)

August 17 - Vail

Manor Vail Lodge, so beautiful

We made it! After exploring Oklahoma City, Kansas and Denver, we finally made it to Vail. If you ever have chance to drive on I-70 from Denver into the mountains, do it. It is such a beautiful drive. We booked the same hotel as last time but instead of a studio condo, we booked a 2-bedroom. After checking in, we headed to our condo and wow, it was huge with amazing views. Both bedrooms were on the creekside and had windows and doors that went out to a balcony. The living area had windows all the way across with another balcony and a mountain view. Perfection! After unpacking, JD headed to the grocery store while the kids and I headed to Ford Park, conveniently located right behind our hotel. After running around and playing on the playground, we explored the Betty Ford Botanical Gardens. Amazing way to start the week!

Betty Ford Botanical Gardens

Playing in the creek behind our hotel

August 16 - Denver Museum of Nature & Science

After driving across the great Midwest, we finally arrived in Denver. Although I've traveled to Denver several times for work, this was my first time staying downtown and it was fabulous. They have a large pedestrian street that was bustling. We were able to walk to and from dinner and visited an 'urban' Target that was 2 stories and miniature (compared to the super Target's we are used to). Julia and Luke were very impressed with the little Target!

On Sunday morning, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for a few hours. The highlight of the museum was the Mindbender Mansion. Mindbender Mansion is an area filled with puzzles, brainteasers and interactive challenges. I'm not exaggerating when I say JD, Julia and Luke could have spent all day long in here. They had 3 levels of challenges to solve and Julia did the intermediate level.

They did spend several hours in there. Clearly, Jillian wasn't old enough to appreciate mind games so she and I spent some quality time going up and down the escalator. She was perfectly happy doing that and could have done it all day! We eventually found out way to the children's play area and she had a blast digging in the sand for dinosaur bones, playing with water and reading. The highlight of the day for me was going to their gem exhibit, which included the Hope Diamond! 

Fantastic time at the museum