Colorado 2011

We just got back from spending the last few days of summer in the Winter Park, Co.   We had a great time and this trip just fell into our laps!!  A guy that Michael knows basically offered up his in-laws Winter Park condo to us for a long weekend trip.  It's sometimes hard to imagine that there are people in this world as nice as this family and will let friends and friends of their family stay in their home and not charge.  So, that is how this trip fell into our laps at kind of the last minute! 

We left Springfield last Thursday (August 18) and flew Frontier out of the Branson Airport.  It was a really nice little airport and I won't hesitate to use it again.  When we got there, we noticed that KY3 was there.  I made a comment about their van being there and then we went inside.  Taylor and I needed to make a quick restroom stop and when we came out, Zachary ran over to us all excited.  KY3 was at the Branson Airport filming a PSA about unaccompanied minors flying and how easy and safe it is.  They approached Zachary and asked if he wanted to be in their commercial!  Of course, he made sure that Taylor would be a part of it too...in the end, all 4 of us were a part of the commercial!  We have been told that it should start airing soon and will run through the end of September. 

Here are a few photos of them as they became famous TV stars :o)  I do have to say that Zachary and Taylor were treated just like they were stars from all the people we ran across at the airport.  When we boarded the plane, the pilot and the flight attendants even commented to them about how exciting it was to have stars on their plane.  At the Branson Airport, you walk outside to get to the plane.  In the second photo, the plane had just landed and we were standing right in front of it as it "parked".  It was really loud.  We had earplugs, but it was loud!  The kids also met the pilot and shook his hand (he was part of the commercial too!)

We made it to Denver and made our way to Winter Park.  We didn't do much on the first day.  The kids were tired, so we ended up ordering pizza and just hung out in the condo.  Here are a few photos of the condo:

On Friday, we got up and drove back to Denver to do a little shopping.  We headed to Park Meadows Mall.  I want to go back just to spend more time at this mall!  The main reasons we went was because it had an American Girl store (Cindy...Taylor's American Girl doll) went with us.  We also chose this mall because it had a Lego store that Zachary wanted to go to.  Before we did any shopping, we had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory....it is an American Girl doll friendly restaurant!  Cindy had her own chair right at the table and Taylor wouldn't let us take any photos of her and Cindy at the table until the cheesecake was in front of them! 

  

After we had looked around the mall, we decided to head to Castle Rock to the outlet mall there.  It was a really good outlet mall and once we were done, we headed back to Winter Park.  We were pretty close to Winter Park when we noticed a bunch of cars pulled off the side of the road, so we decided to pull over too.  Right on the edge of the road were 2 moose!!  This was our first major animal sighting!  The first photo is of the moose and the second is of Zachary with the moose not far behind him!

On Saturday, we woke up and decided to walk around town a little bit.  Well, let me correct that...Zachary and Michael woke up and took a walk...Taylor didn't want to get out of bed!  After she finally woke up, we headed across the street from the condo to Hideaway Park.  It's a cute little park. The kids loved the rock wall and slide and every time we walked by, they wanted to climb the wall.  

We walked down the main street to a shopping area.  It was still too early for most of the stores to be open, but it was a neat little shopping area and I actually have proof that I was on vacation because it was here that my first photo was taken.  Of course, I'm wearing crappy clothes and look like I just rolled out of bed, but it's a picture!

While we were walking around, the phone rang and Michael's parents, Ed and Susie, had made it into Winter Park.  So we headed back to the condo to meet up with them!  I had to snap a quick photo of one of the flower beds on our way back.  The whole town is covered in beautiful flower beds and there are hanging baskets of flowers everywhere!  So pretty!!

Of course, the kids had to climb the rock wall again since we had to walk passed it to get to the condo!

We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Ed and Susie.  Susie and I walked back to the stores and looked around, the kids swam in the pool and then we bbq'd hamburgers and hotdogs and had s'mores for dessert!

On Sunday, we headed to Georgetown and rode the Georgetown Loop Railroad.  It was a lot of fun.  We rode in one of the uncovered cars, so that was really cool!

Here are a few photos of us while we were waiting for the train to arrive:

Once the train arrived and we boarded, we started our trip through the mountains to Silver Plume. 

We headed to Idaho Springs for lunch before Ed and Susie had to head back home.  After lunch, we decided to drive up Mount Evans...since we were right there.  The roads to the top are a little scary...not well marked, the edge of it kind of looks like it is going to fall right off the mountain and it is really bumpy and beat up.  But, we slowly made our way up Colorado's highest peak! 

This was our first stop...Taylor had a few freak out moments in the car because of the way the road was and she kept thinking we were going to slide right off the side.

We convinced her that it was okay to keep going and headed up to the top!  Of course, when we got to the top, it started raining and then we heard sirens.  We were still in our car, but we found out the sirens were for lightning warnings.  They sounded almost like a tornado siren...so at first, I was a little freaked out.  We sat in the car until the storm passed.  I think we were all glad that we didn't decide to just head back down.  It was worth the wait to wait the storm out.  Once it had passed and it was safe to get out of the car, we started exploring the top of the mountain. 

 

The photo below is the "Castle in the Sky."  So cool.  We had fun walking around it and looking at all the views.

 

While we were walking around, a rainbow started to form right off the side.  The top of the rainbow was practically at eye level.  It was amazing!

Michael and Zachary decided to walk up one trail...to go higher on the mountain, but Taylor and I decided to walk around the castle.  Once we were on the other side of the castle, we ran into a family of mountain goats.  They were so close.  They were fun to watch and there were several babies in the group. 

I love that I got this photo.  I looked over just as the baby went up to it's momma.  It was so cute...after it was done with it's drink, it sneezed a few times. 

One more photo from the top of Mount Evans.  This is Denver!

On Monday, we took another day trip.  This time we headed up Trail Ridge Road and went through the Rocky Mountain National Park and eventually made our way to Estes Park.  We hadn't been in RMNP for long when we noticed cars pulled over.  We got out to look and there was a mother moose with her 3 babies walking around.  So cool!

We continued to drive up Trail Ridge Road.  We made a pit-stop at Milner Pass...which is the Continental Divide.  Here is Zachary and Taylor in front of the lake at the Continental Divide:

We headed on up the mountain and finally made it to the visitor's center. 

We then headed on to Estes Park.  We walked all around the main street of Estes and looked in the shops.  The kids really loved the river walk area where this one fountain was.  It was an adventure for them to get to stand on the fountain in the river/creek.

We left Estes Park and headed back up Trail Ridge Road.  This time, we took the Old Falls Road to get back to the Visitor's Center.  It has some awesome views, but let me tell you... a one-way only, dirt road on the edge of the mountain is a little scary!  We did stop at the falls and carefully made our way down the path to see it.  Taylor wouldn't get too close.  The signs warning you of what would happen if you fell in was enough to keep her away from getting remotely close to the edge.... I can't say I blame her. 

The one thing the kids wanted to do was play in the snow they kept seeing.  They weren't ever able to do that, but once we made it back to safer roads, we did stop and let them get a little close to some snow.

We stopped again at the Visitor's Center.  We had promised the kids souvenirs...they both chose stuffed rams...or are they long-horn sheep?  Zachary named his Rocky and Taylor named her's Winter...both after parts of our vacation!

On our way back down Trail Ridge Road, we stopped when we saw a family of Elk.  There was a baby with them that was so cute. 

We then headed back to Winter Park and got everything ready for us to leave really early on Tuesday morning.  We had a great time in Winter Park and are so appreciative of the wonderful family that let us stay in their home!