Colorado Vacation

At the end of June/beginning of July, we took our first-ever family road trip all the way up to Denver, Colorado.  I felt pretty brave to drive all that way with four small children in tow (without a portable DVD player!), but it actually was a really nice trip. The kids were great in the car --probably for two main reasons: 1) we did the bulk of the driving at night while they were asleep and 2) we listened to The Wizard of Oz and Chronicles of Narnia audiobooks whenever they weren't asleep.  When it was all said and done, I think the kids' favorite part of the trip was getting to sleep in hotels every night with all-you-can-eat continental breakfasts every morning, but aside from that, we did a lot of other fun things as well.

After driving straight through the night, we arrived safely (though wearily) in Colorado City. We checked into our hotel, then headed straight to Bishop's Castle. An immense, real-life castle Mr. Bishop has built with his own two hands over the course of his life --and it's still a work in progress. It's definitely not up to the local safety codes, but it is really cool. I wouldn't let the girls go all the way to the top, but Matt took Michael and got some really cool shots.

The portcullis 

Up at the top, Michael felt safer in the little guard tower.

Notice the dragon?

Sadly, Joseph's internal clock did not adjust to local time, so I was up with him reeeeeeally early every morning. Here we are in the hotel lobby for the 5:00 a.m. sunrise. . . . We had already been up an hour.

Once we got to Denver, our first priority was to tour the Hammond's Candy Factory. Yum!

The kids and I hiked up a mountain near Boulder to see the Flatirons. We didn't quite make it to the top; little legs give out pretty quickly. But now they can at least say they have climbed a mountain.

We also visited the Denver Butterfly Pavilion. They actually had all kinds of invertebrates, including Rosie the Tarantula.

Ada loved the butterlies and chased them all over trying to get one to land on her hand. Eventually, one did  --resulting in supreme happiness for this little girl.

On our last day in Denver, we canvassed the Botanical Gardens. My friend Julie, said we HAD to go see the Dale Chihuly exhibit there.  It was pretty amazing.  The whole garden was full of these huge hand-blown glass sculptures.

They blended in beautifully with the landscapes. . . . 

We did too. 

Aside from waking up insanely early every morning, Joseph was great on the trip. He was as happy as could be as we drug him from place to place, hotel to hotel. What an amazing little trooper!

Here's Sadie doing an awesome modeling pose.

My favorite was the boat full of balls. Such beautiful colors!

Driving down from Denver, we stopped by to see my cousin JB and his family. These cousins finally got to meet, and had a great, though short, visit.  We definitely need to get these kids together again soon.

In Southern Colorado, near Alamosa, are the Great Sand Dunes. Huge sand dunes seemingly dumped there by accident, surrounded by mountains.  Matt took Michael and Sadie to climb it as far as they could while I stayed down below with Ada and Joseph.

From the mountains flows a river that simply disappears into the sand.  But before it disappeared completely, we had some fun playing in it. --Especially Joseph.