Kevin's sister, Stephanie, and family drove across the country to spend some time with the rest of the family and we were honored to be her first stop. They have spent the last 6 months in Sweden for her husband's job and said they have never been more grateful to live in the United States. They entertained us with lots of pretty interesting and amazing stories about their travels and experiences. We had a ton of fun hanging out at our home: epic nerf gun battles, four computers going for an online tank game, hot tub water fights, eye exams, etc, etc! It was surprising that we got any sleep!
Here are the boys!
Kamden almost 6, Kyle 11, Jadeyn 5, Kody 7
We went straight from fun at home to fun in the mountains. We camped at State Forest State Park in northern Colorado. Last summer we had ventured out there (traveling a few hours out of our way to go around the massive forest fire that raged in the area) and were amazed by the beauty and especially the moose!!! Last year we saw 14 moose, and we wanted to beat that record. Well, we tied it!!! Nice! Each night we would hit the trails at dusk and keep our eyes open for those beautiful creatures. They are so magnificent and exciting to find. We got a little too close to one however and got some amazing pictures. About half of us headed back on the trail when the moose decided to tell the others that they were a bit too close. Never been on the receiving end of a moose charge, but needless to say, there was a bit of screaming and a lot of running!!
We were joined by Kevin's parents and Jessica, and Shawn and Stephanie and family. Awesome: more cousins!!
The kids entertained themselves around camp with a nice sized ant hill that was near our tent. They made condominiums for them, barricades, fences, food storage, and supplied them with a healthy amount of fish crackers and gummy bears!
This State Park is totally RZR friendly so we got to tear all over the place and enjoy the scenery and wildlife. At one point we were able to fit nine of us in our four-seater!! Its a good thing we are all small! :)
The only drawback of the weekend that we could find was the wind that ripped (literally) through the valley during the day. Wow! It was pretty strong as evidenced by the damage that Steph's tent took on the second day! We came back to camp to see half her tent collapsed. We thought for sure that one of the poles had just slipped, but nope: a pole had completely snapped in half and was bent all us and stabbing straight through the rain fly!!! So out come the MacGyvers! Duct tape, a pinecone and some extra tent stakes as a brace and we had that baby up and running again! However, we did guy-line the heck our of it and the other two tents!!!
One night around the campfire we thought we had a raccoon visit us. The next night, me Kevin and his dad stayed up to see if he would come back again; it was a beautiful red fox! He was timid and frightened with our flashlight, but then warmed up to is. Then he discovered the ant condominiums and the store of food that the boys had set out for the ants. He ate every gummy bear and cracker and probably half the ants as well!
Fishing was an entertaining blast! All the kids were able to catch something and we ended up pulling in quite a few! So fun to watch so many little hands reaching out for and trying to handle a slimy fish!
As we enjoyed the lake, we watched some loons diving deep into the water and even got to see two of them come up with a nicce flopping fish! Never seen that before! Kev and I were telling Gordon about when we saw an osprey dive and come up with a fish and he said how much he would like to see that. As we were leaving, and osprey started circling and we watched for a few minutes until, WHAM! It hit the water so hard and came up with about an eight inch trout!! Amazing!
We hiked up to a high mountain lake; Lake Agnes. We knew that the kids would have a fun time hiking, but we didn't expect that half the motivation would come from a snowball fight! We crossed snow bank after snowbank and each one resulted in soggy clothes and snowballs!! The lake was beautiful and we were further entertained by three downhill skiiers who had somehow hiked way up in the crags and made their way down the glacier stopping occasionally to hike over the rocks to the next snowy area. Never watched that before!
Such a fun time and this area has fast become one of our favorite summer outings!
Back home to get cleaned up and have a few days to prepare for the next outing: 4th of July in Wyoming!
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