Off To Yellowstone!

We are currently on our way cruising at super sonic speed (27 mph) up the Teton pass. At this rate we should get there by tomorrow.

I have to say it was very hard to leave Jackson. If Tim had put it to a vote he would have been out numbered to stay. I know we will have lots of fun in Yellowstone too - we have 10 days planned there moving to 3 different spots.

Part of the reason we didn't want to leave was our fun day yesterday. We went into town for a visit to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. This is on every must see list for Jackson ;) After lunch we headed to the place where Tim baptized Kylie the other day. It really is the perfect spot. Lots of good, dark sand that Kylie could make castles with, rocks, Ryan could play in the stream, Tim could fish and I could layout and watch the kids play.....and we were alone except for the random kayak, canoe or raft that would come floating by. So peaceful!

We ended the night with a great dinner at a nearby restaurant that has a huge grassy area for the kids (and their parents) to play and run around in. Kylie now has a new record of 16 somersaults in a row. We all threw the football around until we could no longer see it, which is probably why I left my new sunglasses there. Ouch!

He's The Man!

I've obviously had a lot of fun bashing my poor husband with the new experience of RV'ing.  Today I will do the opposite.  As most of you know, anything that Tim tries to do he always ends up being really good at.  He has officially reached that point with parking the RV.  We had been fortunate enough to be able to keep Phillip the Inferno plugged in at the RV camp while staying at the hotel.   But, we had to move him to our good spot yesterday, which we knew would be quite the challenge.    This place is amazing in that there are so many RV's here, gobs of tiny roads going all over the place along with trees and big boulders strategically placed to torment you.  It is surprisingly pretty but completely insane.  I think this is possibly the only space we would actually be able to get into and out of - I'm not kidding!  Tim had to make his way all the way to the back of the property - I walked along to help clear the way - and then had to back into our spot at a tough angle.  He did it on the first try (it required a couple of pull forward/back up's to straighten but that was not due to error).  It was extremely impressive.  So there you have it and I may have just jinxed him but I'm very proud of him :)

The rest of our fun the last 2 days has been involving mountain biking down the slopes, taking the gondola up for a fun ride and then coming back to the room for the much awaited hot chocolate with "whooped cream" (Kylie's pronunciation) and as many marshmallows as there are room left for. Taking the tram up to the top of the mountain for dessert at 10am, oh I mean breakfast - the only food choice is waffles with your choice of melted brown sugar butter, nutella or strawberry preserves.  And more hot chocolate......Some rag doll jumping, oh I mean bungee jumping!  Picking up a very excited Mousse that was happy to be coming back to his "home" and a trip into downtown Jackson.

This morning we dropped Kylie off at the Kids Ranch for a day of fun.  Tim dropped me and my bike off at the corral for a 2 hour horseback ride for me followed by a bike ride back home - my buns are a bit sore!  Tim and Ryan went off to spend the day taking on the trout in the  Hoback river.  I'm sure they will come home with some good fish tales!

Back On The Grid

Well hello there world! I'll bet you thought we drove our RV off into oblivion. Nope, we were at Colter's Bay Village in the heart of the Tetons. The cellphone coverage was microscopic, no wifi, no tv and no data/Internet on phones or iPads unless you lucked into a few bars and had a couple of hours to let email load.

To summarize our last few days would be best described as "Wow!!!". The mountains with Lake Jackson at the base are truly spectacular. We had some fun bike rides, went kayaking, Tim took the kids to a river and while saving a trout managed to dunk Kylie up to her neck. They heard wolves howl, saw bison, elk and deer. Tim caught several trout. Needless to say they came back having one of the best days ever :)

We drove down into Teton Village yesterday to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We are staying at a hotel and my hair is really clean!!!! We had a super dinner and Tim surprised me with a really special video he made of our family photos. The kids and I OD'd on wedding cake and hot chocolate. It was a really great night!

I found photos of the infamous Pillow on Tim's phone, for your viewing pleasure.

Go KOA

We had a short trip yesterday from Littleton to Fort Collins. We wanted to get together with my brother, his wife Shereen and our nephew Morgan who grows taller by the hour!

The plan was for them to come see our new digs then go out for dinner. However that plan changed as soon as we pulled in to this "dream come true" RV park. There were kids everywhere, a huge playground, mini-golf, bumper boats and this thing they called The Pillow. Shereen loved the pillow ;) It was like a giant whoppie cushion that didn't make the noise (bummer!). It was surrounded by sand and an ankle high, emergency brake railing to slow the munchkins down before they hit the fence. It worked well for Kylie! We decided to stay, put Tim to work and had a cookout.

Oh wait, I forgot about the best part! We had a huge, grassy spot with a patio that backed up to the 9 acre pond. Tim was the hero and helped our neighbors (who had been trying for 3 days) finally catch some fish. I think by the end of the evening the kids had caught 7 or 8 bass each.

We had a great time and I know I enjoyed Shereen's yummy Sunny D adult beverage concoction! Ryan is in heaven because his awesome cousin showed him how to do new stuff on his Roblox computer world. Kylie entertained us with her front tooth that was "hanging on by spit" as Shereen very accurately put it. After 30 minutes of twirling, tugging and grossing us out, she was successful! And also managed to leave a pretty dangling bit of gum behind - ewwww!

On We Go

After 5 fun days at Chatfield State Park we are now starting the next chapter of our adventure!

The last few days have been filled with lots of fun! We went up to Idaho Springs for a tour of the Phoenix Gold Mine then tried our luck at gold panning. Kylie just walked around looking for pretty rocks and ended up finding a hunk of gold ore mixed with pyrite worth about $40. She was very excited!

We also went to the "beach" which was fun but the kids were a bit confused when we got there and the sand wasn't quite what they were used to....it's more like gravel. Usually you aren't walking thru a mine field of canada goose poop on the beach either!

Ryan got to get an upgrade - a new bike. He now has a real mountain bike with gears and all. Now he can keep up with us :)

We went back one more time to Idaho Springs to do a rafting trip. The water was low so it was perfect for Kylie.

Last night we got to hook back up with our friends from the Sand Dunes. They had us over for dinner - really yummy smoked salmon! I have the feeling that we will get to see them again one day :)

Casa Bonita

For those of you who are not familiar with Casa Bonita I think it is the 15th Wonder of the World. It has this distinction for several reasons. It is, quite possibly, the largest, gaudiest, cheesiest restaurant in the world. It has got to have some of the worst food (taste and nutritionally). It is in a really scary part of town and, best of all, even on a Monday night at 7:00 we still had to wait in a Disneyland kind of line for almost an hour to get our cafeteria trays. I have gone there many times since I was a youngster and it is a lot of fun to go there now with the kids.

It is 52,000 sq/ft (3 football fields). They did not have any plans when they built it - we learned this while winding our way like cattle going to slaughter in the line. It is in the corner of a large strip center - the whole experience is rather surreal. It was featured in an episode of South Park - Danny did you see it? There is a small waterfall inside where they do skits involving a gorilla, Black Bart, juggling and cliff diving. All you can eat sopapillas and waking up with a stomachache at 2:20am.

Needless to say we had a lot of fun until Kylie spent all her tokens on the crane game without winning and determined it was now "the worst night ever!" We wandered our way around visiting Black Bart's cave, the mine shaft, the lower caverns with stalactites and stalagmites, the old theater room where they used to do magic shows, visited the treasure chest on the way out and prayed we wouldn't get mugged in the parking lot since it was getting rather late. We made it home safely and look forward to doing it again next year!

Fantasy vs Reality (civilization!)

I'll start off with a recap of yesterday. We decided to stay at the Boulder County Fairgrounds instead of parking in front of my parents house. That had seemed like a great idea before we drove Phillip The Inferno. Reality set in and we realized the next best thing is The Fairgrounds, which we will stay at on our way home Aug 4 & 5 (take note mom & dad) and it will truly be "the fairgrounds" on those nights. Could be a major blast or a couple of sleepless nights? Or both! According to Tina (our new friend that runs the joint) there will be teenage boys with contraband beer driving their dad's trucks wreaking drunken havoc upon the world. This just may be sweet justice for us both to be in the thick of it.

Back to yesterday....Tim got the day off and was able to go fishing all day - which was a dream come true. That's the fantasy part folks, maybe not what some would call fantasy (ie Robert) but for Tim it was right up there. He caught 24 brook trout on a secluded stream in Estes Park. The kids and I spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa took Ryan to see the prairie dogs, Wendy's, NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) and back home to play Roblox all afternoon. Grandma was kind enough to take Kylie and I to civilization - The Container Store (believe it or not those 4 trips the 5 days before we left still didn't get us everything we needed) and Whole Foods - Holy Cow, that was an AMAZING store!!!! I need to check out the "new" Plano store and see if it compares.

One of the best things was being able to use a shower at my parents house that actually felt like you got clean vs ours that sort of piddles on you - we need a better shower-head. Ah, it's the simple things....Oh, and I got to go to a very new, huge SuperTarget this morning! After shopping at small town, crowded Walmart's THAT was a big treat too!

Today we arrived at Chatfield State Park, which is in Littleton. It is wonderful!!! Great, spacious site, lots of bike trails, fishing, beaches and I won't torment you with the temperatures except to say that I was wearing a light jacket on my bike ride at 5:30! We are here for 5 nights and are loving it. Finally got to do the whole set-up. The Caver's, William's and Auciello's would be proud (wish you were here!). We have an outdoor carpet, rope lighting, little lantern lighting, a shade canopy over the picnic table and finally had a big enough spot to drop down our patio!!!! Ross - Tim did a great job setting all this all up without help, it can be done - when necessary!

Ryan and Kylie keep asking when they will see Izzy. I'm including an adorable picture of Ryan and Izzy hanging out (it makes me think of the movie Grease and the song "Summer Loving"). So Traci & Ned be prepared, we will be calling you to come out here for dinner :)