August 4th - 10th

Winter Park, Colorado might be my favorite place on earth.  High up in the Rocky Mountains, the resort town is surrounded by gorgeous views of mountain ridges and pine trees.  I closed my eyes often while here to take in the yummy smell of pine and aspen trees.

We got into town late on the 4th and stayed in a nice 2-bedroom condo for the night.  The next day we ventured out into the cute lodge town for breakfast, shopping and Giant Board-game playing.

The kids found this stage, and decided to put on the play "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."  Can you guess which cute kid is Goldilocks?

The town has huge games on all the walkways!

Logan took this picture of us.  Not too bad for a 6-year-old!

Can you see Logan's tiny hand waving at me from the trolley?

What a gorgeous place!  I wish I could have stayed longer than one night, but I needed to get on the road with Bryn, Lindsey and Logan because we had a LONG drive home to Missouri.  Ryan and Brevan stayed in the Winter Park area for the rest of the week with boys and leaders from our ward for High Adventure Scout Camp.  They had a blast rock climbing, mountain biking, riding a zipline, white water rafting and bonding with each other and the other boys.

The drive home without Ryan or Brevan was pretty miserable.  I'm not going to lie.  The kids were great; it was just me that fell apart.  I'm horrible at driving long distances because I get so tired when I'm just staring at a road.  I'm so scared of falling asleep at the wheel.  I stopped at several Redbox locations to keep the kids busy watching movies, and I bought an e-book to keep me awake while I drove.  We stayed in Colby, Kansas the night of the 5th, then drove home the rest of the way on the 6th.  When we were about an hour from home, we got stuck in traffic that delayed us for an extra hour.  I was so exhausted and started to fall apart.  I had to stop at the grocery store because I knew our fridge was empty, and while I grabbed a few essentials the kids took off somewhere in the store.  I couldn't find them after I checked out and went to the car to wait for them.  15 minutes later they finally came out and were not happy to see the look of frustration on my face.  I just wanted to be home!

We have so many fun memories from our month on vacation!  I'm so grateful for all the bonding that took place within our family and with our extended family and friends.  We are truly blessed!

These are pictures of Ryan and Brevan that were taken during the week they camped in the Colorado mountains.  They got back late on the 10th after a very spiritual testimony meeting.