Happy Birthday Wesley!

My oldest child turns 8 years old today. Hard to believe since Wesley was born just the other day. I'm sure I write this each year at his birthday, but it's true! He's such a sweet kid. Very sensitive to others feelings. Always trying to help out and a great big brother to Greta. I'm sure lucky to have him as a son. Happy Birthday Wesley!

He's really into Minecraft these days so I wanted to make him a Minecraft themed cake. I used three cake mixes and 45 pounds of frosting (not really on the frosting). Each character is sculpted out of marshmallow fondant. The cake took many hours but he really liked it, so that's all that matters. Alex, Abby, Evie & Jessica came over to help him celebrate.

Four Wheeling & Fireworks

This is the last post on the trip (I promise!). I took over 250 pictures so condensing it down to just five blog posts was pretty difficult. Sean and I took a trip on my parent's 4 wheelers on the last day before heading home. There are many back roads to explore around my parent's cottage and that's just what we did. It was great fun and I got some fabulous pictures of the scenery.

The spectacular scenery inspired me to try my hand at watercolor painting. My parents had a small watercolor kit that they were generous enough to let me use while I was up there. So I sat out on their deck and did a few tiny little paintings. I found it to be very relaxing and I'm thinking I might pick up a brush now that I'm home. I used to watercolor in high school and college but haven't in quite some time. It was nice.

We ended up traveling home on the 4th of July so we made arrangements to stop in Pueblo and enjoy the fireworks show. The hotel was downtown by the river and we ended up having front row seats in our fifth floor room. It was a lovely end to a memorable trip.

Museums & Mountain Fishing

From Ouray we loaded up the car and made our way over to my parent's cottage. We made a small stop at the Ridgeway Train museum. The kids enjoyed climbing all over train cars.

The kids have been asking when they'd be able to go fishing, so we made it a point to go fishing in the mountain pond near my parent's cottage. Residents are able to catch two fish a day. I honestly didn't think we'd catch much of anything so you can imagine my surprise when Wesley caught a trout not 5 minutes after getting there. I, of course, didn't bring my camera out of the car until after the trout was already released back into the water. The kids decided before we got there that they didn't want to kill the fish (they are, after all, my children). Well all said and done we caught six trout. Wesley caught two (all by himself I might add) and I caught two on Greta's tiny pink princess pole. It was a great time.

My second favorite picture from the trip.

Yankee Girl Mine & Box Canyon

After our hike up to the big waterfall above town I wanted nothing more than to go hit the shops in town. I love shopping, I don't buy all that much, but I love looking! So Greta, my mom and I went walking through town while the boys (my Dad, Sean and Wesley) took the Grand Cherokee up Red Mountain (a jeep trail). I'm not a big fan of jeep trailing as I get pretty car sick on winding trails so I was happy not to have to go. They had a blast though. Sean was thrilled to try out the 4x4 on the Jeep, and it did great! I'm still hearing about it from Wesley and it's been a week. I nabbed a few pictures off of my Dad's blog to share what they got to see (hope you don't mind Pops). They got some beautiful pictures!

The next day we got ready and loaded up in the cars for a hike into Box Canyon. It was a nice, fairly easy hike for kids and the view is gorgeous. They have recently opened up a tunnel through the mountain which turns into a perimeter hike around the top of the city. We ended up doing part of that hike as well.

Probably my favorite picture from the trip.

Cascade Falls

We stayed three days in Ouray, Colorado. It's a beautiful, quaint little town nestled into the mountains. It brings back many fond memories of my youth and I'm excited to share the town with my kids. We got to Ouray Sunday evening and got checked into our room. We stayed at the Rivers Edge hotel and it was indeed on the rivers edge. The place was beautifully landscaped and the rooms were spacious.

We walked into town looking for a bite to eat and ran into the toy store. With two excited children (and one young-at-heart grandpa), one can not just walk past a toy store. So in we went. It was a unique toy store in that they had a counter set up with logic games.....and they show you how to play them. Wesley thought this was great fun! I think grandpa walked out of there with three new games.

The next morning we took a nice hike up the the Cascade Falls. It was an easy hike which was good since we were still trying to acclimate to the high altitude. The kids sure enjoyed climbing rocks!

More tomorrow!

Bishop's Castle

Home sweet home! We got home from another exciting trip to Colorado on Sunday. It was a ten day trip stuffed full of fun activities. The first stop in the mountains was to a location I'd heard about and wanted to visit, Bishop's Castle. It's a large, castle like structure built by one man. He's been working on it since the 70's and it's open to the public. There was even a wedding going on while we were there. That was fun to see. I have to admit the castle wasn't what I thought it would be. I'm sure the man who built it knew what he was doing but I'm not sure he used plans or adhered to building codes while building it. It seemed very half hazard. For instance, Wesley and I are climbing a rather treacherous set of steps going up to the tallest turret and there was a section of stairs that appeared to be held together with baling wire.  It was surprising and it made me question the integrity of the whole building. But we made it to the top (and back down again) without any problems and it is an adventure I can always remember doing with my oldest child. Sean and Greta stayed on the ground as they aren't a fan of heights.

We stayed in Canon City and enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool. Swimming in hotel pools has to be one of the biggest highlights for the kids. Soaking in the hot tub has to be one of mine. The next day we headed out to stay in Ouray, Colorado for a few days. But first we had to stop on the top of Monarch Pass for the obligatory picture in from of the elevation sign. I have so many pictures with my sister in front of this sign when we were kids, it's kind of funny to be doing the same thing with my youngins.

This post is rather picture heavy (as are most of my vacation posts) so I will stop there and post another one tomorrow with more of our vacation. I'm sure you can hardly wait.