Maroon Bells Camping Trip

Our friends, the Marzos, invited us along on a camping trip to the Maroon Bells in Aspen. They showed us how car camping should be done. She had camping bins that she keeps ready to go. Some of the things that I would like to incorporate when I get around to making us a camping bin: kitchen cookware and serving-ware, paper goods, cutting board, tablecloth, hot pads, cooking spray, matches and soap/hand sanitizer. We stayed at the Silver Bell Campground. Karalyn did her homework and reserved our spot as soon as she could, 6 months ahead. She snagged the last spot-we were lucky! Marzso also cooked meals that were gourmet for camping (scones, tin-foil dinner and the really impressive one---homemade cookies!). Clearly, we are going to need to step up our game to go camping with them.

Thursday: Set-up camp. Explored around the campsite. Dinner of hot dogs, chips and fruit. S'mores. Campfire. Bedtime.

  

Friday: Scones and the most delicious raspberry jam for breakfast. Hiked around the Maroon Bells and did some fishing for the first half of the day. Luckily, Bryan is good at this fishing thing and all of the kids got to touch the fish he caught. Enjoyed at picnic at Maroon Bells for lunch. For the afternoon, we headed to Snowmass and rode the gondola for free and topped it off with an ice cream stop in their mountain village. Karalyn and I rode 18 miles on our rode bikes early that evening while the men started the tinfoil dinners. They met us at the top of the canyon (perfect timing, as it was just starting to rain) and took us back to camp for dinner. We hung around the campsite and even enjoyed homemade cookies this night. 

Saturday: Chocolate chip pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Delicious. We broke camp and headed for home. We went through Independence Pass on our way back and stopped at The Grottos. Such a cool spot. It'll be an even better spot when the kids are a little older and can cliff jump. 

Overall, the kids had a great time hiking, exploring, biking, making a parade, getting dirty, sitting around the campfire and running around to their hearts' content. It was a short, but sweet couple days together.

High Adventure

For the majority of years that Bryan and I have been married, he has served in the young men's organization. This year, he helped to organize and carry out high adventure with the Boy Scouts in our church. The setting was gorgeous and the managed to only have a few storms roll in. Bryan said he made one of the more responsible choices and told the group to turn around from a 14er they were trying to summit when he saw storm clouds moving in quickly. It's a good thing they did, because that storm was on them in no time at all.
The next day, those that wanted to climbed a 14er. Bryan also helped the scouts catch fish and other leaders showed the boys how to clean and gut a fish, much to the dismay of some. They finished the trip off with boating at Pueblo Reservoir.

Plum Creek Pathway

I took the kids down to the pathway where Emma could spread her wings and cruise with her new bike riding skills. Everyone did really well. Luke rode the entire way: easily 6-7 miles. Emma cruised with ease and kept a good attitude when facing some challenging hills. Myles was content to ride along in the trailer and didn't put up much of a fuss until we were in the neighborhood. It turned out to be a much longer outing than anticipated, but really fun.

Myles decided he wanted to try and go pee...without any help from his mother. Makes me hope and dread that potty training might not be too far away.