Our good family friends have a beautiful home in Estes that they often let my parents and our family use to get away. It is in a gorgeous location and really is just the nicest place to be. We're close enough we can walk in to town from the "cabin", but when we're at the cabin, it feels like we're far away from everyone else. There's a big fishing pond and we're right along a bend in the river. We feel so blessed to be able to retreat there with our family on occasion.
When Carson was at Cub Scout Day Camp the weekend before, he'd started not feeling well. On Sunday at sacrament meeting I looked over at him and realized his face was covered in a rash. We took him home and a high fever set in. Dave took him to the urgent care in Fort Collins. You'll never guess the diagnosis...scarlet fever! It was a long and miserable week. Carson's antibiotics took much longer than the standard 24 hours to work. He was definitely not himself for several days. We put the girls on antibiotics as well, just in case. It was a last-minute decision, but by Friday everyone was healthy and we were able to go on our planned trip to the cabin.
We went up for a long weekend with Grandpa and Grandma, Riley, Kacie, and Tara. The kids and I drove up earlier in the day on Friday, and Dave joined us late after work that night (it's a long drive from Denver to Estes, especially on a Friday night).
Emma and I had an appointment Friday afternoon to go horseback riding for a mother/daughter date. We drove to the ranch and waited for our guides to get the horses saddled up. I'd envisioned sharing a horse with Emma, but she got her own...and he was big! Emma's horse was Lance, who the guides liked to call LanciePants or Lancelot. My horse was Johnny Cash. Emma was a fantastic rider. As all the horses lined up, she got several horses in front of me, so I wasn't even close enough to help her if she needed it (like I could actually help...I was having a hard enough time controlling my own horse!). We went up a mountain, stopping by a gum tree where everyone puts the gum you're given at the beginning of the ride on the trunk or branches of a tree. All the way up, and then we stopped for some pictures.
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| Emma and LanciePants. |
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| Sheer joy. |
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| Mounted and ready to go. |
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| And she's off...three horses ahead of me! |
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| Kissing horses. |
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| At the top of the mountain. |
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| Ready to head back down. |
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| I think going down is kind of scary, but Emma handled it beautifully! |
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| When we got done riding, I looked and found gum in Emma's hair! It must have gotten in her hair as we passed the gum tree! |
All the guides (including the first guide, Emma Louise) couldn't believe how well Emma did riding on her own for the first time. She was calm and collected and had a great time. I'm so glad we got to go on such a fun date together!
We spent most of our time at the cabin outside in the boat or fishing. The weather was perfect!
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| A little rest and relaxation. |
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| Carson caught his first fish! |
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| He didn't want to touch it. Good thing Uncle Riley was there! |
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| Sitting and watching for fish. |
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| Little fisher woman |
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| Everyone is fishing! |
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| Let's try doing this in the water. |
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| Emma and Uncle Riley, floating in a boat. |
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| Joely loves Tara. |
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| Date night? |
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| Beautiful Emma |
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| Favorite uncle. |
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| Picture a crab and lots of birds and fish singing "Kiss the Girl." :) |
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| Getting ready for our hike. Apparently we have a couple who aren't happy campers. Or should I say happy hikers... |
We decided that we simply had to go on a hike while we were up in Estes. Grandma knew of a free hike that was up behind the Stanley Hotel. It was about 2 miles to a lake. Tara and Riley left Estes to be home for work and other responsibilities, and Grandpa's back and knees wouldn't hold up, so he drove home while the rest of us went for it. It was a beautiful hike, but it was hard. Little legs that aren't used to hiking (including mine...and yes, they're short compared to Dave's) had a hard time and needed lots of stops.
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| It's easy to see why they're called the Rocky Mountains. |
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| Sporting Grandpa's hat. |
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| It was a steep incline from the get-go, and those of us with short legs needed lots of rests! |
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| Now she's a happy hiker! |
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| Rock climbing |
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| Snack Time! |
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| Water break. |
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| Loving the view! We only made it about half way to the lake, but everyone who had hiked all the way up said this view was good enough. |
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| I'll take the mountains any day. |
The nearest church to Estes is in Lyons. It was a long drive, but very interesting to see all the damage the flood did last September. Everyone was rebuilding, which I think takes a lot of courage. The devastation in some areas was immense, and in other areas it didn't seem bad at all. Strange how circumstances can be so different based on a little bit of ground. Church was great. After we got home, we noticed that Joely had a rash on her stomach. It was quickly spreading to the rest of her body. Scary! We called the nurse hotline and a nurse friend, and everyone agreed that we should give her benadryl and just keep an eye on her. She seemed happy and unbothered by the rash and didn't exhibit any other symptoms, so that's what we did. We stopped her antibiotic and the rash diminished quickly. Thank goodness!
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| Grandma and Kacie put together a scavenger hunt for the kids after church. |
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| They went all over the cabin and the property finding their clues. |
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| It was a hit! |
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| Hanging out in the "Harry Potter cupboard." |
On Sunday evening we walked in to town to see a magic show a street performer was doing. It was pretty neat, and we were all baffled by his magic!
Monday morning Dave left super-early to get back to work. The rest of us cleaned and fished and went out on the boat one last time.
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| Grandpa caught lots of fish! |
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| Feeding the fish was our favorite...they were awesome to watch as they jumped and flipped around in the water. |
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| Kacie got taken for a nice boat ride by two little oarsmen. |
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| Isn't it picturesque? :) |
All weekend long, the kids had been begging to ride on the Rainbow Slide. So, on our way out of town, we stopped and took two rides down. It is so much fun!! At $1 a ride, it adds up quick, though. Everyone was sad we couldn't go again, but we'll do it again the next time we're up there in the summer.
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| Racing down the track. |
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| Will it be a three-way tie? |
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| Let's do that again! |
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| Carson clearly has the lead. |
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| What a ride! |
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| We all give it a two-thumbs up! |
It was a fantastic weekend! We can't wait to go back!
