Colorado

Last Tuesday, we set out for a vacation to Colorado.  Our good friends, Matt and Carlie, moved out there in December, so we thought this summer would be a perfect opportunity to go visit them.  Their daughter, Addie,  is just a week younger than Payton, so we were really excited to get the girls together again! 
We left Marshalltown around 2:30 Tuesday afternoon.  Our original plan was to make it to Sidney, Nebraska, that night since we thought that was the halfway point to our destination (Estes Park).  Turns out, Sidney, Nebraska, is only 2 hours from Estes Park, so it's really not the halfway point at all.  Needless to say, we did not make it there that night.  In fact, we only made it to Lincoln, Nebraska.  We still had another 7 hours to drive on Wednesday.  So, we were up bright and early and off we went.  We stopped for lunch in Sidney and also went to Cabela's.  We arrived in Estes Park late Wednesday afternoon, got checked into our hotel, ate supper, and then took in all the shops.  What a fun town!  The next day we went to Rocky Mountain National Park, which was beautiful.  We did our first family hike and it went really well!  We bought a carrier for Payton at Target-- a great investment.  I wasn't sure how she would like it (and how Chad would like having it on his back), but she did fine in it and Chad said it wasn't too heavy.  We hiked to Alberta Falls, a beautiful waterfall and then we did a hike around Bear Lake.  This was gorgeous!  The pictures do not do it justice!  We only spent a few hours in the park.  Chad tells me that you could spend a week in that park and not see everything.  (He spent a week there several years ago backpacking with some college buddies.)  From there, we headed to Matt and Carlie's in Parker ( just outside Denver) and had a delicious supper compliments of Carlie.  Payton and Addie had sooo much fun playing together.  We let them stay up late and play because they were just having too much fun!  The next day we went to the Denver Children's Museum, which the girls loved!  So many fun things to do!  We left Parker Saturday morning at 7:30 and arrived in Lincoln at 5 PM.  Went to Granite City for supper - delicious.  First time we had ever been there.  Then back to the hotel for bed since we wanted to get on the road early.  We were going to do the Omaha Zoo on our way back home on Sunday, but it was a little cloudy, so we decided to save that for another time.  It was a fun family vacation.  So blessed that we were able to make lots of memories!

Alberta Falls

View from Bear Lake

Family photo op at Bear Lake

Check out that back drop!

P and Addie playing in the playhouse at the Denver Children's Museum

P painting a masterpiece with Daddy!