The Brick Bungalow: vacation

Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts

{Colorado} 2019 Visit

Life happens... it's been a busy, chaotic year. And... I never posted our 2019 Colorado Trip photos. So, I'll work on that but for now, here's some of the highlights...

We went out for my cousin's wedding (sibling to the one from last year) and enjoyed every minute! We wen to Pike's Peak, road the Royal Gorge Railroad, went sight seeing over the Royal Gorge, entertained the kids at the Dinosaur Experience in Canon City, and had a lot of fun, family time with the wedding. The weather was beautiful and it was another great vacation!

{Missouri} Lake Visits

2018

2017

2016

2015 - ?!?!?!

2014 - Nate's first year (so uncomfortable in that life jacket!)

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2000 - 2008 - we think were all at the same place, 2001 and 2002 may have been elsewhere

I'm trying to make a collection of all our photos (or at least the highlights!) from every year and making a small book through Shutterfly or a regular photo album. It'd be fun to flip through every year.

Side note - I also thought about doing that for major holidays and/or birthdays. Like one page per scrapbook/photo album for year for the kids' birthdays, Halloween (to compare costumes!) and Christmas (which we already started). After so many years, I could make it into a book instead of a photo album.

How do you store your photos? Do you do books or photo albums? Or are you all digital? I've lost many photos after computers have crashed so I'm trying to print all my favorites and save them "to the cloud". Some day I'll figure out how to get photos off three old computers - one of which is literally just the hard drive, not an actual laptop anymore.

{Missouri} Lake Trip 2018

Happy Monday!

We just came back from a crazy, busy weekend. We spent the majority of the time on the water at our favorite lake and it's NOT the Lake of the Ozarks. That lake is crazy!

My mom bought a vintage boat a couple years ago and it finally saw this lake. It's been to other places, just not on vacation.

My girl!

This crazy boy and his amazing hair.

Lily really wanted to jump off the cliff last year but we didn't let her. This year though, we decided to go check it out and see if she wanted to do it. She was a little nervous but decided to go. She ended up loving it and said its was her favorite part of the trip and what made the day "the best day ever!" She also finally learned how to skip a rock and was successful and caught her first fish!

And no, Doug did not throw her in even though it kind of looks like it. He was about to jump off himself.

And Mr. Nate had his first this weekend - first time on the tube. I got a few good photos of them but I like the lighting of this one. They were so happy and excited but definitely could feel it the next day. We are looking into buying the type of tube that the kids can sit up on. This tube has been around since I was in high school.

And my girl, loving some time alone with my parents (and me). Doug stayed back with Nate who was passed out in the cabin. Lily loves to drive the boat and has become really good at it. She was standing up here to see the trash in the lake that turned out to be a beer can and coozy that my dad picked up.

And the weekend continued with another first with Lily. She went off to Girl Scout Camp. This road leads to her cabin and little area for them. It's part of a bigger camp and I hope she's having a blast!!!

{Colorado} Nederland

On our way to Estes Park, we drove through some areas my mom remembers spending her childhood in. We stopped in Nederland to have lunch and get the kids out of the car. There were some wonderful shops (that would take all my money if I could) and a very cold, but very nice creek. We ate lunch (no pics of the food but it was good) and went on our way.

Look at all these beautiful goodies... this shop was stocked full!

I have no idea about the photo above except it was across from our lunch spot. Everyone seemed to want a photograph in the coffin but the place itself was closed.

Check out our Colorado posts:

Nederland - you're here!

Estes Park

Trail Ridge Road

Grand Lake

{Colorado} Grand Lake

Our last morning in Colorado was spent climbing in Grand Lake. I really wish I remember the name of it, and if I can find it, I'll post. It's a great area and includes various sizes of walking paths.

It was a chilly 55 degrees when we started but definitely warmed up afterwards, not to mention working up a little sweat as you climb up some.

After some waterfalls, the water area calms down a bit and created a perfect spot to throw rocks and get our toes wet. It was cold, of course, but you can't stop us from water!

The kids were getting tired and so my parents walked back to the car with them (they were also starving as we went before breakfast!). It's unfortunate that they did because we saw some beautiful views.

Doug and I were just positive that we'd see another moose but we couldn't see a thing! We walked about a mile from the start, maybe closer to 1.5 miles from the beginning (in total).

And just as we were about to turn around to head back, we saw two juvenile moose running through the pasture. They were good size, so of course we stopped.

And then we saw what they were running from - a momma and her baby. At this point we were stopping to take photos, but also realized that they were headed in the same direction we were.

We watched mom and baby as the juveniles had already disappeared from view and we realized that we needed to be extra careful. We wanted to head back to the car though, so we walked slowly as we weren't sure about mom.

We lost track of the four moose in the woods as we walked back but kept seeing their tracks, which were fresh, so we were very alert to noises and our surroundings. We knew we didn't know the area and luckily we were fine. I calmed down a bit once I saw some more people walking towards us on the trail, but I did not want to come face to face with a momma moose!

And that, is our trip to Colorado! We drove part of the way home to Missouri after Grand Lake. We saw the starts of some wildfires the night before we left and they seemed to be under control as we left. Part of the area we were in was really dry with lots of dead trees, so lets hope everyone stays safe!

Don't forget to check out our other Colorado posts!