Trail West

It was my year to pick our family getaway and I knew exactly where I wanted to go- Trail West. It's Young Life's family camp located in Buena Vista, CO.

Our (Luke, Franny, and I) first stop was at my parent's house to pick up the kids. I probably could have packed everything up without her taking the kids, but there is no way the house would have been so clean coming home and I am SO thankful that I didn't have to. One really cute thing, that could have been really bad was that Bailey tried to sneak her favorite kitten in my suitcase to take with her to camp. Here she is right after getting caught.

To help make the trip up a success, we did a large portion of the driving during the night. The other key was doing picnic lunches at parks where the kids could run off energy and get out of their carseats. Here we are in Raton, NM.

The next stop was getting to see Grandpa Robert for a very short, but very sweet visit that included lots of laughs. Bailey will not soon forget taking her lion to a real veterinarian for shots and a check up.

And last stop before getting there was the Royal Gorge. It has the world's highest suspension bridge and a small amusement park. Blake loved doing my hair while on my shoulders.

 

Driving Up to the Entrance!!!

Killing some time before they sent us in. Talk about royal treatment with the welcoming crew and unpacking our van for us (and with 3 adults, 2 kids driving up over 2.5 days we didn't pack light).

We had to check out the little kid's playground first thing.

Luke got called up at Club the first night. He was doing one of those skits where you try to see how many things you can do at once- throw a pretend frisbee, pretend yo-yo, eat a pretend ice cream cone, pretend to hula hoop, etc. I was quite impressed with his multi-tasking skills.

Classic Bailey- you ask for a smile and this is what you get.

Picturesque views.

Rodeo Day!

Luke competed in riding a stick horse with a bucket of water on your head.

Franny competed in ride your stick horse while carrying an egg on a spoon.

My boys.

When we got back the tawashies (think magical cleaning fairies) had left Bailey a surprise and set up her toys for her. Throughout the week they would do this and leave notes for us as they cleaned our cabin.

Later that afternoon Luke and I went horse back riding.

Bailey was at Kid's Klub and also got to go riding.

Here's Bailey with Bo. Bo was one of the main characters of the week and Bailey had such a crush on him.

And here we are again at the playground again.

This was the big kid's playground. Bailey was too fast to catch as she ran around and explored this fort.

Day 2 was our Jeep ride. With a beautiful, yellow, 5 seater Jeep all passengers were content even with the rain.

We drove about 30 minutes to the ghost town of St. Elmo where Bailey got to feed the chipmunks. There are Jeep trips like this almost everyday, talk about being well fed!

The view from main street.

A quick stop to look at the river. Because of the huge snow that CO got this past winter, the river was flowing!

Wrangler Breakfast

Where if you want to eat, you got catch some of your breakfast!

Bailey was just about as happy as I have ever seen her after she and her daddy caught her french toast.

Franny with 2 of her grandkids. You probably can't get too much better of a picture with my kids.

Later that day it was time for some snow sledding!

Luke and I on date night. They cooked us a wonderful steak dinner and gave us some free time, which we choose to use to play some frisbee golf.

While playing frisbee golf we ran into Bailey who was at Kid's Klub mining for gold and having a snowcone. Anyone else out there think the girl with Bailey looks like my sister Tori???

Every morning Billy and Bo Wingo would make a surprise entrance at breakfast to tell us about the day. They would always get Bailey's full attention.

This was the bad guy at camp this year- The Miner 49er and because he was mean to Bo, Bailey didn't like him at all.

Day 4 we got to head over to Frontier Ranch- one of Young Life's high school camps for a couple of hours doing whatever you wanted. We chose to swim and go down the big slide. Bailey was showing off her 4th of July spirit.

Here's Bailey and Luke just getting done sliding!

That evening we were told to dress up in our best cowboy gear and Bailey was quite prepared with her little pink pistol. On the way to dinner she pretended to shoot chipmunks and birds. She also kept a lookout for bears so that everyone was safe.

Dinner tasted really good, but then my stomach started to talk to me (in the not so good way). Thankfully Bailey was well entertained hanging with all the little boys on the tennis court.

This was taken right before I threw up. I was so looking forward to square dancing with Luke, but that wasn't in the cards for the night. I foresee a future country and western dancing night in Luke and I's near future.

By the next morning I was feeling much better and we took little Blakers on a hike. Thankfully, Kyle and Ali let us borrow this carrier and we had one content little boy.

I don't know if you can tell that I was the one taking all the pictures, but atleast I got some good one of the the boys.

A little family portrait minus Bailey who desperately needed to sleep in and was with Franny. Your not going to get many shots of my belly this pregnancy so take note- 20 weeks!

Day 5's activity was ropes course and zip line and I am so proud of my mother-in-law for doing it. Franny's on the left and Luke is on the right.

Luke doing a little climbing.

And then it was my turn.

And here's the 5 of us. We had to get a picture of all of us before we left.

Saying goodbye to friends we meet this week.

Blake saying "Bye! I'm Ready To Head Home!" I wish Blake would have been this content the whole way home, but it was just too many hours in the car over 2 days.

So last summer I learned the difference between a trip and a vacation. A vacation is all about relaxing, sleeping in, quality time with Luke, and knocking out some books while somewhere other than home and without the kids. A trip is going somewhere with the kids, but has all the usuals of everyday life. Let me be clear that this was a trip with a little good, bad, and ugly to go with it. Any bad or ugly was mostly due to the age of our kids. I just don't want you to get the impression from the pictures that this was a piece of cake. It really was like being at camp and you were on a busy schedule that isn't for the inflexible. No meals or activities were at the same time and alot of the time you weren't fully told what was going to be happening, although they make sure you had what you needed. Below was one of the handful of schedules that you had to had to work with and with a 16 month old there was a lot of decisions, for example, have him take a long nap like he would get at home and eat leftovers on the way to or at your next activity or have a fussy kid until lunch and take a short nap. Oh, and did I mention that because he was sleeping in the room with us he never once slept through the night, but woke up 2-3 times a night... : (.

There were many, many good, fun parts of the trip and I am so glad that we went. No trip that I would have wanted to go on would have been easier. Like I said before it was my turn to pick and the only other thing I had even considered was heading up to Yellowstone National Park/Grand Tetons. On this trip, I didn't have to cook or clean for 11 days (and let me tell you that the food was A-MAZ-ING). I also got a brief break from the Texas heat plus lots of fun activities that I we wouldn't ordinarily get to do. We are even planning on going back, but not for 4-6 years when we are well out of diapers, not on nap schedules, and the youngest can hopefully zone into a movie to help with the car ride. Anyone else want to go with us??? If these pictures haven't convinced you I have about 400 more.