Jordan and I took the big kids to Colorado for five days. Conor got lot of quality G&G and N&P time (Thank you!!!) Before Conor and before COVID, the four of us went on a lot of New England adventures, and we haven’t had much opportunity to travel other than spending time with family or going to a water park hotel in February in WI Dells!
Day 1 – Flew in. Ate lunch at a brewery with outdoor games like Jenga. It was hot and kids — esp. Elliott — had trouble with the altitude and heat. Kids watched shows while E&J met two college friends out for dinner.
Day 2 – Hiking in Golden (~20 minutes away). 3-mile path, but El was still struggling with heat, so he and I didn’t make it quite all the way. We ate lunch and then Natalie and I went tubing down a river (so fun!) while Jordan took E back to the hotel b/c he was hurting quite a bit. I think we had a very easy dinner that night.
Although this was posed, he seriously was doing this 30 seconds before… I think he was plotting how to best climb a rock
Hiking with the prettiest hiker with the best make-up (I’m referring to the younger hiker!)
hotel swimming pool ranged from 2.5 to 3 feet deep! We had to buy this raft to go tubing… we took it back to IL too. It took up half my suitcase.
The wait for this ice cream place was always 1.5 blocks long! We went in the express lane, which only had 15 people ahead of us. The ice cream was good, but not good enough to wait an hour.
Day 3 – We opted for indoors and AC to start the day… and something we knew E would like: Virtual Reality. Although it wasn’t my first pick for an activity, I felt like — if I want the kids to try new things, then I need to too. There was a VR game where we shot arrows at beasts and could be in it all at the same time. That was about my level and fun. Jordan was the expert marksmen. Natalie liked a Spiderman one the most. Then, we went to Jordan’s cousins’ house about 30 minutes away. His aunt and 2 cousins and their families were there. It was fun to visit and crazy to be at a house that is in a mountain suburb. Elliott especially got along with Nick, who is a year younger than him and also loves legos. We drove to an Air B&B in Idaho Springs. J has a pic of our visit with the fam!
Chilling after white water rafting – Idaho Springs was the site of much gold mining
Day 4 – This was the BIG day. The main reason for the trip – White Water Rafting! We had an awesome guide — Everett — and went through a company called AVA. The rapids were Class I-III. Kids would have loved to do Class IV, but only allowed for 14 and older. Natalie fell out of the raft at one point, but we quickly scooped her up. She didn’t get hurt and had a great attitude. Then, a surprise for me… Ziplining! That is as extreme as a sport as I will ever do. I was pretty terrible at it… got turned around, had trouble stopping soon enough. The kids both loved it. I don’t have any pics of this – J has the ziplining pics.
Day 5 – A 3-mile hike that E did much better in. It was cooler and shaded and we talked about the Zelda Nintendo game and Greek mythology a lot. We also stopped by Hammond’s candy factory for a tour.
All in all, a successful trip, and I’m glad we did it. We got funny messages about Conor while we were gone. One from my neighbor…. “We’re on the front porch listening to Conor torture your parents. GRANDPA!!! GRANDPA!!! ARE YOU COMING OUT?! ARE YOU COMING OUT?! I’M GONNA DO IT! GRANDPA!” We also saw a picture of Conor swimming naked on top of Poppy’s shoulders. He had a great time. I made a mistake of facetiming with him, which didn’t go that well because he said “Why did you forget me when you went on vacation?” and he was tearing up. I got off FT quickly and bribed him with a TV show. (Sorry Mom about the FT!)