Vacation Destination: Steamboat Springs

Last Tuesday evening, Tim told me he thought we should take a trip before his summer semester teaching job starts. Though we tend to travel often, we haven't taken a trip with just our family except to visit family since before Ty was born and we want to see more of Colorado before we have to (most likely) move next year. We looked at maps and decided to head out to Steamboat Springs for a mid-week excursion. 

Along the way, we stopped to ride the Georgetown Look Railroad. It was the first thing we did, but may have been the highlight of our whole trip!  Even the view before we left was beautiful. The train had a smaller engine because it wasn't quite peak season. Ty couldn't stop looking even to take a picture.

 

 

  The train ride was a little breezy, but so pretty and fun. Ty had a blast!

 The train goes from Georgetown up about two miles to Silver Plume and has the option to stop and tour a mine (which we didn't do, but could see). At our half way point in Silver Plume, Ty said to Tim, "I love tains, Dada, I love tains!"

 After the train ride, we continued on to Steamboat. Once there, we checked in to our hotel and drove around to see the town. It was cool and cloudy, so we weren't sure if we wanted to do the hike we had planned, so we stopped at one of the many parks and let Ty play.  The sun came out during our pizza dinner, so we decided to do the very short hike to this beautiful waterfall called Fish Creek Falls. We were glad we did.

That night, we went to the hotel pool and fell asleep early. The next morning, Tim watched Ty so I could run on a beautiful trail by the river in town. They walked a little and played at a park, then we met up and went to a donut cafe called Milk Run that we had come across the night before. It was delicious.

 

 These statues above were on the park next to the trail. They are musicians (not sumo wrestlers eating popsicles like I thought).  Then we were off to another hike. We just took our time and wandered along the trail. Ty wouldn't ride in his hiking backpack, so he mostly stayed on Tim's shoulders.  Ty enjoyed the butterflies and especially finding and throwing rocks.

After the hike and a nap for Ty, we stopped at the Old Town Hot Springs. There were several different pools with different water temperatures, but we mostly stayed in the big one. The water was warm like a bath tub (which I really appreciated) and we all had a great time.
It was a short trip, but we filled it with many adventures.

Saturday, we decided to continue our vacation at home, so we drove to Tiny Town. It is a place that has over 100 small houses and some cute trains you can ride. Tim's mom gave us money to go for my Mother's Day gift.  These kids love their trains.

Tiny Town buildings

 I love this picture below with Ty peeking in at the Harley Davidson Motorcycles.

We each took turns riding the train with Ty. It was a fun little ride with lots of villages to see along the way. That pretty much concludes our little last minute family vacation!

Photo Shoot

 A friend of mine is starting a photography business, (http://www.dianawalkercreative.com/) so she wanted some practice of the cutest little model ever. I love that she just let Ty play with what he wanted to (he was showing off) and got some action pictures.

Fun Stuff

At the Zoo (again) with Abby:

We even got to ride the train!

The only birthday picture I have...eating cake with Henry.

We went on a really pretty hike in Boulder. Ty was heavy!

Happy Easter!

Though we missed out on my family's big "Rich Family Reunion" this year, we still celebrated! I made Bunny Buns for breakfast and Ty went on an egg hunt in our front yard. I sang in the choir at church, and after church, we went to Sarah and Nick's for Easter dinner. Sarah's parents Chris and Cory were visiting. They were so nice and even gave Ty a soft little stuffed bunny. Ty, of course, loved seeing his cousins again.

Birthday Boy Part 2

On Monday morning (4/14/14), Ty's Grandma Diney flew in. That afternoon we went to the Denver Zoo. The idea was to keep his Train Birthday theme and ride the train there, but we found out neither the train, nor the carousel were running :( We settled for looking at animals. The zoo was almost empty, so we had a great time. We especially liked the elephant, who decided she liked us and put a show on for us. She started by playing with wooden toys from her little pond, then started waving her trunk at us, then came over to use and put her trunk through the fence toward us (but we had a barrier too, so we couldn't touch her). It was pretty neat!

Ty loves his Aunt Aubrey and Grandma Diney

We headed home to celebrate Ty's party that night. The Denzer's joined us for some of Ty's favorite food: Chick Fil A nuggets, fries, watermelon, strawberries, cheese, and olives. Tim had set up two train sets and finished decorating the cake.  After dinner, Ty opened his many presents and we ate some delicious cake. He got a lot of cute clothes, books, puzzles, a train car, a rolley suitcase, a soccer ball, and a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse CD. Ty loves spending time with Aubrey, Grandma, and cousins Seth and Shelby, so I think the party went perfectly for him!

 

 

 
Aubrey had to leave on Tuesday, and on Ty's actual Birthday (Wednesday) we went to the Butterfly Pavilion with Grandma, Sarah, and Shelby.  Besides real butterflies, they had insects, and a fish and water things. Ty liked touching the crab and starfish!  Mommy even got brave and held Rosie, the tarantula.

 

  

 

 

He also got his big present from mom and dad on his birthday, a "Ty-bike!" We just got it off of craigslist, but it is perfect for him. It has a push bar for us. The birthday was complete when this awesome cement truck arrived the next day from Grandma Sheila and Grandpa Tom. Overall, Ty did pretty well! I can't believe he's two!

Birthday Boy Pt 1

 Ty had a lot of support for his second birthday, and the celebrations lasted almost a whole week! Last Friday, Aunt Aubrey flew out for the weekend. We didn't waste any time; we went straight from the airport to the Colorado Railroad Museum. Cousins Sarah and Shelby met us there and the kids LOVED it!

 

 The engine below was the favorite because you could pull a rope and ring the bell up top!

Sarah and Shelby

Ty and Shelby are little buds.

They are just too cute!

 Saturday morning we met Sarah and Nick's family in Denver for breakfast at the Denver Biscuit Co. I guess they started out as a food truck and now share a pizza place for their restaurant. It was fantastic!  We then headed to Seth's soccer game. He did awesome!  And of course, Ty needed to play with his own ball. It was a great start for the birthday boy!

The fans cheering him on