Cute Cousins

TJ and Kristen's family were in Colorado the week of Memorial Day for Kristen's family reunion. They were so nice to drive up to Louisville to spend a night with us. When they got here, we had a picnic in the park then headed to the Butterfly Pavilion.  Ty went to the Butterfly Pavilion on his birthday, but it was fun to go with older kids because they were SO excited to see all of the insects, fish, and butterflies. Hailey was the bravest of the kids because she held Rosie the Tarantula twice!

 

 

 

 We went swimming at their hotel that night then Tim and I invited the kids over to our house for a sleepover. We had pizza for dinner, went on a treasure hunt (of course), watched Goosebumps, and had a ton of fun! Ty was so excited the big kids were sleeping at his house. So much so that he couldn't calm down to go to sleep. Once the big kids were tired, Tim had to put Ty in his own bed to sleep.

 The next morning, we made Danish Ebelskivers (basically, pancake balls) for breakfast.  TJ and Kristen came over just as we were finishing breakfast. We hung out a little more before they left for their long drive to Utah.

 

 Ty was so sad his cousins left, but his sadness didn't last too long because we soon headed down to Denver for Cousin Shelby's Third Birthday party! I was so excited to be invited to a Denzer party because I know Sarah (Tim's cousin) doesn't mess around. Everything was so cute! Shelby's Aunt Chelsea made her this beautiful Elsa dress, and we even had a visit from Elsa herself. Elsa did an amazing job. She told her story and sang the girls a song. At the end of the party, Sarah just turned the Frozen music on and all of the little girls just had a blast dancing.

 Grandpa Rod made the snowflakes. Notice the Olaf and Sven cutouts in the ones below.

 Ty was the only boy invited to the party (besides Seth), so he was glad once it was over to just play with all of Seth and Shelby's toys.

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!