The Vacation Chronicles - Part I

As promised, I will try to give you the low-down on our recent vacation to Col-Da-Ra-Do (Little Girl's version of the beautiful state of Colorado).

My attempt is to make it short and sweet, however, I am long-winded, love attention to detail, and thoroughly enjoy showing braggy photos of my adorable 2 year old - so, please don't hold your breath.

Ok. Here we go.

We started our trip by heading to St. Louis, MO to meet up with D's parents and share a day of fun at the zoo and basically just some much needed Grandma & PaPa time with Little Girl. All was well, all was fun until my newly founded clutzy daughter had herself another accident that is making me look like Child Protective Services should be kept on speed dial. Goodnight. Her lip accident has barely healed , along with her "trauma by a brick" (some child picked up a brick at the play ground and just decided to throw it at her and hit her in the head.) Where do we live - Harlem, New York? Geesh!

I was trying to dress her in her p.j.'s

She wanted to jump on her roll-out bed.

She made one horrible jump choice and cracked her eye open on the corner.

I kid you not - if I see blood pouring from her face one more time in this next week - I'm gonna lose it!

It was 11:00 p.m. after a long day and after close inspection, we decided to "butterfly" the cut above her eye instead of taking her to Urgent Care. Daddy did a bang-up job and it looks pretty great as of today.

We then trucked on to Kansas City to catch up with ma and pa there to caravan to the mountains to meet up with my sis, her family and my brother and his family.

Pictures will surely follow this post so you can see all that I am sharing, but here is a list of the fun things we did:

Hiking up several mountains (some more difficult than others and I am thankful to be alive today to tell about), horseback riding, watching Little girl play in the dirt with her cousins having the time of her life and never (I do mean, never), have I seen her look so filthy. We made meals every day around the campfire, each of us families taking turns making things like breakfast burritos, Blackberry Cobbler, Campers Stew and of course, SMORES. We got up at 4:30 in the morning one day to drive up into the mountains to see the longhorn sheep and the Elk that come down the mountain at that time of day. We did see some and it was very cool. We saw the sunset. My sis and sis-in-law and I also trudged our little behinds up this summit that had like 750 stairs to climb to the top and overlook all the mountainous scenery. It was 5:30 in the morning. I am out of shape. It was a rough one. We rode go-karts and little trains, we swam (splish-splashed) in a body of water called "Gem Lake" which was our reward after climbing to the top of this particular mountain. It was by far our hardest climb, but when we came around the corner and saw the lake and the kids all jumped in and played in it, it was all worth it. Little girl even fed some chipmunks. She held her little hand out with an almond inside and several little furry animals scurried to her to have a snack. She thought that was pretty cool!

It was really a fun vacation. Camping. In a tent. With a 2 year old - was not exactly RELAXING all the time, but it certainly was a fantastic getaway and she had a blast with all her cousins and her family all around her for the week.

I will post more soon and pictures will be included.

Oh yeah. And another fun gift was that they almost have our house fully framed. Now that was a fun site to see when we came home yesterday! Woo! Hoo! We are getting closer to being back in a HOME. Hallelujah!

Check back for photos (should you have nothing else to do) later today.