Colorado vacation

We had such a fun vacation in Colorado this summer!  I'm posting... everything... because, why not?  Thanks so much to my wonderful family - we had a great time and we appreciate you!

Our first night in Fort Collins, Doug & Heather very kindly provided pizza at the park.  It was great!  And what a nice park.  Fort Collins has had record rainfall this spring & summer - everything was beautiful.




Uncle Doug has been driving the Kona truck part time this summer, and we went to the park where he was selling to soccer families.  The kids (okay, and all of us) loved getting some Kona ice!






























The next day we had a great time rafting on the Poudre with Mike & Sage.  I didn't bring my camera, but we loved it.  The kids especially enjoyed getting to go down twice, and this time Pierce didn't even fall in. :)  Then after the rafting trip, we all got to help celebrate Grandma's birthday.  We ate a great dinner, the kids sang her a song that Doug wrote, and we got to chat with Miq's family and Jeanette's too.  At the end we sang Grandma "happy birthday" and she got back in the van.  She was so happy, she was just beaming as she left.  I was really happy to get this picture of her.


And then it was on to the cabin!  One morning Zoe and I were eating breakfast on the deck and some little butterflies kept landing on the table next to us.






Pierce (and lots of the other kids) tried so hard to catch a fish.  Like Dad said, the fishing was great, but the catching wasn't so much.  (Nobody even had a nibble, except when Dad caught a duck.)


It was kind of  funny, Doug decided to take a swim in the lake.  I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that before.  Then he carried his cute baby back in the backpack. :)





Mattie was really happy to be in some pictures.  Some better than others. :)


Zoe too (always on the lookout for a marshmallow handout).


Pierce and Porter were very inspired river engineers.  They dug around like crazy.  (Dad did some restoration at the end.)






Caitlyn is such a darling little girl.  We loved getting to know her a little better!
























































And we spent some time in the pool... with lollipops!  (Not quite at the same time.)


































I love the cute goggles-marks.


Caitlyn was sad in the pool, which was really cute, but it didn't last - as soon as I started taking pictures she cheered right up.






Pierce and Mattie made this delicious treat - it's a candy campfire!  (I'm sure the picture is self-explanatory, but just in case...) There is peanut butter, candy corn, pretzels, kit-kat bars, and marshmallows.  We love to make food sculptures.




And we just kept trying with the fishing.  And trying....












I was trying to take pictures of the fish jumping (jumping, but not biting!).  All I got was some empty splashes.






Zoe came over shouting "Mommy, take a picture of this really cute beetle!"  Just the cutest little beetle ever.


And Heather found this really interesting larvae in the stream water - it's the larvae of some kind of fly, and it makes this little shell-like thing out of gravel.  So cool.




On our last morning there, we went on a nice hike to the big rocks on Palmer Trail. I love how easy it is to hike now that the kids are getting a little bigger.


















Zoe just had to get in the picture of Mattie :)