Disney Shirts

2017-10-06 20.34.56We’re headed back to WDW pretty soon, this time with Matt’s whole side of the family. I am not a big fan of the matchy-matchy family shirts, but I do like to do a little something special for a Mickey trip. So I came up with the idea of making a “custom” Mickey head for each person. I drew a ton of designs in Illustrator, drawing inspiration from all over the web – except Darth Mickey – he was cribbed directly from the web. Then circulated then let everyone have their choice.

They got printed on some t’shirt transfer paper, ironed on and voila. I’m excited to see everyone in their shirts!

UK all the Way

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One of the highlights of this year was our big UK trip. We left the day before school let out (they missed a whopping 4 hours of messing about and total teacher apathy) and flew direct to London.

paddington

Once we got to London, we almost immediately hopped a train to Bath and spent a couple of nights there (basically a full day) exploring the Roman Baths, Bath Abbey and the charming little city.

bath

york

The following morning we headed back to London and then got another train to Edinburgh via York. We had a nice lunch and walk around in York and despite a downpour, really enjoyed our time there.

train

The late train into Edinburgh was a lovely view of the Scottish countryside, and the beginning of my love affair with Scotland. Swoon.

edinburgh

We had a nice full day in Edinburgh: touring Edinburgh castle, having high tea at the museum and climbing to the top of Arthur’s seat, a pretty amazing “mountain” within city limits.

highlands

Another night’s stay there and we picked up our rental car the following morning and headed across the highlands. WOW. Words cannot describe the rugged beauty. Lush and green everywhere, but rugged and amazing! We had a lovely seafoody lunch and saw the sights via car and a little hiking around but it was raining a lot too, so we had to balance cold/wet with outdoorsy fun.

mailaig

We stayed the night in a delightful little fishing village called Mailaig where we had some of the best seafood chowder I have ever had in a cozy little pub. The next morning we caught the ferry to Isle of Skye.

fairy pools

Isle of Skye is simply incredible. We had an amazing time exploring the island. The renowned Fairy Pools (a hike filled with beautiful and fascinating waterfalls and little pools) completely lives up to the hype and had it not been raining we could have happily stayed there for hours.

skye

We had amazing food at cool pubs. We saw sheep everywhere. We had lovely pies (note to self: more savory pies in our cooking!). We saw amazing natural features and a beautiful light house. We also got a little rest in our “self catering” (i.e. vacation rental).

ED Castle

But finally our time in Skye had to come to an end so we drove our little van back across Scotland to Inverness. On the way we stopped at Eilean Donan castle, an amazing sight to see.

caledonian

Once in Inverness, we had a quick bite and got on the Caledonian Sleeper train. We spent a pretty comfortable night travelling from Inverness to London where, thankfully, showers greeted us in the first class lounge upon arrival.

london

Our time in London was amazing too. We visited the British Museum. We went on a bike tour. We saw the sights. We visited Tower of London. We met up with old friends for Turkish food. We went to a giant toy store and an amazing department store. We rode the tube. We loved our hotel (The Bloomsbury) and the Portobello Road Market.

It was an absolutely amazing trip … never hurts to be with the very best people.

Wilderness Guys

IMG_0662And so while Tabby and I were hiking around Vail and the Holy Cross Wilderness, Matt and Ben were doing their own thing.

They were on their annual boy’s backpacking trip, having a grand ol’ time.

IMG_0655The highlight of their trip was getting to hike their first 13’er, Mt. Parnassus, a cool 13,574 ft. above sea level. Pretty impressive.

IMG_0699The other highlight for Ben, besides running around like a savage, of course, was whittling. I feel like as a female, I cannot comprehend this, but I do find it cute- as long as he doesn’t cut himself.

Angel of Shavano

DSC_7168Ahh Angel of Shavano.

This wass our third year camping at this fine spot.

It was the second weekend in July (this month was CRAZY, y’all) and we went up for a long weekend (Th-Sun).

DSC_7032_fixIt’s a great group spot. We have a ton of space and even our own restrooms!

Friday we did a long hike (8 miles?) on the Colorado Trail. You don’t really get to anything except some pretty views.

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Saturday, though. OMG.

We went on a jeep trail for about 30 minutes. Not too too hard, but definitely no sedans.

We got to this pretty little reservoir. And we got out of the car and started hiking.

DSC_7208 HDRAnd it all looked like this.

Wildflowers and gorgeous scenery EVERYWHERE!

DSC_7172We had to get a family pic. When will I learn to lose the hat? Perhaps when my hair magically looks good on day 3 of camping.

An AMAZING hike. Pretty much unscheduled. No water. No food. Bad campers.

Still, so pretty.

We went back to the car and had our pic-a-nic lunch and then went back to the campsite and played some volleyball. I forgot how much I enjoy that. Hopefully we can do it again soon.

Wilderness Girls

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Our fourth, and final trip for July was a split ticket. Matt and Ben went on their annual Boys Backpacking Trip and Tabby and I took the ladies to Vail.

Gram had just passed away and it felt oddly appropriate to be going there with friends to relax and reflect. I also brought a laptop full of scanned photos to turn into a memorial slideshow (linked in the last post).

Not all of the crew was able to join us on Friday, but myself, Kelly and the other Jess (Mitch as she’s called), headed out Friday. We made dinner, put the girls to bed and went to bed ourselves (everyone was exhausted!).

The next morning we got up bright and early to hike to Nolan Lake in the Holycross wilderness. This is the same hike Matt and I did a few years back on our anniversary and we were auditioning it for our final backpacking trip of the year.

Hikers

It was an absolutely beautiful hike.

TrailTons of wildflowers. Everywhere.

Vista with FlowersEVERYWHERE! Also beautiful mountains…

Impressionist LogAnd interesting flora. We called this guy the impressionist log.

MeadowThe only bad part about the hike was that it was BUGGY. This is not a CO thing. But we must have all killed about 1000 mosquitos and buzzy stingy flies over the course of our 6+ miles. And unfortunately, after all that, we didn’t make the lake. We were close, but exhausted.

Napping NappersSo exhausted. And we needed to go home. So  we did.

It was overall a great weekend and so good to spend time with just my little girl. Love that kid.

 

Colorado by Train

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At some point in time, my uncle mentioned to me that trains run from Denver to Granby (a mountain town a couple hours away and near his lake house). I filed it away under “cool, maybe later” and thought nothing of it for a while.

2016-07-08 07.57.21Suddenly, a couple days before we were scheduled to visit, I thought of the train and we decided to see what it would take. Matt had to rearrange a meeting, I had to take a day off work and we had to figure out transportation to the station and home, but in the end, $90 netted us tickets and a few phone calls did the rest.

We got up early on Friday, went to my sister’s house, where we parked our car for the weekend, and drove to Union Station. We boarded our train and about 3 hours after we got up, we were trundling right back by our house! ha!

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It was a fascinating experience. We got to see parts of the state that are different from what you see on the well-traveled highways. And I could track our progress on my Google Maps app which was fun too.

There was a dining car (bottom left) where you could have a (pretty uninspired looking) nosh and an observation car that had a volunteer from the forest service narrating the scenery. This was pretty hard to get a seat in, but it was cool to pass through.

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I liked train travel a lot and the whole family agreed. Tabby would love to do a longer trip.

The seats were large and comfy and reclined nicely. We had power at every seat too which is a huge winner. Probably the only thing I didn’t love were the restrooms which were similar to airplane restrooms but didn’t seem to be in as good repair or as clean. Boo.

If we were going to do it again, especially for longer, we’d bring more things to do and plenty of snacks (offerings were a little iffy), but I think it could be a really fun way to travel! And I’d love to check out a sleeper car!

But the very best part was rolling into Granby and seeing my uncle and aunt!

We Found Lost Lake

2016-06-30 18.59.29 HDRWe took Friday off to do our second backpacking trip of the season.

Since it was mostly overcast and rainy and I only had my iPhone, my photos are not up to snuff – many of them grainy and blurry. But you work with what you’ve got.

2016-07-01 18.12.14 HDRWe went to Lost Lake, a 1.7 mile (each way) hike from the Hessie trail head with a the other families we backpack with.

2016-07-01 12.40.23 HDRWe arrived later on Thursday and stayed up all day Friday, completing a 7 mile day hike with amazing views like this

2016-07-01 10.58.34 HDRand this

2016-06-30 19.05.10 HDRand this. It rained, but not enough to dampen our spirits – just some of our equipment.

2016-07-02 09.57.39-1We briefly lost one of the kids on the hike, but other than that, this was the worst incident we had, which was on the way out. Ben’s big backpack took him down hard and he came up with a piece of gravel embedded in his forehead (ouch). But after just a few tears and some assurances from his buddies that he’d have “a cool Harry Potter scar.” He was just fine.

2016-07-02 09.17.46-1 HDROld Man Loki continues to enjoy his forays into nature, but was so exhausted when we got home Saturday that he’s been sleeping pretty much since then.

It was a great spot to camp and we’d love to go back again next year.

Backpacking Trip Numero Uno

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I love the outdoors, but I have always had a rocky relationship with camping and backpacking. It comes from my intense dislike of two things: 1) not sleeping well and 2) lack of shower. I have largely gotten over #2, but #1 was still plaguing me.

But last fall, two of my best girlfriends convinced me last year that I should really give backpacking another try. And my darling husband bought me a backpacking cot (!!) – pretty sure they didn’t have those the first go around. I also purchased myself a backpacking chair and suddenly, backpacking got a lot more comfortable. We went on one trip and had a great time. Good company + good gear = good time.

2016-06-18 17.01.40The kids are in on the act. They have their own gear – tiny adorable versions of what we carry (though of course, we carry the bulk of the gear) and they have a great time playing with their friends in the woods.

2016-06-19 09.15.20-1Well, mostly. It’s sometimes a bit harder for Tabby. The families we hang with have older boys and younger girls. Ben doesn’t seem to have any problems playing with the older boys, but Tabby sometimes finds herself at odds with the younger girls. I’m going to work on some strategies with Tabby to ensure she has more fun next time. I want her to enjoy this. Maybe I can find a way to bring along more books or some art supplies. That might go a long way with Tabby.

2016-06-19 06.43.47… because it’s so very cool – waking up to views like this…

2016-06-18 19.59.05-2And seeing the sun set on views like this. Ahhhhhh!

We’re on Lake Time

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We got out of town Thursday night and headed Jackson Lake. It’s a nice state park about 90 minutes from our house. It’s also in the opposite way from most of the traffic, so it really is 90 minutes.

DSC_5825Though much of it lacks shade, we got a great loop to setup on and had decent shade. The first night, we setup, got the kids to bed and did some camp fire hanging.

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Friday was the beach day. I got to paddle board …

DSC_5991and the kids got to swim.

DSC_5837I’d say they had a pretty good time (this might be my new favorite pic of Ben – look at those freckles!!) …

DSC_6103… even this big girl who’s getting way too sassy.;)

DSC_5821… and especially this old man dog, who got naps and shade and pets and walks and illicit foodstuffs and a dip in the lake.

 

Ben Turns 7!

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A few months ago, we decided to be really good bad parents and take the kids out of school for a full week for a vacation. And not to anywhere very cultural … Disney World!

Happily, the best dates coincided with the weekend of Ben’s 7th Birthday. What better place to spend your birthday than The Happiest Place on Earth? Amiright?

Continue reading “Ben Turns 7!”