vacation rocks.

we started our vacation this year in colorado.
we were staying in a hotel but we stopped by the YMCA of the Rockies.
craig & i had been there in high school for a youth conference but hadn’t been back in 24 years.
Estes Park YMCA camp has all kinds of activities for kids and families… but we weren’t staying there or signed up so we missed out on those.
if family camps are your thing… it did look awesome.
it is a HUGE camp with a million options.
we may look into it more for another year.
(this is not an ad for the Y…it was just me telling you that it looked very cool for family activities in the mountains all in one place)

we hiked up to Dream Lake and then even further up to Emerald Lake.
it took some bus rides to get up to the start of the trail and it was still a really long hike.
GORGEOUS!

annie spotted the first wildlife.
we climbed up on a rock and there it was!  elk? moose? we weren’t 100% sure.
she was proud to be the first one to spot it.


the trail ends at Emerald Lake.
it was truly amazing.
it was a long way to get there and annie almost didn’t make it without tears.
but she DID it!  🙂
the others were way ahead of us the whole time.

it rained on us on the way down… and quite a bit the rest of that afternoon.
because it does that a lot in colorado.
you’d think we would have brought some rain gear.
but we didn’t.

we stayed in a hotel during this part of the trip.
did you know embassy suites has a huge breakfast buffet included in your room price?
i would hate for you to not know that!   🙂
our kids like to eat a lot of food…  maybe yours do too?
we almost always stay there because it has space for all of us to sleep and the buffet.
and there is a pool too.
our kids think its super fancy.

and it is not NOT fancy but craig and i  love it for the buffet.
HA!