Our Big Vacation!

I am sort of starting to feel caught up from our vacation last week so I decided it was time to post all about it. The main reason for our trip was my Grandma's 9oth birthday party and family reunion. We were able to get some other fun things in and spend lots of time with family. So sit back and enjoy the slew of pictures.

We started out at my parents cabin. It is always so nice to relax and just enjoy the mountains and the quiet. The kids love it because they get to go boating and fishing.

Here is Ethan in his camo hat and sunglasses. It's too bad he lost the cute sunglasses in the lake.

Ethan and Emily riding in the truck to the lake. They really wanted to be like Papa with their sunglasses on the brims of their hats. Too cute!
Cute Emily ready to go on the boat.
Unfortunately the fishing wasn't that great. Ethan was the only one to catch a fish. He wasn't too into touching it so he posed with it in a plastic bag.
Emery loved the boat. Papa showed him how to honk the horn. He was so proud of himself.

He loved the wind in his face and the water splashing in his face. He would throw the biggest fit if I moved him from the edge.

What else would the girls do on the boat, but catch up on their reading? Emily thought she was so cool sitting by mom reading magazines.

After a few days at the cabin we decided to take a little trip to Durango, CO. We hit the train museum, the fish hatchery, the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store, and walked up and down main street of the cute little town.

Here are a couple pictures at the train museum.

After visiting the Rocky Mt. Choc. Factory store we were wiped out and decided to take a break with the big bear on the bench.

The place we stayed was just outside Durango at a ski resort. To drum up some business in the summer they rent their condos fairly cheap and have a lot of fun outdoor activities.

Here is Emily on the bungee tramp. I was surprised at how high she went without being scared. She just giggled the whole time.

I wasn't surprised that Ethan loved it. I think he wished he could go higher.

I had mentioned that I thought it would be fun and the next thing I knew Eric had bought me a ticket to do it. It was so fun! I even did a few flips. I was lucky enough to have Eric get it on video! Too bad for you guys that I still can't figure out how to get it on here. I am still not sure why I didn't push Eric a little harder to do it?

The other thing that shocked me was how well the kids did on the climbing wall. The were on the easy line so it did pull them up a little, but they still went much higher than I ever thought they would.

I think the thing we enjoyed the most though was the alpine slide. You ride the ski lift up to the top and ride a little sled down a track. The ride up was so fun and the ride down was even more fun. The next few pictures are all from the slide.

Ethan and Eric at the bottom.

Eric and Emily at the bottom. I love this picture because it looks like they are about to hit the cone.

Ethan and I riding up the lift. The building behind us is the condo where we stayed. It was a great place to stay!

These are the kids at the top of the slide in the sleds. You can see the track going down the mountain and the buildings at the bottom of the slide in the very back of the picture. It was a pretty long ride. Emily makes it look like she is freezing, but it was actually a perfect day to be outside.

On our way back to my parents house we stopped at place called Box Canyon Falls in Ouray, CO. You can hike about 1/4 mile up to the top a this water fall. There is a bridge that crosses over the canyon. It is just gorgeous. There is a second trail that takes you right down into the canyon to the base of the waterfall. It is super loud, but really awesome.

Here we are at the top of the falls. It's not the best family picture, but at least it has all of us in it.

The last day of our vacation was the birthday party/family reunion. Overall the reunion was great. I was able to see a lot of my cousins that I hadn't seen in ages.

Here is my cute little Grandma with her cake. She hates being the center of attention, so she wasn't too happy about the 20 or so cameras all snapping photos at the same time.

Some how our family was put in charge of all the games for the family reunion. Some of the games we did were dizzy bat races, pie eating contest, and a watermelon eating contest. The pie eating contest was by far the most challenging to prepare for. We just did pudding with whip cream on top. As we were trying to decide the easiest way to make the pudding, the guys came up with an idea. I am not sure if it was just my dad's excuse to buy a new tool or what, but it actually worked! We put all the mixes and the milk into a clean bucket and then used a paint mixer attachment on my dad's drill to mix it up. Eric thought we looked pretty silly using power tools to make pudding so he had to bring out the camera. It really was silly but it worked like a charm!

Mixing up the pudding! Yummy right?

I couldn't convince my little princess to do the pie eating contest, but Ethan was really excited about it. He is in the bottom left corner. He didn't win, but he sure made a mess. You can see from the picture that not all the kids were into getting all dirty.

The best part of the contest was the adult round. Eric was such a good sport and got right in there!

Ethan and Emily loved the dizzy bat race. Once again I have video that is hilarious. Ethan fell down and Emily ran in the complete wrong direction.

The morning we left my mom's neighbor took some family pictures for us. Eric tried to capture a few random shots as she was getting them set up. They aren't great but they are still cute. I can't wait to get the real ones back. Here are all the cousins.

I absolutely love this picture of Emily. I am hoping it is even cuter from the photographers angle.

I am a little disappointed because Emery's face was really dry chapped. I tried really hard to keep it from doing that but by the end of the week it was looking pretty bad. He's super cute anyways, though.

Lastly, here are Grammy and Papa with all their kiddos. This was at the very end of the shoot so the kids, especially Emery and Brittney, were not at all in the mood for any more pictures.

If you made it all the way through this you deserve a hug pat on the back. I know it was extremely long and probably boring for most of you, but at least it is a new post right? There a lot of big events coming up so be looking for posts about the first day of kindergarten, and my baby's first birthday!

Just as a side note: sorry about the spacing, I kept trying to fix it and make it more even but blogger was being dumb and I just kept erasing pictures. Sometimes I just really hate blogger.