Estes Park Family Trip

My parents have a big year this year: their 35th wedding anniversary over Labor Day and my Dad's 60th birthday in October.  To celebrate, Brooke and I surprised them with a trip to Estes Park!  We were thrilled to have our family share some of our favorite places with us...

Before heading up to Estes Park my Dad and I did the Royal Arch hike in Boulder:

It's one of my favorite hikes

The next day the Fincks arrived and we headed up to Estes Park.

Day 1: Trail Ridge Road drive from Estes Park to Grand Lake:

We started the morning with some fun play time - all the cousins were excited to be together again!  Here they are on a train ride with BeBop

Breakfast on the porch

We arrived at night and were excited to wake up to a beautiful view!

This sums up the picture taking part of our trip: lots of adults acting crazy in hopes of getting some genuine looking smiles out of the kids!  

As usual, Peyton is cooperating the most and Jordan is dancing

Try #2

Grace basically claimed Pop Pop as all hers and spent the majority of the weekend with him ... they're pretty good buddies!

And Griffin claimed BeBop!

Family picture with BeBop and Pop Pop

Griffin and Jordan ... they really love each other so much!

We were thrilled to have Brooke's family out here!

Group picture

Griffin and Jordan

The kids started getting pretty tired half way through the drive

And as usual Josh ended up with both of them

There were some beautiful views!

We arrived in Grand Lake with most of the kids sleeping in their car seats, only to wake them up for lunch.  Then we headed down to look at the lake, which Jordan and Griffin interpreted as swimming in the freezing lake!

Jordan dancing in the lake

Griffin loved running around and couldn't believe we let them get soaked

BeBop and Griffin playing together

Day 2: hike to Nymph lake, Emerald Lake, and Dream Lake:

And we're off!  It was a 3 mile hike ... quite a trek with two three-year-olds and two babies, not to mention all the snacks, water bottles, and fishing gear.

Peyton and Grace were holding hands while hiking...

And thought it was hilarious!

We saw so many elk on our trip!  It was fun to hike by them.

My mom got a little close : )

Grace being goofy

The guys stopped to fish along the hike ... it was so pretty.

The girls

...plus Griffin too!

pretty darn cute

the four of them

Grace and I by Dream Lake ...

...and here's Grace at 18 weeks pregnant in 2010 in the same spot! 

Griffin and an elk

This is one of my favorite places!

On return trip of the hike the guys did some more fishing

and had a bit more luck this time!  The trout was beautiful and the kids had fun looking at him before we set him free.

Giggles.

Jordan helping Grace ... they were playing so cute together!

The Fudges

The Fincks

The sisters : )

I love all the views and not surprisingly couldn't stop taking pictures!

Our family!

Day 3: Lily Lake

We walked around Lily Lake so the guys could fish and we could get some Christmas card photos ... 

Grace

Grace and Peyton are just too cute together!

She just loves running!

snack time

The girls looked pretty cute in all white and wings

The kids had fun collecting pine cones and looking at flowers

Here's my attempt to get a good picture of Griffin and Grace together - lovely.

And another attempt at a group shot ... as usual, Peyton is sitting pretty and smiling while the rest of them completely ignore us!

my mountain man

Later we made some art projects at the YMCA's art center:

Grace picked a train to paint and concentrated really hard on it!

Griffin picked a fire truck

playing on the playground

Some well-deserved popsicles after all the pictures!

That night we went to the family fun center ... it was a blast!

We did the slide several times as a whole group

It was so fun!

PopPop and Jordan on the bumper cars ... she was so excited to go and had a blast.  Griffin was nervous about the bumping part so watched her the first time ...

...but finally got the courage to go after I asked if he could go without other people in the rink.  He LOVED it!

Jordan was proud of him for going after being so nervous and gave him a big hug!

We then did the bumper boats ... all 10 of us went and sprayed each other like crazy.  The kids thought it was hilarious (well, Griffin did bail early, which is why we got a picture)

They thought it was pretty funny to get so wet!  (and the adults were freezing and wishing for a towel!)

Next we did the race cars ... Griffin was awfully serious before they took off.

But they were all smiles the whole time!

I'm not sure who had more fun: the kids or the dads?!

And we had equally as much fun watching them!

Grace tickling Pop Pop ... she loves to tickle!

BeBop & Pop Pop and the babies!

BeBop's babies

BeBop just hanging out with a deer : )

It was such a fun night!

Day 3: Alberta Falls

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise so brought Griffin out to see it ... he's a little more interested in his "Baby Cow," whom he loves so much!

Here's Stella right before we left the cabin ... she's taking it all in!

Grace tickling Griffin on the hike to Alberta Falls

Stopping for a break along the hike

Snack time with Daddy

We took lots of cute pictures along the way:

a picture with the falls behind us ... it's quite impressive!

And after all that, we headed home to Denver with some tired kids!