Our first big adventure in Colorado was to visit the Mesa Verde National Park. Since I’m not very good at learning about history and stuff, I’ll just quote what is right on their website:

“Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.”

I didn’t really see where the green table fit in because there wasn’t much green in the dry, rocky mountains, and there were no tables either. The trip up to the first part of the park was quite curvy and inclined which left a lot of wimpy folks (including me) not feeling so great. We stopped for lunch and traveled to the Spruce Tree House which is a self-guided tour through hilly trails which eventually led to one of the ruins. It was quite impressive how much still remained of the dwellings.

The kids enjoyed climbing down this ladder into a room underground. Even Annie and Mimi were up for it despite my being quite nervous.

Here are the girls and I grinding our corn for the evening meal.

It really was a cool place to visit, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys learning a little history.

With being up in the mountains with several lakes and rivers close by there was no way to keep Mike from fishing. He managed to sneak off a few times, twice with the girls and a coupla other young cousins in tow. This was the first time the girls really got to fish. They had been practicing at home with Daddy and their new Barbie rod and reels (no joke–they actually make those). Mike said it would be worth missing catching any fish of his own if he could witness one or both of the girls catching a fish. And, that they did. On the first fishing expedition Annie caught a medium-sized rainbow trout. She was even brave enough to eat it after Jake used his mad, cooking skillz to fry it up for her. I got a few tastes as well, and YUUUUMMM!! The next time out fishing Mimi got to reel a smaller rainbow trout. It was too small to keep, but she was ecstatic, nonetheless. Mike couldn’t have been prouder.

Here’s Annie with her catch!

Now enjoying the prize.

Mimi is overjoyed about her fishy.

Tune in tomorrow for more…

It’s always so difficult to get people excited about seeing and hearing about someone else’s vacation. I know this and accept this. However, I still am going to drone on about the adventure we had in Durango, Colorado last week. To eliminate a little bit of boredom though I will break it up into several parts spread out over the next few days.

So we left town on Friday, August 25th after Mike got out of work. We didn’t leave as early as planned and didn’t arrive in Council Bluffs, Iowa to meet up with Mike’s sister, Sara, and her family that evening. The goal was to meet up with them and then caravan together from there all the way to Colorado over the next couple of days. We arrived to Des Moines that night and bribed the Evans to wait for us until we could drive the 2 hours to Council Bluffs the next morning. They agreed, and we finally reached the Evans gang around 9 a.m. From there we synchronized our watches and made sure walky-talkies were in good, working order and then continued our trek west together.

Frequent stops were made due to little ones needing potty breaks, lunch, gas stops, or brakes overheating. I saw this little guy (below) on one of our stops after hot brakes while driving up and down monstrous inclines/declines. I snuck off for a tee-tee and heard something scurry.

Finally by 4 p.m. on Sunday most parties had arrived to the lodge–43 total people were expected. Now when I say lodge I mean a large log cabin that can sleep up to 80 people, has a commercial-grade kitchen, and is as rustic and authentic as you’d expect a lodge in the mountains to be. It was chock full of activities and furniture to keep all the kids (and numerous teenagers) busy and entertained such as a ping pong table, pool table, foosball table, and fire pit. The owners of the cabin must also be pro-hunting because the walls were covered with animal heads including an elk, several deer, jackelope (a fictional rabit with antlers), and a cougar. Of course, Mike felt right at home.

Numerous hummingbird feeders were scattered around the perimeter of the house and provided lots of enjoyment for everyone. The birds weren’t shy about filling up on the sweet, sweet nectar in our presence. Aunty Sara was even bold enough to offer her finger as a perch and several of the critters excepted her invitation on numerous occasions.

Even though we had lots of events scheduled it was still nice to just sit around and hang out with the peops. Mike’s sisters and mom helped me brush up on my knitting skills which made it possible for me to finally start my sweater project that I bought the materials for last year. We all had projects and spent a lot of time knitting and chatting, and I loved every minute of that.

Ok, I think I’ve covered about all I can today. There are still lots of events that we did such as hiking, a trip to Mesa Verde, alpine sliding, playing The Werewolves of Millers Hollow. Check back tomorrow.

After 2 long years of school for Mike he will finally get a real vacation. Sure he had time off now and then, but his school never really allowed for time off. The spring break we got last year was intended for our house-hunting. So now we are officially going on a vacation, and we’re leaving this Friday.

It has become a tradition to have a little family reunion in Durango, Colorado every 3 years or so. The first reunion was back in 2005, but Mike and I were not able to attend. Mike was in Iraq, and I didn’t think that I could handle traveling with a 5-month-old and 20-month-old all by myself. Finally, we’ll get the opportunity this time around. Supposedly, there will be 48 people in attendance. We have a lot of fun stuff planned. I’ll definitely post lots of pictures (as I’m sure Jenni and Sara will, too) once we return. We can’t wait! The girls are quite ecstatic about it as well.

Here’s the latest about Mimi’s eye. It is looking a little better each day even though the purple is so dark and pronounced. Mimi is definitely not letting it change her attitude. She’s still the feisty and feral little girl that we all so love.

For those interested in the various stages of Mimi’s wounded eye here is today’s version.

It looks better today, right? I suppose we’re going to have a whole week or more of watching the interesting stages of Mimi’s nasty black eye. I just hope it will be mostly healed before our trip to CO. I’d hate for Mimi to associate the trip with her shiner.