Two weeks ago, we left on an adventure into the Colorado wilds. Seriously though, we went to St. Elmo which is a ghost town in the middle of the State to go dirt biking... our campsite didn't even have showers. Let's just say us girls were glad to get home.
We girls drove up a day earlier to drop Ally and Annelise off at Summit before heading to our campsite to get everything set up for when the guys arrived.
We did stay in a hotel that night to give us more time to get there, though.
The drive was super pretty!
Our campsite had a little path down to a river/stream. We could even see the water from our tents!
Don't worry... that's not what you think it is.
Landon and I got our own little tent while everyone else was crammed in the other one.
It was awesome being so close to the water- especially at night when everything's quiet and all you can hear is it rushing by.
Mom picked up this baby backpack in Denver. She used it when we decided to pull off the trail and go hiking. At first, we were just going to go to a small snow drift not far up the mountain... then Isaac ended up going a little further until he was out of sight. Kate hollered to him and thought he said he was stuck. Me, being the farthest up the mountain rushed to help him (and when I say rushed I mean climbed pretty fast for a half a minute then collapsed until I could catch my breath enough to make it another half minute). When I finally got to him, he was just wandering around not listening to all of us yelling at him. At this point we were already half way up the mountain, so we decided to go all the way to the top. It was so worth it. The view was amazing. We could even see Pike's Peak. When we met Mom and Dad on the way down, I told them they had to go to the top. I ended up taking Jenna from Mom and Landon took Jonah so that they could go all they way up. Later, we looked up the altitude and found out that the mountain was 14,000 feet tall and we climbed about 4,000 of those feet... it only took us four hours.
After our "little" hike, we went back to camp and started dinner.
And we thought our kitchen at home was messy!
Everyone's favorite meal was chicken on a skewer. Isaac said it was because we could all sit around the fire and "laugh and talk." I think that was my favorite part too!
At one point during the trip, Jack and I built a fairy house down by the water.
Which was lots of fun!
The next day when the boys were getting ready to ride their dirt bikes, Dad noticed me trying to duct tape Landon's shoes, which he kept insisting did not need to be fixed.
This picture even hides the giant hole straight through the middle...
Dad ended up using a milk jug, a whole role of duct tape, and a piece of tree (which I'm pretty certain was illegal), to "fix" them.
They lasted the rest of the week! Even though duct tape boots are pretty awesome, Landon was super happy when he got home to find that his amazing brother-in-law had just found two pairs of dirt bike boots at a garage sale for super cheap and gave them to the boys.
The first couple of days I drove the Razor behind the boys with Mom (who was freaking out the whole time) until the belt snapped (the day Mom didn't come, thank goodness). So the last day the girls, along with Jonah and Jack, chilled at camp. I took pictures and played my guitar, and then we all went on a long walk to St. Elmo General Store it being the only building being used in the whole town.
In between activities, we got a kick out of luring chipmunks to us with almonds. The boys even managed to trap two.
Jenna was so good the entire time. She would just sit there in her little elf hoodie and watch everybody.
Joe was okay too, he just got super mad if you touched his toy. But every little kid goes through that stage.
Jack looked like a pro on his tiny little dirt bike.
All the boys did a great job! They had a blast! And by the way, this was an
actual road they were riding on so I could get pictures of them from the back of Dad's dirt bike. The trails were a little bumpier.
Packing up was a huge job, but we were all excited to get home. We did stay one night in a hotel to shower before inviting Ally and Annelise over to have breakfast with us before heading home. As soon as we got back, I repacked and left on Monday for Extreme Kansas Camp at Milford Lake. I got back last Friday and have finally settled back into life. It feels good to be home.
This was a long post. Hopefully life will settle down a bit and our pond will fill up so we can go swimming. We got the wedding pictures back, so I'll have to post some of those, and will probably write something about our 4th of July so look out for that. We picked up some fireworks on the way home from church. Isaac kept asking me if I saw the two big bags of fireworks they got. Yeah... it'll be fun alright!
My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.
Isaiah 32:18
