summer vacation

i have always appreciated the fact that norton likes to go on vacations. every summer since we've been married we've gone on some kind of vacation. we decided to do a 5 day camping trip this summer. which was a bit risky. marin does not have a great track record when it comes to going to sleep and staying asleep in a tent. (we can barely get her to sleep in her own bed!) but we chose to accept the challenge. we headed northwest from denver and camped the first night at chambers lake. we have a book with the "best" campgrounds in colorado and this was one of them. our site was right on the lake. notice the smaller blue "boys" tent in the far background? well, the campground host came by right after this picture was taken and said that we would have to move the tent. it wasn't within the wooden boundaries. norton was so bummed. they had to repitch the tent right in back of the car since our "girls" tent took up most of the tent pad.
norton spent a lot of time fishing. can you see that gigantic trout that he is reeling in? really? you can't? well, it's right there. promise.
the kids enjoyed standing on the edge of the water. throwing rocks. getting dirty. the usual.


we brought our bikes and took a ride through the campground.
norton caught a mid morning snack for us.
the pan is about two feet in diameter. just to give you more perspective on the size of the fish. :) this was actually my first time at cooking a fish that had just been caught. kinda weird. i was more worried about the kids choking on a bone so they had to eat "flakes" of fish. but it was really yummy.
we continued north and ended up at steamboat lake state park. daddy was very gracious and put marin in his tent while we were there. so townsend slept next to mommy.
just relaxin'
the reason we chose this park was because in the book it said that all of the forest rangers voted this the best campground in colorado. it talked about the big shady trees. wonderful lake. etc. as you can tell from the picture, there were no trees in sight. unfortunately, this mean ol' pine beetle has been killing pine trees all over northern colorado. apparently last summer they cut down all the trees in the campground. there were big stumps all around our campsite. we were left to imagine what it must have looked like in the past. and to sweat alot as the sun beat right down upon us. sad. sad. sad.
our one little haven of shade.
once again, we camped right by the lake. norton fished and caught one trout. he left it on a line in the water until dinnertime. when he went to get it, about half the fish was gone. gross. we suspect an otter or beaver got at it.
after spending a couple of nights at steamboat we headed north again into wyoming. there was this really pretty lake that we came across so we stopped. as you can see there was some snow surrounding it.
the girls.
for our last night we stayed at this ranch. after going four days without a shower/bath we reeked! mommy stood in the shower and daddy handed her the kids one at a time to scrub down. felt so good!
BIG swings that the kids loved. unfortunately, there were a ton of mosquitos so we didn't stay outside too long.
our little cabin was right on the water so daddy caught several fish. but he threw them back.
this was the little card waiting for us in the cabin. a nice touch.

overall, i think it was a successful vacation. marin slept well in the tent 50% of the time. the kids did well during the driving and pretty well during the camping. it rained some and mommy hadn't brought alot of things to play with in the tent but oh well. mommy had a bike accident with ellory on the back. but except for being scared, ellory didn't have any scrapes or cuts. (mommy had several that marin kept wanting to kiss.) sometimes i felt like all we were saying was, "move back from the water!" " quit eating dirt!" "take your shoes off before you go in the tent!" "shhhhh! it's 6am and people are still sleeping!" so i hope that the kids remember the "fun" times more than the nagging. we learned some lessons to make the next camping trip even better and look forward to doing lots more!