Gotta Love Colorado: Part II

Another great weekend in Colorado brought another campout. Alicia and I went to Glenwood Springs to meet Corey and Maria for a campout(yes, Alicia went camping at 7 months pregnant).

It was pooring rain in Denver when we left, and after an hour and a half of driving, not only was it still raining, but we were seeing snow just a little bit up from us on the mountains as we passed Vail ski resort.

Finally just one half hour before we got to our destination of Glenwood Springs, it stopped raining and turned out to be a nice night at the campsite. It did start raining during the night, but we didn't get wet inside our little tent.

Here above is a shot of the Colorado River as it comes down the beautiful Glenwood Canyon. In the morning we decided to go on a hike to Hanging Lake near Glenwood which turned out to be a very difficult, rocky, vertical hike. Alicia and the kids made it about half way before tuckering out, but Corey and Maria (who had been to the lake before) told me I should go on to the top as it is a beautiful lake, and I'm glad I did. It took me 16 minutes of running up the trail to get to the top after I left them, and 20 minutes from the top back down to the bottom, again running.

Here's what I saw on the way up.

Finally, when I got to the top I decided it was worth the hike as this is what I saw.

No, that isn't sweat, it's water. After running up the trail I was so hot I just stood under the cool water fromt the waterfalls. The water looked so nice I wanted to swim in it, but I don't think you're supposed to. It turned out to be a great hike and we ended the day by going to the largets hot springs in North America at the Glenwood Hot Springs which was first discovered, or they first built the pools in 1890. It was a really cool town, but we didn't get any pictures.

Gotta Love Colorado

Dustin and Jen invited us to go camping this last weekend, but it was raining Friday night, so instead we watched the Olympic opening ceremonies in Granby.

The next morning we woke up early and hit the chilly waters of Lake Granby and got some good wakeboarding and wakeskating in.

We hurried home to get ready for a 4 mile hike up North Supply trail to a swimming hole. The picture here shows Alicia and I at the spot where the trail meets the river about 1 mile in, and that's where Dustin, Jen and I left the rest of the group to hike the remaining 3 miles to the swimming hole.


The trail is a gorgeous hike that starts of easy and flat and starts to rise above the river until you get here (pic on right) where the trail cuts into the rock face making it look like a breaking wave.






It's just a little bit further up the trail until you get to the top of some beautiful cascading waterfalls (below).

Finally, after 4 miles of hiking, you get to a beautiful swimming hole where the water is crystal clear coming from a waterfall at one end of the swimming hole and making the water about 10 feet deep. About 18-20 ft. above the water is a great place to jump off and the bottom is covered in small pebbles like thick sand to make for a nice landing. On the left is Dustin doing a Ganer.

Unfortunately, I forgot to put the memory card back in my camera before the hike, so this is the best picture i got! While we were jumping, a family of hikers came by and decided it looked like a nice cooloff after a long hike, but by the time they got in the water it had started to rain!

The only down side is that the water is probably a chilly 55-60 degree water which would be nice on a hot day, but like I said, it started raining as we got out of the water and rained the whole 4 miles back to the car. Luckily we were already wet and cold so it couldn't get any worse! We jogged the 4 miles back to the car to "warm up."

And to think....I did all that wearing my crocs! Talk about great all-terrain shoes!

Colorado!

We finally made it here! We are still finishing getting settled in our little apartment. We did make some big purchases for us, however. We bought a three piece leather couch set brand new for $880.00. We were just going to the furniture store to see what they had, because we were getting tired of sitting on our camping chairs, and walked out with a brand new couch set. We also found a cute dining table set at a garage sale for $40.00. Thanks to Maria's great garage sale hunting! So we are finally all furnished except for the growing list of baby stuff!

Josh's job is going great! He is loving every minute of it. He is doing well and is excited that his first client is Sports Authority. Then on the 18th he is going to fly to Texas for two weeks for his next client. He will travel two weeks every quarter. So the next time he travels will be when we have a baby that is just two weeks old! This is why I am so grateful for family near by or family visiting for help! He enjoyed his trip to California where he got to see most of our California family. He had a great time seeing you all and thank you for taking the time to go and visit him.

I am doing well, I am 7 months along today! He is constantly moving and kicking and rolling around. He loves to start moving a lot right when I am getting ready to fall asleep. Which is fun because Josh gets to feel him move! It is our favorite time of the day to just relax and feel and see this baby growing inside of me! I feel like I am showing but most people I talk too can't believe that I am 7 months along. I am feeling great and have met with all my new doctors out here which so far they are very good. I am keeping busy by putting our little apartment together and I just started trying to make a little nursery out of our very crowed second bedroom.

We also have been enjoying Jen's lake... I mean Dustin's lake! Just kidding Jen! Josh has been able to get in a lot of wake boarding and the new activity he is liking is wake skating. I did wake board once but that was two months ago and don't feel it is wise for me to try now. Josh is also very excited because we got cable for BYU football games, internet, and a land line phone. Which if we don't answer our cell phones this will be the best way to reach us. Our new number is... 720-519-1249.

We are missing our family in Utah and California a lot! We miss you all and can't wait to see you all very soon. Austin we miss you and Makay so much too! We can't wait for you to come out on the airplane and visit us!