For Christmas this past year Matt's parents decided to rent a house in Colorado this summer instead of giving individual gifts. The whole family (minus one of Matt's brothers) drove the 16 hours to the mountains of Colorado.
This drive was miserable, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado are all very flat and very boring to look at (until you got to the mountains of Colorado).
We stayed just outside of Black Hawk in a huge house that held the 10 of us. It was so beautiful with the snow capped mountains and the rushing rivers the flowed through them.
The first day we rested from the long, boring drive and attempted to recover from the altitude change. We also went to church at an old, small church on the side of a mountain.
After we all recovered we went exploring through a national park.
We saw lost of beautiful scenery and took a few hikes through the mountains.
We found a tree that looked like a recliner..so naturally we took a break in it!!
We climbed down the side of the mountain and enjoyed our hike, until we realized that we had to go back up!!
The boys attempted to fish; however, Dan was the only one to catch a fish the first day.
We saw lost of beautiful scenery and took a few hikes through the mountains.
We found a tree that looked like a recliner..so naturally we took a break in it!!
We climbed down the side of the mountain and enjoyed our hike, until we realized that we had to go back up!!
The boys attempted to fish; however, Dan was the only one to catch a fish the first day.
That night Mimi stayed with the kids and we went out with Jennifer, Jeremy and Matt's dad. The town was known for its casinos so we decided to check them out. We had so much fun!
Matt and I learned how to play roulette and even WON! We left with $90.00! I was so shocked, I expected to loose all that we came with. I even doubled by $20.00 on video poker!
One of the security men came and told us not to take pictures in the casino...apparently you can cheat at the games by taking pictures something about knowing where the security cameras were. Obviously we do not know how to cheat the system or we would have left with more than $90.00!!
The next day we went to an old gold mine.
It was interesting to learn the history of gold mining.
We were lead through a gold mine and were able to hammer our own piece of gold off the wall.
We learned that the closest place to get the gold filtered our of the rock is Mexico and it would cost than the gold was worth so we could have a piece!
When we got finished with the tour we got to pan for gold, which was so much fun!
The next day we went to another national park which was about and hour and a half away. Matt did not like the curvy roads and his dads driving!! :)
We did not see any squirrels in the mountains but there were a lot of chipmunks.
We climbed a mountain to a huge waterfall.
Matt and I stopped at a creek on the way up the mountain.
I slipped on a rock and nearly fell into the water. If it weren't for Matt holding on to me I would have had a wet behind and the water was freezing!
The snow from the top of the mountain melted into a gushing waterfall. It was so beautiful (and SOOO cold!!).
We finally made it to the top of the mountain to see the beautiful, gushing waterfall and my camera batteries die!! We were so upset because I had more in the car I just didn't think about my camera batteries dying. Grrr!
On the way back we stopped to take a picture of this beautiful, old church on the side of the mountain.
The following day was "Matt and Emily date day". We went into town to antique shop. We went to several shops and I found a cute little pitcher that I had to have! After the shopping Matt wanted to go to a brewery. The brewery not only made its own beer but root beer and cream soda. It was a really neat place. We ended up talking to the elder bar tender for more than an hour learning all the history of the town.
I also talked Matt into stopping to take pictures of the scenery.
I just loved the river that ran through the mountains. I like to hear the sounds and see it rush over the rocks.
The place where we were staying had a basement filled with all kinds of games so at night we had family game night.
This was my favorite game night!
One of the last days we drove to Boulder to sight see. It was very beautiful and once we found our destination, a lot of fun!
We went to a winery to learn how wine was made, and of course saw the scenery.
We had a lot of fun on our first trip out west and we cannot wait to see what this Christmas has in store...!
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