Vacations

I know in my last post I referenced the time six years ago when Dallas and I went to Moab by ourselves and left the kids with my parents. Ever since then we’ve been itching to get away again just the two of us. With my parents leaving for their mission in less than two months, we knew we needed to act fast!

We needed a destination that wasn’t too far away since we were just planning to be gone a couple of nights. I had a friend suggest looking through the Groupon Getaways to see if we could find a good hotel deal. That’s how I stumbled upon Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I’d never heard of the place and Dallas was skeptical that it would be any fun to visit, but I reminded him that going grocery shopping without the children feels like a luxury so anywhere we went without carting our four precious kids along would be just fine. It was settled.

We took off on a Monday morning. After briefing my mom the best I could of all our kids’ preferences and quirks, we were off. We made it to Colorado without a hitch and decided to take our picture next to the sign like the tourists that we were.

Me: “You couldn’t have taken your sunglasses off?”

Me: “Now you’re squinting. Maybe you need your sunglasses on.”

Obviously our selfies weren’t cutting it. Luckily another family stopped for their photo opportunity and we took each other’s pictures.

Now there’s a picture we can be proud of.

We checked into our hotel and they told us our room had been upgraded. We had more space in our hotel room than we had in our first home. Things were off to a good start.

We decided to drive around the town and see what it had to offer. Dallas heard that Doc Holliday’s gravesite was in the town so we decided to pay our respects. I didn’t really recall who Doc Holliday was or why we would care about his grave, but what did that matter?

You have to hike up a little mountain to get to the graveyard. On the way we encountered this tree:

We’re still not quite sure what that was about. We think it was a tribute to someone who had cancer? Maybe?

We made it to the graveyard and found that they have a monument for Doc Holliday, but they don’t actually know where he’s buried. I felt scammed.

We needed dinner so we walked down their Main Street looking for some places to eat. Glenwood Springs is a pretty small town, so everything about it seemed charming and quaint. I mean, look. Someone used a ski to fix the gaping hole on their balcony. Adorable, no?

However, we were there on the off season and it was a Monday night to boot, so we found not many places were open.

We did keep seeing these buildings with green plus signs on them that were always open. We couldn’t for the life of us figure out what they were. Something medical probably because of the cross, but why was it green? Then our wanderings brought us to a building with a funny smell wafting from it and this sign outside:

Oooooh yeaaaaah. We’re not in Kansas anymore. Our favorite marijuana shop was the one in the Walmart parking lot complete with its own greenhouse in back:

The next day we went to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. You buy your tickets at the base of the mountain and have to sign a liability waiver to continue. That’s how you know you’re in for some good fun.

Then we took a tram up to the top of the mountain where the amusement park was:

It was an interesting park because of the variety of amusements available.

There were two caves that we toured. We joked that our first tour guide was on a completely different tour than the rest of us were on. She told us she had been up all night partying, and she definitely smelled like she had been partaking of some of what those green-cross buildings had to offer.

Luckily our second tour guide was a little more grounded in reality making that tour a bit more informative and enjoyable for us.

The amusement park had four 4-D movies for us to watch. Those were fun:

We played laser tag and found some crazy mirrors:

Then there were the thrill rides. There was a zip line ride which I didn’t get a picture of. Dallas’s favorite ride was the alpine coaster:

You’re in these coaster cars and you can control how fast you go. It was really fun.

My favorite ride was the swing. There was hardly anyone at the theme park so we didn’t see the swing in action before riding it. I was expecting to simply rock back and forth a little. Oh no. We were strapped to this contraption that shot us super fast right over the side of the mountain so we could look down over the cliff and feel like we were plunging to our deaths. You can see the ride to the right of this picture and you can see how high up we were and how you just fly off the side of the mountain:

You can face two ways on the ride. After our first ride no one else was in line so I asked if we could ride it again facing the other direction. The worker seemed to think it wasn’t the greatest idea to ride twice in a row, but we were sure we were up for it. Or at least I was sure I was. Unfortunately, after that ride Dallas started feeling sick. That put an end to our stay at the adventure park.

We had a quick nap back at the hotel and then were ready for more fun. We grabbed some gourmet burgers which were delicious. We took pictures of our food because I guess that’s what you do these days:

Glenwood Springs didn’t have a movie theater, but a neighboring town did, so we drove there and saw a movie in the theater which we haven’t done in ages.

The next day we decided to hike to Hanging Lake. The hike was only about a mile long, but it was like doing a StairMaster the whole way up. That was some good exercise. We were happy to make it to our destination:

 

We stopped for some lunch on our way out of town and headed back home. It was so nice to get away for a couple of days and play and do whatever we wanted without having to worry about nap time and homework and keeping kids happy. We were glad to relinquish those duties temporarily to my mom so that we could have a fun little trip.

Thank you Glenwood Springs. You were very good to us.

We had one full vacation day left.  We toyed with the idea of doing some sightseeing, but Brooke informed the group that she was planning 13 pool parties for the day, so apparently we already had a full itinerary.  Brooke woke up bright and early and recruited the kids to help her clean the pool and lay out all the pool toys.

Dallas made himself a limeade and chilled in the hot tub:

Caroline overcame her fear of jumping into the pool from the wall:

I loved how she would cross her feet as she jumped:

 

Meanwhile, we made Ben and Haley slave away in the kitchen getting our dinner ready:

Spencer swam for a bit and then resumed his preferred activity – playing with cars:

Brooke threw thirteen fantastic pool parties.  Here is the pleased hostess herself when everyone was hip-hip-hooraying her party:

One of my favorite pictures from the trip:

After the party we ate:

And Claire got disgusted about something:

We were exhausted:

But root beer floats revived our spirits.  We enjoyed watching my Dad cram his cup full of ice cream and then make a huge mess as he tried to pour root beer in:

The next day it was time to go.  Boo hoo.

We decided not to bother with combing hair and instead took pictures by the murals one last time:

I also had to get a quick shot of the cute bunk bed in the kids’ room:

Good-bye Belle’s Castle:

We passed a casino in Primm that advertised a display of cool cars from movies.  Dallas made us stop to see them.  Some kids were more happy than others about this:

(Not pictured – the adult that also had a bad attitude about the stop.)

Of course Dallas was right that Spencer would love to see the cars.  He smiled bigger at these cars than he did at any other time on our trip, so I guess it was worth it:

We continued on our merry way.  As we were passing St. George, the car began acting up.  We limped along to a Maverick and discovered our alternator had died.

Cue panic.

We were driving home on a Sunday and it was almost 5:00.  How were we supposed to find a shop to help us at a time like this?  No sooner had we popped the hood than we got inundated with the good people of St. George offering help.  Those people were so nice.  I found myself wishing that a mechanic would just stop by because that’s what we really needed!

Before that thought had fully formed in my mind, a woman came up and asked if she could give my kids a sucker.  I said sure and thanked her.  She then pointed to her husband who was looking under the hood of our car now.  She said, “We saw you stopped, and it looked like you needed help.  My husband is a mechanic, and I always encourage him to help people who need it because he’s good at what he does, and if you’re good at what you do and someone needs you, you should help them, you know?”

Bless you, you sweet woman and handy husband.

The mechanic started to charge our battery with his truck while he coached us on how to install an alternator.  He told us that our battery power should be enough to get us to the nearest AutoZone, and there we could buy an alternator and do the repair.  I had no clue a layperson could even conceive of replacing an alternator himself, but Dallas is undeterred by car projects and was ready to take on the challenge.

With a fully-charged battery and instructions fresh in our minds, we bid our angels good-bye and made the terrifying drive to AutoZone knowing the car was ready to die on us at any moment.  Luckily, we made it to AutoZone in one piece.

Dallas got to work replacing the alternator.

The kids and I helpfully gorged on car treats:

I took a moment to be really grateful for that mechanic and his wife and for the fact that we had plenty of food and water with us as well as games, coloring books, movies, etc.  The kids were busy and fed and happy, and if Dallas couldn’t fix the car, at least we had everything we needed to stay the night somewhere.

Let’s also take a moment to be grateful that Madison is still with us.  I had kept her in the car pretend driving and eating snacks.  At one point I took a kid to the bathroom.  When I got back, I looked in the car and didn’t see Madison.  Brooke was in the front now snacking.  Brooke said, “Oh, I let her out of the car to follow you to the bathroom.”

Cue panic again.

Madison had certainly not followed me to the bathroom meaning she was roaming around outside somewhere.  We were in a parking lot.  We were right next to a busy road.  Dallas and I started frantically searching for her all the while trying to make sure we had gotten the correct information out of Brooke.  During all this chaos, Spencer planted his feet down in the middle of the parking lot, arms straight out, eyes wide, while he said with all earnestness, “It’s okay, guys. I know what she looks like!”

Luckily, after a minute or two of frenzy, Madison poked her head out from behind a neighboring parked car and smiled at us as if wondering what all the commotion was about.  Relief.

I was grateful again because Dallas finished the job just before it got dark.  We started up the car and it worked!  Dallas did it!  I love that guy! (Even if he makes me stop to see movie cars when I just want to get home.) We were on our way again!  We had said a family prayer before we left California that we would travel safely and while our car failed us, kind people around us didn’t, and we felt blessed that this setback was solved fairly easily.

HOWEVER.  This meant we had a really late night, and the kids were set to go back to school the next day.  I opted to bring them to school late in favor of sleeping in and getting a good bath.  Not ready to be done matching, the girls coordinated their shirts for their return to school:

They wore the Olaf shirts the next day.  On Wednesday they put the red Cars shirts on.  As they were about to leave, Caroline shrieked, “It’s picture day today!  We can’t wear this!”  They quickly changed into other shirts and as Caroline was leaving she said, “Whew.  I can’t believe we almost wore Cars shirts for picture day.  That would have been so embarrassing.”

Why does it have to be so hard to enter reality again after a trip?  The idea of grocery shopping nearly did me in, and I contemplated how long we could live off of condiments and Rolos:

If that failed, I could always turn to my crock pot of cheese balls:

We had so much fun that now the only thing left to do is start planning our next vacation!

On Friday we found our vacation was winding down, and we still had multiple containers of cheese balls left…so I let my kids eat them for breakfast.  Don’t judge.

Back to the parks for our final time!

Sarah and Jeff saved us seats at the Disney, Jr. show.  I took a picture of all the kids in red…

…and then snapped this shot of the adults:

In my haste to take the picture before the show started, I inadvertently included this poor, unsuspecting man in my shot.  He was wearing a red shirt, so I thought he was one of us.  Oops.

The Monsters, Inc ride is always a crowd favorite:

According to Disneyland cast members Spencer’s height fluctuated between barely tall enough to ride the 40″ rides and not quite tall enough.  This time he was tall enough for the Cars ride (and loved it though this picture doesn’t really indicate that):

This time he wasn’t, so Brooke and I went:

Madison wasn’t so sure about Dug:

…until his high fives won her over:

  

We ended our day walking through downtown Disney to see the Lego store:

We stumbled upon a car store that had these cars out with interchangeable parts:

Spencer was a blur running from car to car trading out spoilers and engines. I never tire of his love for vehicles.

I loved wearing these T-shirts. You could see people reading them and a second later those who got it would give a little smirk:

If you don’t get it, you must not have watched Frozen a million times.

This documents the beginning of Spencer’s love affair with Star Tours:

He also loved this rocket ride:

The kids were thrilled to get behind the wheel at Autopia:

Two years ago we loved going to the drawing academy and learning how to draw characters.  We made sure to visit there again.  This time we drew Tigger.

Dallas’s picture:

Mine (with a little help from Madison):

Madison’s (with no help from me):

Brooke’s:

Caroline’s:

And Spencer’s:

Some people draw what they want to draw and that’s that.

Moments after this picture was snapped:

…Madison went down the stairs without holding onto anything for the first time.  She was very proud of herself.  Now she thinks she never has to hold on while maneuvering stairs.  Her recent black eye begs to differ.

We rode the small world ride and Madison was giggling like crazy.  Our entire boat was getting a kick out of her enjoyment:

Oreo break!

You know how you sometimes forget how stupid a ride is?  And you don’t believe the sign that says the wait is really long because to the untrained eye it looks like you’re about to walk right on?

Yeah, that was us with the Roger Rabbit ride.

Toon Town may get a bad rap in some circles, but my kids loved it:

We decided to stay late to watch the World of Color show.  We ran out of snacks so we splurged on a turkey leg to share to hold us over until we got back to Belle’s Castle:

Yummy!

Then we had some tired kids (and adults) heading home:

…The Thomas Family Reunion!  These were our next matching T-shirts:

My sister had the brilliant idea to get a sibling picture:

I love it.  We decided to include my parents in on the next one:

Special thanks to Dallas and his nice camera for giving us those previous two pictures.  Now we’re back to my crappy cell-phone quality:

We had to park forever away even though we got there before the park opened.  What gives,  Disneyland?  We had to ride a bus to the park which Spencer was more than okay with.

The plan was to ride Peter Pan first before the crowds got bad.  Too bad the crowds were bad from the get-go this day.  Sad face.  At least our long wait was a good opportunity for photos:

Madison got a little delirious during the wait:

Finally!  The ride: