Colorado Rocky Mountain High

A few weekends ago, it was my birthday. (I turned the big 3-0....ugh.) Since I was the birthday girl, I decided what we were going to do that weekend, and after much planning and preparation, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park. The little cabin we rented was just outside of the little town of Estes Park, where we got to drive by sights like this every day: I was hoping to at least see a bear...from a distance...with a window in between, but no luck. Oh well, maybe next time.
We started off our first day in town, where we walked around and window shopped. Mostly it was just over priced tourist crap...but, what else would you expect? There was a cute little bridge where we stopped to take a few pictures.

Then, we found a little lunch, and some ice cream for dessert.

With full bellies, we headed up to the park, and took the scenic highway. Here are some of the views we liked the best:

I just love the color of fall aspen trees in contrast to the pines.

I think somebody had gotten into the chocolate...

I find I never put pictures of myself on the blog. I liked this one of Ailee--I'm looking a little wind-blown here.

After some research I discovered this little bird is called a Ptarmigan.

I had to snap this picture from my car window as we drove. It was a straight shot down from the edge of the highway. You loose a little bit of the effect, but it was a tad nerve racking to only be feet away from a long plummet down the side of a mountain.

It turned out that our next day (Saturday) was a free day at the park, so we decided to avoid all the traffic and just take the shuttle in. About 10 minutes into our bus ride, I realized I left our camera in the car. D'oh! I wanted to kick myself. All we had was Kade's IPhone to take pictures with. I was so disappointed because it was SO beautiful! We hiked up to Emerald Lake and back. For most people, the hike I'm sure took about an hour or so. But for a very pregnant woman, a 5 and a 2 year old, (it was up hill most of the way, too!) it took a few hours. It was totally worth it! It was a great hike.

Stopping for a family photo

A cute one of Maryn at Dream Lake

We did manage to make it all the way up, where we destroyed the serenity of the moment for everyone else with Ailee's screaming after she fell and skinned her knees. Fortunately, there was a nice man there with a big band aid (or "sticker" if you are 2 years old) to help us out. We were just a little bit too late, and the sun was hiding behind the mountains, so we weren't able to see just how emerald Emerald Lake is--but it was still very pretty. It is definitely a hike I would recommend. Maybe not 8 months preggo, though.

It was a fun weekend. I hope to make it a yearly trek during the fall season. The temps were perfect and the changing trees were so pretty.

One last family shot