Our Wintry Vacation in June?!?!?!...

We are back from our weeklong vacation in beautiful Breckenridge, CO! On the way in from Denver we noticed snow on the top of the mountains and couldn't believe it.

The view on the way to Breckenridge from Denver.

Abby in the car on the way to Breckenridge

Lucy in the car on the way to Breckenridge

Max in the car on the way to Breckenridge

John's sister Caroline lives in Breckenridge and John's parents wanted to get everyone together for a family vacation/reunion so they took us all out there. They rented a beautiful mountain home for us all to stay in and we had a great time. Sleeping wasn't so great though since Lucy decided to wake up all but 2 of the 7 nights we there at 1:30ish in the morning and would LOUDLY PROTEST (read scream bloody murder) whenever we would try to put her back down. She would stay awake for about 4 hours (long enough for the sun to start coming up) then I would be able to lay her down. UGH!

Uncle Hugh found this super awesome sombrero in the house! He looks like he hiked through the mountains on his way back from a Cinco de Mayo festival!

The view from the deck of the house we stayed in...

Daddy and Abby chillin' (literally!) on the deck.

We had lots of fun daytime activities though :) We got to ride on a train up a mountain from Georgetown, CO to Silver Plume, CO. After taking a short break in Silver Plume we got back on the train and it started SNOWING! We could see the snow in the mountains before but we weren't quite expecting to be slammed with it while sitting on a open air car train. IT WAS FREEZING on the way down the mountain...especially considering we were dressed for cold but NOT for snow! It made for quite an adventure :) After we ran back to the car through the snow we stopped in the town of Georgetown for lunch at the Red Ram. It was delicious!

A family picture before we boarded the train. Before the "blizzard" :)

Max, Lucy, and me. Open air cars were not conducive to keeping my hair out of my face.

The view from the train car on the 200 foot trestle bridge.

The train right before we got snowed on. Can you see the snow coming down from the mountain above?

There was lots of hiking on the mountain trail behind the house. We visited the River Walk in Downtown Breckenridge and Lucy almost had an overly curious chipmunk jump into her lap while she was sitting in the stroller!

Max, Abby, and Lucy posing with a wooden bear in Downtown Breckenridge.

John and his sister Caroline and his brother Stewart took Max and Abby for a bike ride around the lake in Frisco. They rode for about 2 hours and boy was Max worn out at the end of the day (he was on a tandem attachment on the back of Caroline's bike and actually pedalled a good part of the way, Abby was in a cart attachment on the back of John's bike so she just got to enjoy the scenery).

Max made a new best friend while we were there. Uncle Hugh's roommate Bob came along and played Nintendo and Sega games with Max... A LOT! Max was thrilled with the attention and was sad to see him go on Thursday when Hugh, Bob, and Stewart left. He was sad to see Uncle Hugh and Uncle Stewart go as well :)

On Thursday, we took the kids to Peak 8 to play in some of the snow drifts on the ski slope. Max had played in the snow last February when he and John went out to Breck during ski season. Abby and Lucy have never seen real snow, much less been able to touch a lot of it. We had fun climbing up on the big piles of snow and Max and Abby had a blast throwing snowballs at Daddy and Aunt Caroline and "skiing" down the snow drifts while holding onto their hands :) Once we had our fill we headed back to the Riverwalk Park and enjoyed some hot chocolate that Daddy had made before we left the house. Neither John nor I realized that Max and Abby liked hot chocolate but they were chugging it :)

Thursday night was our last night so John and I got the kids in bed and we set out with Caroline to the Breckenridge Brewery for some grown up time (Jack and Charlotte stayed at the house with the kids of course).

Friday morning we had to be out of the house by 10am so we packed up and loaded up the car. We took Jack and Charlotte to Caroline's house to hang out and rest while John and Caroline and I took the kids to the Mountain Top Children's Museum in Downtown Breckenridge. The kids had a blast and I know John liked it because it was a very "science oriented" place :) We picked up Jack and Charlotte and headed out for lunch before leaving for Denver for a night in a hotel.

Max, Abby, Daddy in the "Bear Cave" at the museum.

Lucy on the fishing bridge in the museum.


Abby in the wooden helicopter getting ready to "rescue" skiers off the mountain.

Max loved the robotic construction site at the museum.

After 2 1/2 hours of sleep (Lucy didn't want to sleep) we got up and had some breakfast before catching the airport shuttle at 6am. Lucy's ears bothered her more on the return flights than they did on the way out there. By the way, it was Abby and Lucy's first time on an airplane on this trip. John and I were nervous about how Abby would react to the loud noise and speed and possible turbulence...HA! I asked her on the way to Breckenridge what her favorite part of being on the plane was and she said..."all the bumping around". She LOVED flying and did great going out and coming back! We were so proud of her :) Lucy had some trouble with her ears even though she had her pacifier in her mouth most of the time. She was able to sleep a little both ways but it wasn't the most comfortable sleep...all in all though she did pretty good for having to sit in our laps the whole time!

Abby on the plane. Love that turbulence :)

Max was thrilled to see Jeff Gordon's car on display at the Charlotte airport on the way home! Good thing I had some pictures left on the camera. The only way this could have been better is if Jeff was actually sitting in the car :)

Once we got back to Charleston and went to collect the luggage we realized that my bag had been mistagged in Denver with one of Jack and Charlotte's baggage tags and got off the plane in Charlotte. Fortunately, Jack and Charlotte got both of their bags and we were able to figure out the tag number on my bag so we could track it. I finally got it back about 10pm Sunday night!

After I had reported my bag lost we got the rest of the bags outside and John and Max took the car seats to go get the car and come pick us up. After several minutes I saw them walking back with the car seats. The battery in my car was dead. Fortunately my mom and Mallory were out shopping and came to the airport, picked us up and took us to the car so John could jump it.

We made it home at last after making a quick stop for food on the way home.

We had a wonderful trip (even with the SERIOUS lack of sleep) and are so thankful to Jack and Charlotte for treating us with this great family vacation. Thanks also to Aunt Caroline for coming up with some great ideas of things to do while we were there :)