Breckenridge!

We went to Colorado at the end of July/beginning of August! It was so much fun - we loved it, and I thought I would try to get back into blogging by sharing our trip with you. My blog, of course, features all of the photos in reverse order because I cannot ever get it to show up correctly! Oh well....I'm taking it as a small victory that I even have a post started, so I trust if you are reading this, you'll be patient with the reverse photos. Scott's sister and brother-in-law are super generous and shared their Breckenridge condo with us. Their place is amazing, and we feel so fortunate that they were so willing to let us stay there! Greta was LOVING the condo. The condo is actually larger than the entire upstairs of our house, and it's carpeted, so she was having a ball crawling around that place. Her favorite room was the master bathroom, which is larger than her bedroom at home. She would crawl in there and sing and squeal, in addition to the more fun and exciting activities of trying to unroll the toilet paper roll while simultaneously trying to devour it and also eating soap. It was a trip watching her...except for the one time when she got to the soap quicker than I did - that face wasn't so happy. It was more confused at how such a delicious looking thing could taste so utterly horrible. Anyway, the above photo is of Scott and Greta on the Burro trail at the Base of Peak 9. It was a great little trail. We huffed and puffed up the trail on the first day and as we were struggling, we saw about 3 men over 60 riding their bikes up the hill at full speed. That'll make you feel out of shape!

Scott and Greta in front of the gorgeous view from the condo property. That's the same view that we have when we are in the swimming pool there. We did get in the pool once, but it was breezy and pretty cool the entire time, and I was being a worried mom and feeling anxious that Greta was going to be too chilly. So, we got out after about fifteen minutes and took her up to our "pool" in our room. The "pool" in our room is the jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom, where we all got in in our swimsuits and pretended to swim around. Ahhh...family fun! Greta was none the wiser and thought we had a great time swimming!

Greta and dad playing around outside some local shops. She was loving to crawl everywhere and it was a challenge to keep her in the Bjorn or the stroller!

Greta and mom on the Lily Pad Lakes trail. This was a pretty "foresty" trail, and I was freaking out a bit about her bare arms, because there were tons of mosquitoes on the trail! The trail was cool, though, because you were in the midst of tons and tons of lodge pines. Gorgeous. Greta was kind of having a "I need mommy" day that day, and just needed to be carried around everywhere by me. This was really flattering, except for the fact that I need to lose a bunch of weight and the first hill up to this trail was very steep. I thought Scott was going to have to call an ambulance. Or at least a crane to hoist us up the hill. Fortunately, I persevered and made it up the hill. This was partially because there were others hiking, too. Had we been alone, I may have called for a sherpa to help me. But, my pride won out. We made it!

On Sunday, the 2nd, we went to the Keystone Beer and Bluegrass festival in Keystone, CO. It was 30 dollars for a beer glass all the beer you could taste and they had tons of stands and live music. Scott bought a beer glass and Greta and I walked around and looked at the sites. Greta got to taste her first turkey leg, as well as some kettle corn. She was mostly just intrigued by all the craziness!

Greta and mom amidst the crowds of the Keystone Beer and Bluegrass Festival. Lots of fun!

Hmmmm...apparently, the turkey legs and kettle corn were not cutting it for this girl. She really enjoyed the coaster a lot more. She actually was drawing a lot of attention to herself. In fact, random people were asking if they could take a photo of her gnawing on her coaster!


This is the family stopping for a snack along Baker's Tank Trail. We actually ended up on this trail by accident. We were trying to find another trail, but as we got REALLY far up a super steep mountain in our tiny, rented, Kia Forte, we decided we should abandon hope of finding the trail we wanted and go ahead and just see if we could find another trail. Anyway, we found Baker's Tank Trail and Scott, trying to teach Greta a lesson about each trail we went on, decided to let her know that this was the trail they used to smuggle pies through: Hence, the name "Baker's..." Our poor daughter is probably going to repeat one of these random made-up stories one day and misinform all around her.


Scott and Greta on Baker's Tank Trail. The sides of the mountains were pretty steep. As an anxious mom, I think it was perfectly normal to worry about avalanches, bears, getting lost with no cell phone signals, and crazy mountain men hiding along the trail ready to have 3 hikers for lunch. Okay, maybe it wasn't so reasonable to worry about those things, but...the steep sides of the mountain did remind me of the time my brother, Bruce, took me hiking in China and I decided to take all my law books in my backpack up the side of a steep icy mountain. Bruce loves to re-tell that story, by the way, so I thought I'd beat him to the punch.

Scott and Greta at Baker's Tank Trailhead. Gorgeous!

One day, we decided to stay around Breckenridge and just roam. When we've been there in the winter, we went sledding at Carter park. We decided to see what went on there in the summer. They had a great little dog park, but the sledding hill looked like maybe it went unused during the summertime. We wandered over to the local elementary school and Greta had a blast on the playground. Above, she is practicing her "stair climbing" skills. She's pretty independent and just needs someone behind her in case she suddenly decides to try a backflip.

Scott and Greta at the dog park watching the dogs play

Having fun swinging. As you can see in her hands, she has a package of tic-tacs. I promise you that we don't let our daughter eat tic-tacs. We were at a grocery store in Dillon, CO getting groceries on the first day of our stay and apparently they hired someone who does not know any names of the vegetables. We stood in line for about 45 minutes as this kid miskeyed every vegetable and then could not figure out how to void them. He had to call a manager to void them out every time. Greta had not properly napped that day, so it was a struggle entertaining her while standing in a line that wasn't moving for 45 minutes. (We would have moved to a new line, but ALL of our groceries were on the belt already) To make a long story short...the tic-tacs were all we could think of for a makeshift toy for Greta. She was entertained for all of five minutes, but...it did help occupy her while I tried to restrain myself from jumping over the counter, grabbing this kid by the collar, and screaming, "IT'S A PLUM!!! PLUM!!! #4236. PLUM!" (Scott and I actually started looking up the number for him. He ignored us every time. I wasn't always an annoying customer until I had a child that needed to nap.)


Family pic on the Burro trail. (We went there on the first and last day...It was right by our condo, so the only travel time was the 7 minutes it took for us to walk there.)

Scott and Greta on the bridge to the Burro trail. This was probably right before the 65 year old man sped by us on his trail bike.

Ahhhh....the view!

Greta riding in the stroller. This actually may have been on our way to a local sweet shoppe called "Greta's". We took pics but I can't find them on the computer. I'm not sure they survived our trip, which stinks!

G and mama on the river bank

On a walk behind the Hyatt and the Marriott properties...see the fisherman in the background?

Greta LOVED this stroller and played with it the whole time we were in the condo. She loved pushing it around and entertained herself for quite awhile with it.

We had a great time. We'd love to live close to the mountains! Maybe one day!

On another note, Greta's first birthday is Wednesday. Pretty exciting! She is getting so grown up. She is getting really good at pointing to what she wants, pointing to people in photos, pointing out her facial features, playing hiding games, and joking with us. Her dad got into the habit of kissing her on the forehead. Now, when we ask her for a kiss, she presents her forehead to us so we can kiss it. She's a trip!