Aspen - Part One

A few weeks ago we spent five nights in Aspen. Colorado in the summer is probably one of my favorite places on Earth and this vacation helped to solidify that. We drove out and met my parents and sister there. We were very, very lucky to be invited to stay at my parent's best friends home in Aspen. It is an incredible place with an amazing location where we could walk to everything. Thank you, thank you to the D family for your unbelievable generosity and kindness!! We love you all.

The boys started the trip out right with a long-time special from the menu at Little Annie's...
Oh, and as we were walking to dinner that first night we saw a bear cub running through the neighborhood right by the house!

We hit Boogie's Diner for lunch the next day. I have lots of memories from going there as a kid, so it was fun to see Luke and Grace there. As you can see, G dug right in to the mac n cheese and chocolate milkshake.

We spent a lot of time at the great fountains downtown. Luke often had his own cheering section as he tried to get his timing right. His dad joined him at running through several times during the trip too.

 Ha! Caught and soaked. 

 Gracie was happy to have Buckle hold her so she could observe. She got a little more brave as the week went on though.

 I love the flowers in Colorado in the summer. Especially this year when ours are all brown and gross and theirs all look like this.

 The girls!

That afternoon while G napped, Bec and I took Luke for a little walk down the Rio Grande Trail. He loved exploring the bridges and wading around in the creek a bit. (Matt and I were lucky enough to enjoy our 10 mile training run that next morning along this trail. It was gorgeous. This weekend as we ran 10 again I told him I wasn't nearly as motivated by the scenery in Prairie Village.)

Luke picked this window seat as his favorite spot in the whole house. He liked how "cozy" it was and how he could see outside. He spent lots of time there.

Luke, my ninja, at Cantina our second night. I think this was the night our waiter asked if he could get us anything else and I said, "A babysitter." :)

 The next day there was rainy and cold all day. It was awesome after our long, hot, dry summer here. We moved our plans to ride the gondola to another day because you could barely even see the mountain with all the clouds. We just relaxed around the beautiful house, reading, watching movies, and playing on iPads. The kids still played outside a bunch on the covered patio too. We enjoyed a chilly lunch of grilled hot dogs.

The rain cleared late in the afternoon so we got some energy out at the park across the street from the house. We spent lots of time there during our trip and both kids loved it. 

I think Grace enjoyed all of the different modes of transportation available for her, but she really loved this trike we could push. "My trike!" was heard a lot!

That evening we had another fun dinner out. I think it was the only night we had to wait at all for a table, so we grabbed a few cute pictures. 

 The scenery - those flowers, those mountains?!? Love. 

 I call this next one 'First Born Photo Bomb." Then I love how Grace is still eating chocolate chip cookie in the next picture. We'd had the cookies about 20 minutes by this point and she was still going. She was mesmerized by the young people playing violins outside the bakery that evening.

 Another park visit, this time to the one downtown, meant another happy Luke moment!