Pagosa, Part Two

My computer is going wack-o on me and it's driving me crazy, so I'm going to have to finish this with a second post about Pagosa Springs.  I don't want to mess up what I already wrote.
We didn't have any place to put the camera to use the timer at the top of Chimney Rock, so we took two pictures, one with PC and the kids and one with me and the kids.

 

Monday night we went to the activities center at the resort for s'mores.  We had gone Saturday night for the ice cream social too. Can you see our sunburns?  Yep, we forgot to put on sunscreen!  Tink got the worst of it. Her forehead, nose, and ear even blistered!  (Today when she went back to school, she told people that she fell out of a bus, and they believed her.  It does look pretty bad now that it is healing. Poor kid.) PC went to the store and got some aloe vera, solarcaine, and advil for relief.  We didn't forget to put sunscreen on again that week!

 

Tuesday was the coldest day we had while there.  We spent most of it relaxing.  We were all pretty sore from the hike the day before.

Wednesday we made it to the hike we had meant to go to on Monday, which was along the Piedra River.  It was gorgeous! Pretty muddy though.  Then we took another trail that goes to these ravines with ice in them, called Ice Cave Ridge.  That trail was pretty snowy, which cleaned off most of the mud from our shoes.  Again, the whole area was just gorgeous.

That night, I convinced everyone to go to Boogie Bingo at the activities center.  No one was thrilled about going, but we talked them into it.  They all had a blast!  Minnie won the second game, Goofy won the third, and then a few games later, Minnie won again.  When you won, they turned on music and everyone dances while you "boogie" over to the prize table and get your prize.  Goofy got a big mac truck that hauls cars inside it.  Minnie got a crossword puzzle book, and the second time she won, she let Bucko go up to get a prize.  He got a LED clip-on light.  In the end, they let all the kids get a prize, even if they hadn't won, so Tink ended up with a headband and Bucko went back since he hadn't technically won and got a big thing of Gaterade. And since Minnie didn't get to collect her second winning, she got a glittered pen to go with her crossword puzzles.  As we were leaving, Bucko apologized for not wanting to go.  They all had a good time. (It helped that there were a lot of older people who just loved, and spoiled, the kids there! I love Bingo because older people gravitate to playing it and I love it!)
Thursday was our last day in Pagosa Springs.  We took the kids to the pool again in the morning and did the hot tub again that night.  In the afternoon, we went downtown and walked along the river. They have the hot springs flowing into the river along decorative waterfall creations alongside the river.  It was hot to the touch and smelled of sulfer.  We stopped by the park again and they had the mini-golf course open too, so we let the kids play mini-golf.  It was so nice that the resort had all these things available to us for free. It made it easy to find things to do.



Easter Eggs

We didn't get to color eggs before we left, so we did it yesterday. I got a kit half off, but we hated it. It was supposed to be no spill but it was the worst way to color eggs ever. Just stick with the basics people!  The kids ate one right away and we made egg salad sandwiches. Yum!

Spring Break, Week 2, Pagosa Springs

We arrived in Pagosa Springs around 4:30.  PC checked us in and we went to our condos.  We had 2 connecting condos to accommodate us.  We ordered pizza from a local pizza place (DSP Pizza) because they gave us a coupon and we wanted to try it out.  It was pretty good!  We got settled that night and got ready for the next day.  We had a welcome meeting the next morning. It was to try to get us to join their ownership program, which we were not at all interested in, but we got a $50 gift card and free breakfast, so it wasn't a wasted time. ;)  We packed my backpack and headed out of town to try to do a hike. We wanted to go to Opal Lake.  It was a hike through aspen trees, across a meadow, and finally arriving at the lake.  We drove about 10 miles out of town to the road we were supposed to turn on.  This road was a dirt road which we rode on for about another 10 miles. The views were spectacular with the snowcapped moutains, the river, and trees along the road.

(Here is a picture of the kids in the car.  They were still happy at this point.  Tink got car sick pretty soon after I took this, but she didn't throw up or anything, thank goodness!)

Then we crossed the river and started seeing the signs for the trailhead.  The weather was gorgeous, by the way, in the upper 50's.  The roads were clear and not muddy, but as we started to get closer to the trailhead, it started getting muddy and there was still snow in the fields and along the road (about 3 feet high still!).  We made it to the turnoff for the trail and the snow was all over the road and a barrier was across it! We were so disappointed! I called the visitors center then and found that this is the muddy season and pretty much all the trails are still closed!  We found a beautiful lake along our route, though, so we stopped there for our picnic lunch and explored a bit.  It was called Echo Lake.  The kids loved climbing the hill beside it and Baby Girl did great in our ErgoBaby carrier with the infant insert.  I had it on and she went right to sleep.

We were even able to get a picture of all of us using the timer on my camera!

On the way home, we stopped at a cute department store named Goodmans.  Tink needed a new swimsuit and we found a cute one there.  I had fun looking at the cowgirl/boy clothes there while she tried on the swimsuits.  (Baby Carhart overalls are adorable!)
So we took the kids to the pool that evening. On Sunday, we went to Sacrament meeting.  We had friends that were also visiting Pagosa, and they sat in front of us at church.  The bishop's wife and his girls sat behind us.  It was a sweet ward.  The closing speaker was the worker from Goodmans who helped us into the fitting room!  One lady came up to us at the end and told us what beautiful children we had and how you could see the light of Christ in their eyes.  So sweet!  We had our Easter dinner while our hot tub was warming up.  Then we all got in for a nice relaxing time. 

On Monday, we had another beautiful day. We thought we would hike along the Piedra River, but I gave PC wrong directions.  There was another site we had thought about going to and we were almost there, so we just decided to do that.  It is called Chimney Rock. It's an archeological site from the Native Americans.  It's closed, but you can park and hike up the road. It was 3 miles up!  The kids were tired and we all got sunburned.  Tink got the worst of it. She blistered on her forehead, nose, and ears.  Six miles total, though, and we were pretty tired by the end.  Minnie and Goofy even kept bumming rides off of PC. It was pretty comical when he had 3 kids on him!

 When I told PC I wanted a camera for my birthday, all I had in mind was that it took decent pictures and could fit in my pocket.  This landscape feature it has on it, though, is pretty awesome. I think he picked out a great camera! I love it!



 

Spring Break, Week 1

Spring break started last week.  We LOVE spring break! And I love that our school district gives two weeks for spring break!  We started it off with watching Rise of the Guardians for our movie night on Friday night.  On Monday, we went roller skating at Skate City.  The kids had coupons for free admission during the break and they all had their roller blades, so it was completely free.  We met up with some friends, so that was nice as well.  Bucko was super lucky and one of the workers gave him some light up glasses at the beginning.  They had these cool "walkers" for little kids made out of PVC pipes with wheels.  I rented one for Goofy and he would fly around the rink. Tink held Minnie's hand and they were fine. Bucko did great as well. I just stayed on the side with Baby Girl.  And that little girl slept all day! I had a doctor's appointment that morning and got her to sleep as I was leaving at 9:30.  She slept until 3:30 pm that day! I couldn't believe it!  We stopped at the music store afterwards to fix a mix-up with Bucko's violin and then I treated the kids to slushees at Sonic, since it was still happy hour (half-price drinks).  Bucko yelled, "Best day of my life!" on the way home. It was a good day.

On Tuesday, PC didn't have to work until later in the day, so we went down to the mall. I got a haircut while PC took the kids to go do GlowGolf (mini golf with blacklights).  I had bought a Groupon for 5 people a while ago and it was going to expire soon, so we needed to use it.  We stopped at Sonic for some lunch that day and took it over to Nana's house to eat.  We took Nana and Johnny back to our house for an egg hunt.  There was still snow outside, so we decided to hide them inside.  We still had lots of fun with it!

On Wednesday, we did some grocery shopping to get ready for our trip the following week.  PC decided to take a half day on Thursday, so we all were able to go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo one more time before our membership ran out.  (We decided not to renew it for now. Maybe another year we will do it again, but we are "zoo-ed" out for the time being.)  We didn't get there until right after lunchtime, so of course the parking lot was full.  We had to park at the high school and take the shuttle to the zoo. This wouldn't have been too bad, but the bus was packed, so we were standing and then the traffic by the zoo was barely moving.  So a five minute drive ended up taking about 45 minutes.  We had fun when we got there though.  They finally had the elephants out! (They had been working on a new area for them, so they hadn't been out for the past year.)  I let PC take the kids on the Skyride while I fed Baby Girl.  Tink and Minnie spent some of their money on stuffed animals in the gift shop before we left.  Tink got a snow owl, which she named Hedwig, of course, and Minnie got a pink zebra, which she named Pinky.

On Friday, we packed up the van and drove down to Pagosa Springs for our holiday!

Minnie Turns 7

We had to celebrate Minnie's birthday on her birthday, of course!  Yes, we did the extended family celebration with a cousin's birthday as well, but we did a small one on her birthday too.  She was very specific about what she wanted for her birthday, and luckily, we were able to get them for her.  She really wanted roller blades. Goofy got his on his birthday and she was the only one without roller blades.  (She and Goofy had the kid style roller skates that go over your shoes, but they have both been wearing their older siblings blades for a while, even though they were too big.)  She also wanted a bigger scooter that actually fit her, so we were able to get that for her too. She was really happy about that!  We had hot dogs for dinner--her choice.  I made triple chocolate bundt cake for her birthday cake.  Yum!