Colorado Trip!

Well the Ross family is back from their first family vacation (besides Minnesota)! We decided to go to Colorado because: 1. I absolutely love Colorado and would love to live there someday. I can't get enough of the beautiful mountains and the endless amounts of hiking there is to do! 2. To check out Colorado Springs and the Academy to see how things have changed. 3. To show Brady the Air Force Academy and 4. To take Rascal hiking! He is quite the hiking dog. (On a side note, we counted and Colorado is the 16th state Rascal has visited. I would say he is an official traveling man.) We left our travel plans pretty open because we didn't know exactly how it would go traveling in the mountains with a 9 month old and a small dog. It took us about 8 hours to get to Colorado Springs (we spent the night in western Nebraska the first night in a creepy hotel) and traveled at night so that Brady would sleep. Overall, the trip went pretty well. It wasn't as warm as they had first predicted, but it was a lot warmer than Nebraska! We got to see a lot of mountains, do some hiking, and got to see the Academy again. Brady didn't sleep real well so we cut our trip a day short and came back home last night. We're going to celebrate our 10 year dating anniversary today and Valentine's Day tomorrow. Brian has leave until Wednesday, so we're going to spend a lot of time together doing some fun stuff in Nebraska! Here are the pictures from our trip:

So excited on the way to Colorado! (Notice the two little teeth on the bottom!)

The beautiful chapel at the Air Force Academy

Brady and I at the chapel

The terazzo at the Academy. It looks the same!

See that rocky peak? I climbed that mountain 6 years ago!! It was very scary and I cried a majority of the way, but hey I climbed it! :) It looks so big to me!

We stayed at the TLFs (temporary lodging facilities) at the Air Force Academy and this was our view right outside our door.

Garden of the Gods.

Brian and Rascal hiking

Rascal, the king of the mountain!

Brian and Rascal with the Garden of the Gods in the background

Our family :)

My little man and me

My other little man and me

Brian and Brady at the Garden of the Gods

Pikes Peak. Breathtaking!

Brady loved the mountains!

Brady and I in the Garden of the Gods park

More Garden of the Gods

Brian and Rascal on balanced rock

Our view hiking at Red Rock Canyon Park

Hiking in the Mountains

My boys were tuckered out!

The Academy

Brady was asleep as we left the Academy. Here it is in the background. Possible graduate of USAFA Class of 2032? (Yikes!)

We then drove to Golden, Colorado. It's 30 minutes from Denver and is the home of Coors Brewery. We had never driven up Lookout Mountain, so we decided to make the trek up. It was an incredibly long and windy road. Not the best for my stomach, but the view was pretty!

Another view from the mountain

On this same mountain top, was the grave of Buffalo Bill

And then, the highlight of our trip: Overland Trail! Ok, not really. We had to stop for a potty/diaper change break and it was this crazy small town in northeastern Colorado called Sterling.

We decided to walk around to get us all out of the car. I don't think Brady cared where he was, he had fun on Daddy's shoulders! :)

And that was our trip! I'm sure Brady will blog later about his experience since I never seem to tell it right!