chip, audrey, ruby, and owen: Road Trip

I am about a month behind on this one, but I can't skip the photos and memories in addition to the climb that made this epic adventure what it was. Let me start by saying that I do not plan on taking another road trip that involves more than one stop per week again...maybe until Ruby and Owen are 15 or something. I don't love to spend long amounts of time in the car myself, let alone when I have to somehow maintain the happiness of two toddlers, deal with set up and take down, feeding them on the go. Not to mention that at home we mostly hang out in toddler proofed places...our house, friend's houses who also have toddlers, toddler venues, etc. We managed to only break a few things at Mindy's place in Steamboat....and I hope she finds everything I had to move to avoid getting broken. Oh man, we are a handful in general these days! But, all is well that ends well, eh? So, here are the highlights.

We avoided too much awake kid time by leaving at 4:30am. The kids actually stayed awake (but were quiet) for hours before finally passing out for nap one.

We have found that the trick to making road trips somewhat reasonable, is to stop and do things along the way. As counter intuitive as this is to my amazing drives-the-whole-way-all-the-time-because-it-is-in-his-blood husband, he is totally on board since the addition of the little monkeys. Thank goodness. Here we found an awesome lake and beach to play at...almost to CB!

This is the whole gang eating pizza's in CB after climbing Mount Owen and Ruby Peak. Highly recommend The Stash- great mojitos and delicious za!

We introduced this concept that you smell flowers at the beginning of the spring, and still, Ruby can't pass a flower without giving it a sniff. I don't even think most of the ones she smells, are odoriferous. I think she is on a mission to find the sweetest smelling flower.

We swam in at four different pools in five days. It is the free time activity of choice for this clan.

Oh man- this was fun. Mindy and Bo (they are so smart and thoughtful) decided to give Ruby and Owen their birthday gifts early this year to spread it out a bit. It does get a little overwhelming for us at the end of December with their birthday being only two days before Christmas. And, these were perfect summer gifts too!

Bikes!! How perfect coming from their biking aunt and uncle. I love how she hid them around the tree. Nothin like a good hunt to amp up the anticipation.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! They love them and ask to "ride" them daily.

Swimming at the hot spring pools in Steamboat. Kids loved it. Owen wore goggles for the first time...and never again. Shoot!

Ruby loves her goggles....and her Aunt Mindy. :)

We went for a hike down to some falls. This is the scary stuff that irresponsible sisters do when the trauma PA dad isn't around. Just kidding- we were VERY careful.

Owen in his aunt's PBR ski hat. We did not need to bring any toys. Owen and Ruby found all kinds of things to play with at Mindy's including gear to dress up in, cleaning supplies, and her roommates little dog, Zipper, who I am pretty sure they wanted to take home with us.

Just a random cute one of Ru.

Our last night we went to this bar that had a jungle gym and toys outside for the kids in addition to a bounce house and live music to compliment the happy hour....hello!...brilliant!

The ladies.

The Kirbys'. Fun to hang out in CO together...I mean, we hadn't seen them in 5 days or something. I think we were all experiencing withdrawal.

Who is this crazy guy anyway? It was a total reunion this evening- friends from high school (Amato), Park City (Kirbys), and college (Meegan and Adam) joined us to eat, drink, play, and dance.