Estes Park Getaway ~

 Spring break started this week, and we thought it would be fun to get away for a night, so we found a great price on a room in Estes Park and headed there on Tuesday morning.  Our first stop...the Stanley Hotel!

 We ate a sack lunch on the grounds, and then wandered around the hotel a bit.  We stopped in the bar to have a drink and some shoestring fries, and then continued our tour of the hotel.

 While wandering around, we told Jordyn all about the Shining, and now she wants to read it and stay at the Stanley sometime.  Jordyn and Justin recreated this photo of the twins in the hall for fun.  I'll have to show Jordyn the picture from the movie.

 They've created a maze in honor of the book/movie, but its still rather new and has several years before one can get lost in it.  It was still fun to explore though.

 This photo cracks me up...you can hardly see Justin in the maze at all with that green coat on.

After we left the Stanley, we drove over to our lodge to check in and drop off our bags.  We found a great place online called Murphy's River Lodge.  When you live in a log cabin on the river in the mountains, its hard to justify leaving unless you stay somewhere that has something to offer that your place doesn't...in this case, a pool and hot tub! Yeah!  There were a lot of places with pools, but most of them were outdoors (seasonal), so we were excited to find this place online, and the rates were reasonable too!

 Of course, the view from our room was nice too...

After we checked in and dropped off our bags, we walked into town to check out all the shops.  That's right, our lodge was just up the street from all the action.  We wanted to be able to walk around everywhere, without having to worry about parking, so this was perfect.

 We enjoyed popping in on several shops, and then we enjoyed some Mexican food at Casa Grande.

After dinner, we did a little more shopping as we walked back to the hotel.  Jordyn and I both scored Bigfoot T-shirts, and Jordyn bought herself a pair of earrings with some fun money from Grandma Barbara.  Then we suited up and headed for the pool.  After all that walking, the soak in the hot tub felt great, but the pool was nice and warm too, in fact, we spent almost 2 hours in there, so it was a perfect ending to the day!

The office had free movie rentals and free popcorn, so we loaded up with both and fell asleep to a couple of movies.  Zoolander and Blades of Glory....cheesy and fun!
The next morning, after enjoying our free continental breakfast and a quick morning swim, we checked out a few more shops on Elkhorn Avenue.  Jordyn selected a bunch of taffy from the taffy shop, we bought some new rocks for our rock collection at the gem and mineral store,  and then we went to the Snowy Peaks Winery to sample some of their wines.

This place was great!  All of their wines are made with only Colorado grapes, and they had several great selections to choose from!  For $6.00, you can try 5 wines.  I chose 3 whites and 2 reds, and they were all tasty.  My favorite though, was the Eleve' Blanc, which i purchased a glass to enjoy after the wine tasting, and then left with a bottle as well.

 Their shop was really cute, and they had several folks in there enjoying bottles of wine.  They had a kid friendly atmosphere, which was nice, and Jordyn enjoyed trying to put together this puzzle with dad.

 After several attempts, Justin was finally able to complete the puzzle!

 If asked, they will give you a free tour of their winery downstairs, so we thought we better check it out before we left.  It was amazing how much they could squeeze into such a tiny space.

 The gentleman giving the tour, was also our wine host, and he was super fun!  Jordyn seemed to like snooping around the giant wine barrels, as did I.

 It was a cool place, and I look forward to visiting there again soon!  After the tour, we headed back to town to enjoy some burgers and then head home.  The getaway was wonderful and just what we needed!  I need to plan more mini trips like this for our family...it was perfect!

A Colorado Sunrise ~

 A Colorado sunrise...there's nothing more beautiful!!!

Meanwhile, on the West Coast ~

Chuck takes home the Oscar again, with a two year streak now!  Pressure's on for the Westrope girls next year!

Colorful Flowers ~

 Our lovely Valentine flowers are still going strong!  I love it when Justin buys us flowers for Valentines Day, as it brightens our cabin during the winter blahs of February!  Have a colorful day!

Smoothies Anyone ~

Trying out the blender bike and making smoothies at our teacher collaboration meeting...i need one of these at Rogue Camp for margaritas! 

Girl Scout Sleepover and Hike ~

 We had a long weekend off from school, so instead of having a meeting for Girl Scouts we planned a hike and sleepover instead!

 It was supposed to be a snowshoeing adventure, but since there was hardly any snow, it turned into a hike instead.

 We loaded up the girls after school and stopped at Bellair Lake for the hike and fun...the weather was perfect and the girls had a great time!

 After our hike, we went to the fire station for our sleepover.  The girls were pretty hungry after all that walking, so we served dinner right away...heart shaped pizza and salad.

 After dinner the girls played several silly games, including these two which helped them earn their World Thinking Day patch.  These games were hilarious...the first one you had to figure out how to have all the girls stand on one side of a sheet, and then flip it over, moving all the girls to the other side without stepping on the floor.  This activity took them several tries!

 This next one was even harder...they had to cross their hands over and hold the hand of one person behind them and the hand of the person in front of them, then they had to figure out how to untangle themselves...

 They figured this one out rather quickly...the person in the back had to crawl under everyone else, followed by the next person, and so on and so on...

 lots of laughs for sure!

 The girls made a tent, played games, and chased each other around.  It was a much different dynamic with only 8 girls this time around, and all older, and I have to admit it was much quieter and easier to manage.  We should have split the troop years ago :)

The evening ended with a movie, to which everyone fell asleep to, except for Kendra!  What a blast!  Girls RULE!

Critter Check ~

Our principal took this photo today at school...seems we had a visitor out on our playground.  She looks rather cozy basking in the sun doesn't she?  Gotta love the mountain schools!  This is why we do critter checks every recess!  :)