2012 Vacation Day Five: More Fun with the Fam

Our night in the hotel went really well. Derrick woke up once, but didn't wake up anyone besides me.  He and I were also the first ones awake in the morning so I gave him a bath in the sink. When the girls woke up we gave them their usual bottles.  I should mention that powdered milk saved us on this trip.  We treated it like formula and had it pre-measured in their bottles.  Then all I had to do was add water when needed and, ta da, happy babies.  

 We got the girls dressed and headed down the hall to breakfast.  I was a little worried that the girls would go nuts in the breakfast room.  But they were very well behaved.  They sat in their chairs and ate mostly yogert.

 Brandon went out to organize the jeep while I stayed inside and organised the stuff in there.  The girls enterrtained themselves by pretending to talk on the phone and the remote.  (I unplugged the phone so we didn't make any phone calls)

 They also liked jetting spun around in the office chair.

After we checked out of the hotel we went back to my sister's.  My Aunt Diane was there.  She lives in Denver and had driven up to see everyone.  The last time I saw her was at Emily's wedding.  She met all my kids for the first time.  She told me that Derrick was her favorite boy name.

We all went to see Emily and David's plot at their community garden.  This isn't their plot, but we can pretend it is :)

 Then we drive to the Fort Collins City Park.  We ate lunch and then the kids found their way over to the playground.

 I loved how many baby swings there were. At one point I was pushing Charlotte while Derrick was strapped to my chest in the front pack.  Derrick would laugh everytime Charlotte swung close.  It was the first time I ever heard him laugh.

 We had a little photo shoot everytime the kids played together on something.

 See what I mean?  Four cousins playing together is super cute.

 Emily and David weren't quite packed for the rest of the week yet so they went back home while we stayed and played at the park.

 There was a lake and we walked around it.  Derrick was having a great time.

 The girls were zonked.

 They didn't even wake up when we put them into the jeep.  We met up with Emily and David and then we all went to get gas. (on rode trips we always get gas when we are at half a tank) and then started driving to Rocky Mountain National Park.  The girls were still asleep.

They didn't wake up until we were driving through a canyon.  Imagine falling asleep in a park and waking up to this:

 We drove through the city of Estes Park, paid the $20 park entrance fee, and suddenly could see this:

 There was a lot of smoke in the air from all the fires, but the view was still breath taking.

 We drove to our campsite in the Morraine valley.  Brandon and David set up the tent with some help from the little people.

 I was worried our tent pad would be too small, but it was just the right size.

 Emily and I took care of feeding our babies. (Check out Emily's self braided hair)

 The kids soon discovered the tent porch was also a sand box.  They had fun putting rocks into Derrick's car seat and the tent.

 Brandon and I have learned that simpler is always better when it comes to meals on road trips - especially when babies and toddlers are involved.  So dinner was just Dinty Moore stew and bread bowls.  It was ready in mere minutes and tasted so good.

 Since dinner was so easy we had pleanty of time to enjoy our campsite.  We had to walk into it about 50 feet, which was nice because it meant there was a good buffer between us and the road.

 We took these impromptu family pictures.  There are actually some really cool mountains behind us, but the camera couldn't pick them up because the air was so smoky.

 Here are Emily and David and Asher and Bridger.  I'm so used to my identical twin girls that I'm amazed at how different Asher and Bridger look.

 Charlotte was so cute.  She would put a little orange hat on her head and then start trying to climb up the large rocks next to our campsite.  It was almost like it was her adventure hat.

 Campfires were banned because of all the wild fires in Colorado.  So we tried to make s'mores using our camp stove.

 They didn't really work out.

 But the kids liked them anyway.  (See Charlotte's hat)  Charlotte helped me carry the chocolate to the campsite and then she insisted on eating at least half of a chocolate bar.

Soon it was bed time.  Brandon and I had learned from our earlier camping trip that we needed to keep bed time as familiar as possible.   We borrowed my mom's pack'n'plays for the girls to sleep in.  We brought their favorite stuffed animals and the pillows my cousin Heidi made.  They sleep with these things every night.  We also did our usual bed time routine.  We sang a hymn, read a chapter from the book of Mormon, read a page from the conference Ensign, wrote in their journal, and had family prayer.  The girls were crying at first, but gradually they settled down.  Asher, Bridger, and Derrick also went to bed rather easily.  

 All of us adults stayed up and played a game called Forbidden Island.  It's a game where all the players work together to beat the game and rescue things off of a sinking island.  It was really really fun.  I wish I had a picture of all of us playing it around the picnic table, but I'd left the camera in the tent and there was no way I was going back in there.  We finished the game around 10:45 and we all crept into the tent and went to sleep.