Day 1 of Vacation - Snow Mountain Ranch

Today is the first day of our vacation, and I am happy to report that we made it to Snow Mountain Ranch in Colorado all in one piece. We are staying here for a couple of days with the Thorntons before we journey on to...Yellowstone! The kids are out of school as of today; the first week after the end of school tends to be a tricky one to find childcare, so we have started circumventing this challenge by preemptively leaving town. Yay, vacation! 

Of course we weren't prepared for our trip. At all. I had made our Yellowstone reservations 14 months ago and that was literally all of the planning I had done until yesterday. Huge props to Will for doing all kinds of work to get us ready to go yesterday, such as doing massive amounts of laundry since I think that every.single.piece of clothing we owned was dirty. 

On the road! The kids still had a half day of school today, but we were rebels and had them skip it. I am not sure now if that was the wisest idea, seeing as they still could have gone to school and we would have arrived very late, but Will assures me that I am over-thinking this. ;)

Will took the kids to pick out a snack yesterday. Daniel chose this bag of giant marshmallows. (He only ate four today, but oh my goodness, marshmallows have a lot of sugar.)

We stopped for lunch at the Arby's in Colby, Kansas, and were very surprised when we ran into...Julie, Charlie, and Greg! We had not coordinated with the Thorntons at all and were planning just to meet up in Colorado, so this was very cool.

Arby's had an old-school metal playground outside.

The children's favorite was the giant metal tornado slide. Ah, they don't build them like they used to...

Made it to Colorful Colorado! This is supposed to be a picture of the sign, but I was too slow and only caught the speed limit.

Will commented on our drive that this would perhaps be the first time we drove through Eastern Colorado without encountering a thunderstorm. Well.

Instead, we encountered a thunderstorm, hail, AND a tornado warning as we drove through Denver. I was pretty shocked to receive the emergency alert for the tornado warning on my phone, but it ended up not really doing anything.

Fun clouds.

Once we made it through Denver (and crazy weather), the best part of our drive began...heading up and over the mountains.

It was pretty impressive to see all of the snow still on the ground. It sounds like there was a major snowstorm in this part of Colorado last week, so we timed our trip just right.

We made it to Snow Mountain Ranch! This is the YMCA camp where we have stayed a couple of previous times and have always had a blast.

Only this time, several differences...not only are the Thorntons joining us, but we are renting a cabin for the first time. And not just any cabin....a "vacation cabin," meaning that it comes with a dishwasher and satellite TV. This is still considered the off-season or I am sure there would have been no availability.

The deck. Our cabin is up on the top of a hill and the view is just gorgeous.

Panoramic view.

I was super excited to see that we have our very own "games center" in the living room, complete with board games, puzzles, and books.

The fireplace! It is a gas-operated fireplace, and we have a nice fire going tonight.

The kitchen/dining room. Will made a trip into town to purchase groceries, so we are set for a tasty breakfast in the morning.

The cabin technically sleeps 10 people; it has 4 bedrooms with 3 bathrooms, so tons of space for both of our families. Julie and Charlie are in the room below.

Annika's room. There was much drama from the children about who would sleep where.

After a long negotiation period, it ended up that Will, Daniel, and I are all sleeping in this room in the basement with a bunk bed and a single bed. No surprise where Daniel will be sleeping...

More pictures of the view. So awesome!

Next order of business: Dinner. We went to the cafeteria nearby for a buffet-style dinner.

Annika is still Eating in the Age of Beige.

Greg was adorable! I think after all of that time being cooped up in the car, he was ready to burn off some energy.

"Hike" after dinner - really more of a short walk, but hike sounds much fancier.

Greg is King of the World!

The kids and I hung out in the Kiva (recreation) center for the evening, where the first activity of business was roller skating. Daniel still has a way to go in being able to stay balanced consistently, but has improved so much since last year. Annika did great and did not fall once!

Next up: Foosball. Annika is really good at this. She beat Daniel, but then she beat me very soundly.

Basketball! This was probably my favorite part of the night. Poor Daniel elected to sit and watch, declaring that, "I will never be good at basketball!!" but Annika and I had a blast playing. Annika was actually pretty decent here, both at shooting and especially at guarding/stealing! I asked her how she learned all of that and she replied that she had spent time watching how Noah (a friend from her class this year) played basketball. I can't wait to go back and play more.

We are looking forward to more adventures tomorrow!