Colorado Getaway

My parents had a summer house built in Delores, Colorado last year. Kurt and I haven't had a chance to get up there until now. Last week we spent 8 days in that beautiful place. It was so relaxing. No schedules, no rules, no alarm clocks... We were in heaven. Not to mention having my mom there to cook 3 meals a day. I'm not used to that!

I think out of all of us, Bailee may have had the most fun. There are no fences to block her in and she had the run of the land. We definitely brought home a wore out dog in the end.

As for weather, we had a little bit of everything. It was warm and sunny when we got there, then windy, then rainy, then it hailed, and it even snowed on Saturday, then the sun came out again for the rest of the trip. Yes, that is snow in the picture. Since the ground was so wet from the rain the night before it didn't stick, but it sure was pretty. We were having such a hard time keeping all the dogs out of the mud during the week.

My parents have a 5 acre lot. This is up at the house overlooking the meadow below.

This is down in the meadow looking up at the front of the house.

This is the back of the house. (and Kurt standing by the area where they are putting in a 30 foot by 40 foot garage for the motorhome, pontoon boat and all the quads).

This is the view off to one side. Bailee just loved running through the field. On the other side is a pond, but I guess that picture didn't make it on here.

At the end of the day, this was Bailee's favorite spot... laying down in front of the door. And that's my parents' new puppy they got while we were up there for the week.

During the day we'd take the quads out w/ my dad and grandpa. There are a ton of deer and elk in the area and every year they shed their antlers. We'd hike through the brush looking for the antlers lying on the ground. While we were out one day I found this 5 point elk skull. My dad was so proud he hung it on the pole in the backyard for all to see. He was wishing he scored a find like that! He asked if I wanted to take it home with me. What would I do w/ antlers around my house? I don't think so. It's a much better fit on his gate!

This is the sign at the bottom of the road leading up to the house. My dad put a "deer crossing" sign there since just about every evening the deer come up right through his property. It was so neat to be sitting at the kitchen table and look out to spot deer in your yard.

Every night after dinner we'd get in the car and take a drive looking for deer that come out of the trees. Since there's no hunting in that area, they're not scared of the cars and don't run when we pull up. We were getting within 6 feet of them on the side of the road. This picture is dark, but it's a doe starting right at me (in the center). Not even joking, we'd see at least 50 to 100 deer every night, just a few miles from the house. And usually 5 or 10 of them would come right up in our property and we wouldn't even have to drive to see them.

This little waterfall is in the neighbor's property right behind my dad. We took the quads back there to let the dogs run and take a dip in the water.

This was such a beautiful stream winding through the country.

We of course couldn't keep the dogs out of the water. Especially ours. Bailee just loves to swim.

All in all, we had a wonderful time. Even when it rained us in for a couple days it was so nice just to be away. We got some reading done, got to take NAPS, woo hoo... Played games with my mom. It was so nice to be able to spend time in Colorado. I think after the baby is born and I'm not working we'll be able to take more of these trips. And with it only being about 7 hours away, it's not too bad!