Anniversary Adventure Part II

The big girls are back in school and preschool. The little ones are better, but still have really runny noses. Katie had her re-check yesterday and her lungs sounded good, her blood oxygen was okay. Thankfully Emma never had RSV, and wasn't as sick as her big sisters. The big girls and I snuggled a lot, so of course I now have a cold. Not too bad so far, thank goodness. Kristen is back in school, so I am back with the babies here every day.

Kev and Sema are coming back this week - hard to believe the 3 weeks are gone already. Sema is on her way, and may be in Dubai already (Wednesday morning 7:00 am now) and will arrive on Thursday; Kev leaves tomorrow and arrives on Friday afternoon. Please pray that their flights go better this time and that they get back with all of their luggage!

Back to the anniversary adventure --

It is great to live so close to such a beautiful getaway spot. - it's only an hour's drive up the hill. In fact, that's where we spent the first two days of our honeymoon - DC went up earlier that week and checked out the spot -



A storm moved in just in time for our wedding - by the time we got up there after the reception, it looked like this.



But it was nice and cozy inside - unfortunately, DC wasn't this happy the whole time - he was flattened by a sinus infection on the second day and we ended up heading down to our town for an appointment with a doctor and some medicine before we resumed our honeymoon to California.



In a matter of possible interest - our original plan was to go to the Grand Canyon and around that area. Our travel agent called and told DC that the storm was coming from that direction and she did not advise driving that way. So after going to the doctor that day, DC went back to the travel agency and booked a trip to LA - Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Japanese Gardens, etc. Long fun story. When I was looking for the pictures above of the cabin, I found our original itinerary:



I wish DC had put the prices on the rest of the hotels - $15 at the Grand Canyon! I found our first grocery shopping list, too. I wish I had put the prices there as well.

For those of you who are new here, I'll post this wedding picture --




But I digress.

While we were driving around on our anniversary adventure, we found this cottage in the same spot.




After looking at it and comparing the two, I realized they weren't the same. I remembered that our cabin had been destroyed by the Lawn Lake Flood in 1982. Estes Park was devastated by loss of tourist traffic for several years after this flood. Six years earlier, in 1976, the Big Thompson flood happened several miles below Estes, but prevented traffic from reaching them for several years as US 34 was repaired and rebuilt. So it is a miracle that this town has survived and is thriving and growing. If you ever decide to visit Estes Park, be sure to let me know so that we can get together!

My next post will be mostly pictures that I took as we drove around Rocky Mountain National Park on Monday. We also did our usual tourist-y thing of walking around town and looking at all the shops. That was when I got the watch that I showed you a couple of posts ago. There is a year-round Christmas shop that we love to visit. She has amazing decorative items, trees decorated in many different colors and styles, but I have to say that she doesn't run any great after Christmas sales! Hootin' Anni would go nuts in there, considering her Santa collection. I couldn't resist showing you and her some of the variety this shop carried this year. Anni, come and visit any time and add to your collection!









I've been to Estes many, many times, but have never noticed this rock formation before - it's visible from the middle of town and is called "Twin Owls." Well named!




There was a lot of wild life evident that day as we drove around - especially mountain sheep and elk. Elk and deer come into town and cause "trouble" - the fact that it was their land for eternities does not seem to make the new residents any happier.









It was really cold and windy up there that week-end three weeks ago - today it was 70 degrees F and will be as warm tomorrow. Very weird!!

Stay tuned for Part III!