Colorado Springs

Our first family vacation with the girls!  We had planned on going somewhere here in Texas, but with the 60+ days of over 100 degree weather, Kirk and I said we have to go somewhere cool.  Our trip started out with a drive to the Abilene area to have lunch with Kirk's parents.  Then, we headed to Lubbock to have supper with Kirk's high school best friend, Sean.  After supper, we were back on the road, to stay the night in Amarillo.  When we got to Amarillo, the brand new car top carrier we bought didn't unlock and open up.  It was a long night since the pack and play was in the carrier and we couldn't get to it.  Tuesday morning, my birthday, we were at Sears in Amarillo by 8am in order for them to replace the car top carrier.  We were soon on the road and headed to Colorado Springs (CS).  Once we were in CS, we went up to the Garden of the Gods.  It was awesome!  We walked around and had supper up there.  It rained every afternoon in CS.  Since we haven't had rain in Petrolia since the beginning of April, we truly enjoyed all the rain.

Wednesday morning we drove up Pikes Peak a little to go to the North Pole amusement park.  Holland enjoyed riding all the little rides and Britton enjoyed riding along in the stroller.

After the North Pole, we went to the Cliff Dwellings and then to Seven Falls. 

Thursday we drove over the mountains to Cripple Creek for Holland to ride the train.  She loved it!  Holland had been talking about train rides since we told her we were going to the mountains.  Holland kept singing, "all aboard the choo choo train, all aboard the choo choo train, all aboard the choo choo train. All aboard! All aboard!" from the Disney Channel.  Too cute! 

After Cripple Creek, we headed down to the Royal Gorge.  We drove across it (very scary!) and walked across it two times (even scarier!!).  It is very creepy since it is wood and you can see between each wood plank. They had places to eat, different places to view the Royal Gorge, and even a carousel for the kids to ride.

Friday morning we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in CS.  It was so much fun and all the animals were out since it was beautiful weather.  The Zoo even lets you feed the giraffes.  How cool is that!?!?  The bird cage is enclosed and they let the birds fly around in the room.  It's nuts trying to make sure you don't get a surprise on your head from the birds.  They even let you feed the birds, too.  We always get the girls a stuffed animal when we go places so Holland got a giraffe and Britton got an elephant, which she loved to eat!

These ground squirrels/chipmunks are all over Colorado.  They will come up to you to be hand fed.  Well, this particular one that Holland is talking to, followed her up the hill to go see the hippos and when we came back down it ran back up on the rock to see her again.  For some reason, this particular one and Holland had some kind of connection.  Holland stood there forever talking to it and it would just get closer and closer to her.  Soooo cute!

After the Zoo, we went over to the Ghost Town Museum to pan for gold and get some sarsaparilla sodas.  It was fun to pan for gold and Kirk was awesome at it.  He found 3 little gold nuggets and 1 gold flake! 

On our last night, the girls were having a blast playing on the bed together.  Sister love.

Saturday morning we got up and headed home.  It was a wonderful trip other than the issues with the car top carrier and the massive windshield crack we got from a gravel truck.  We can't wait to go back to Colorado!