Denver/Estes Park, CO

Below are some snap shots of our trip. Blogger is not cooperating so I can't move the first pictures where they need to go. They should make sense once you read below.

Cliff and I just returned from an amazing weekend away to Colorado! Cliff is now enjoying the Cowboy's game and I'm updating you all on our trip. We began our trip in Denver where we stayed Thursday night. Cliff took me to the Denver Aquarium. We had alot of fun checking out all of the awesome fish. Then for a late lunch we went to Casa Bonita. Casa Bonita is this crazy restaurant in Denver that seats over 900 people and has live diving and rather strange skits. I remembered visiting this place as a kid after showing up. Our friend Robbie told us we should check it out and we definitely did that. The pic below is us at lunch there. You can not see it well, but behind us is the diving area. We saw a couple of dive shows and one random gorilla skit. Needless to say we laughed ALOT!

We also got to see some of our HPU friends who have recently moved to Denver: Chris and Robin Richardson, Jessica Cogsdil, and Grant and Desire Kinser! Thanks Chris and Robin for meeting us for dinner and for letting us watch The Office at your place. We were so thankful to get to see you guys!

The next leg of our trip took us to the beautiful Estes Park, CO about an hour and a half north of Denver. Estes Park was a busy place this weekend! The town was packed with people. This weekend marked the beginning of the elk rut season and the color changing of the leaves. All of the people wasn't much of a bother for us. It kind of added to the excitement of being in town. We even got to enjoy the local arts and crafts festival. Below is the little cabin we stayed at near town. Saturday afternoon we fished at the trout pond, played putt-putt, and ate at the delicious bbq restaurant all within walking distance of our cabin. The cabin faced towards the mountain stream so it felt like there weren't many people around.

The place we stayed at was called Trout Haven ranch cabins and they offered "free" fishing to all guests at their trout pond. We were pumped when we heard this. The pond is stocked often and there were thousands of fish!!! We learned that you could not just catch and release and when you caught the fish you paid 95 cents per inch for each one you caught. We decided we had to fish and catch at least one. We caught the one below in like 10 minutes! We only used one worm! Ha! So for 12 bucks we had quite the thrill and one of the families fishing near us enjoyed our catch for dinner. We got ripped off, obviously, but it was still fun!

Next we went to play putt-putt at this local place near where we stayed. In the pic below you can see our row of cabins in the back! The place was soooo cute with flowers everywhere! Cliff beat me by 2, but I did have 2 hole in ones!

On Saturday morning Cliff and I went in to Rocky Mountain National Park. What a beautiful place!! I am so thankful God allows us to view his beautiful creation up close and personal. We hiked nearly 3 miles round trip to see this waterfall. There were so many people in the park that we had to line up and take a bus out to where the hiking was! Cliff was skeptical of doing the whole park and ride thing, but it ended up being such a wonderful morning together!

I posted the pic below so that my family could see that I am starting to show a bit. I am 15 weeks along. My next appointment is this Thursday. I swear that I can feel the baby move sometimes already, but everything I've read says it is a little early. Mostly though I just feel fat.

I am so thankful for the chance to get out of town for a few days together. It was a much needed getaway for my sanity and our marriage. I am so thankful to be married to Cliff! We will celebrate our third year of marriage next week and I look forward to the years ahead together.