2011 FAMILY REUNION 

Granby, CO

Our family on top of the ski resort mountain

We started our CO vacation by going through 9 mile canyon in Utah

.  This is a decent spot to go to if you like Indian historical sites.  There was lots and lots of dirt roads for this part of the trip, but it was fun.  We saw the famous balancing rock and took a couple small hikes to see the petroglyphs and also some ruins of Indian homes.  We found a cool cave on one hike where we imagined they went to cool off during hot summer days.

We also saw the famous hunt scene panel along with many other panels

We stayed the night in Vernal so we could finish the trip into Colorado in the morning.  After grabbing dinner we went on a walk from our hotel and found the Vernal Temple and a playground within a couple blocks.  We also met up with my sister and her family in the morning so we could caravan the rest of the way.

GRANBY, CO

Arrival!  We moved into our condo unit and said joyous hellos to all the arriving groups (my family is getting SO big!!) and went down to the play area to hang out.  One of our first activities the next day was going up this ski lift right next to our condos to the top of the mountain.  It was a free ride for foot traffic (pay for downhill mountain bikers) so we went up once and hiked down and then rode up and down again.  We all loved this activity and wished the lift was open every day!  Watching the downhill mountain bikers take jumps and ride down fast was very cool!

Do you see how big my family is getting?!  This is even minus grandma and the napping toddlers.  The hike down the mountain was gorgeous with SO many beautiful flowers!!  I couldn't believe how many flowers we saw.  I fell in love with the many, many Colorado Columbines and enjoyed the lovely lupines, sunflowers, Mountain Harebells, thin Indian Paintbrush and more I don't know the names of!!  

More gorgeous flowers!!  The kidlets in the middle pic led the way down the mountain.

More hiking!  Monday we went into Rocky Mountain National Park and had a lot of fun.  We hiked up to Adams Falls and hung out for a bit.  My whole family is the upper pic with my boys on the lower left and my handsome younger bro and his sweet cutie pie who stole the show every day.

While in the park we were treated to lots of wildlife!!  I'm not sure what you call the upper left wild animal (one of my other cutie brothers), upper right is lots of elk--cows and babies, lower left is the bull elk and lower right is my sweetie with moose--a cow, a yearling and you can't see them but twin moose snuggling into the grass!  We also got very lucky and while heading up the canyon we had a big herd of about 20-30 elk of all sizes cross the road just 20-30 yards ahead of us.  The last and biggest of the herd stopped and stared us down for a minute, almost daring us to try to follow.

Minute to Win it.  I totally had my bro in this cup racing contest but lost it at the very end.  Oi.  B made up for it and barely got her cousin.  My big J started out fastest in this M&M picture task but was defeated by my older bro and B had fun trying to bounce all the ping pong balls out of a box belted onto her waist.  

This minute to win it game was probably the funniest and it got everyone involved.  We had to put a cookie on our forehead and work it to our mouth without using your hands.  It was really tough, but I'm happy to announce that I was the first contestant to accomplish the task.

While in RMNP we saw some rangers.  Ranger PT taught us about animals adapting, resources animals need to live and about different trees.  We also saw a new ranger introduced to the park.  Our little B passed the test and became a Jr. Ranger.

The boys went out fishing one morning and golfing one afternoon so us gals decided to do a hike just ourselves to make up for it.  We hiked about 7 miles round-trip to Cascade Falls.  There was an abundance of water flowing down the falls and they were quite spectacular.  It was a great hike and we had a lot of fun.  Since it has been so wet and had rained the night before parts of the trail were a bit on the wet side.  The pic in the lower right corner shows one particularly wet spot on the trail that was under about a foot of water.

Most fun was just getting to see everyone and hang out together.  The cousins loved playing together and we made lots of memories.  One of my favorite things of the trip was seeing all the cousins lined up together along this bar every time we all ate.  Yum, we had some good food!!  Lower left pic is me and one of my sisters--together we began a feats of strength the last night there and we had several of us doing yoga positions, ab exercises, wall sits, push ups and more.  It was hilarious and and good workout!  Lower right pic is one of my brothers with a buffalo coat on (he's 6'5" and HUGE with that coat on!).  Fun times!!  Thanks mom and dad for setting it up and for the lodging and a good deal of food and thanks everyone for the fun times and yummy dinners!!!  Can't wait to see everyone again soon!!