Our Vacation.....a pictorial

Hi. Here are the pictures from our vacation. There are a ton. Seriously. A ton. This is just a sampling of what I actually took. Just be glad I'm not posting them all here!! Enjoy!

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Here are the girls ready to go early Sunday morning. They did amazingly well on the long drive there.

Hello Colorado!!! The hotel we stayed at was great. We were on the first floor with a sliding glass door that opened directly to our car, both very important things when staying with two kids and lots of stuff! Here is the view out of the glass door (that is Pike's Peak).

Since there was still quite a bit of daylight remaining when we got to Colorado Springs we decided to start doing stuff immediately. Garden of the Gods was literally seconds from our hotel so we went there first. We went to the visitor center...and then walked the main loop through the park.
The next morning we headed to Cripple Creek to ride the Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad. The drive was beautiful and the train ride was a lot of fun. It was also really interesting seeing the old gold mines and ghost towns (but the girls just liked the ride!).
Then we went to Seven Falls.
Natalie got an Indian head dress and drum at the gift shop. This was the beginning of her new found love of all things Indian on our trip.
We still had some stuff to see at Garden of the Gods, so we headed back there to finish our day.
Our first stop the next day was the Cave of the Winds. I was a little nervous about taking the girls into a cave, but Larry convinced me it would be fine. He was right. The girls were SO good. Natalie remembered not to touch anything and they never got scared.
When we were planning the vacation I didn't think we would go to the Manitou Cliff Dwelling museum, but considering Nat fell in love with all things Indian we decided we should go. We got to explore the dwellings which was pretty cool. We also got to enjoy an Indian dance performance. Natalie even got up and did the friendship dance with all the other kids. She is still talking about it to this day!
To finish the day we went to the North Pole amusement park. Natalie wanted to ride everything, even the scary fast rides. Larry was such a good sport. She was too short to ride a lot of the rides herself so he went on them with her. I was more worried about Larry getting sick than Natalie! We went to the magic show and Nat really got a kick out of the bunny that appeared in the little gingerbread house. We were going to go see Santa but the girls got a little nervous so we just waved to him from afar. I told them he probably already knew what they wanted anyway. It sprinkled on us a little, but it passed really quickly and we stayed until the park closed.
On our last day in Colorado we went to Canon City to see the Royal Gorge. There was so much to do there. We crossed the bridge, went to the Mountain Man Camp, went back across the gorge on the aerial tram (a little red box on cables....yeah), and went down the incline railway to the bottom of the canyon. There were some parts that scared the crap out of me, but the girls were totally fine. I felt like such a weenie! It was quite windy that day and a little cold. The Arkansas river was at the highest point it was been since the 1960's. They had even stopped rafters from going down it because it was too dangerous.
And finally (seriously!!!) we went into North Cheyenne Canyon and visited Helen Hunt Falls (not that Helen Hunt). It was so pretty. I was very pleasantly surprised and glad we decided to stop. The girls weren't too happy in these pictures. We woke them up from a nap to see the falls. I know, mean us.
So, that's it. If you made it this far I'm impressed! We had a great time as you can see from our pictures. It was nice to just get away as a family. We made some great memories. I can't wait to do it again someday!