Breckenridge Snow Sculptures

After going to this last year, we decided it was something that we wanted to do again. So we made the drive to Breckenridge. We went the day after the sculpting was finished so we didn't find out the winners. If you are curious, here's the website that shows the winners and more professional photos.

The size of the block of snow each sculpting team starts with.

As you can see, the day looked nice even though it was roughly around 30 degrees. Most of the pictures we have were the ones we liked and coincidentally were sculpted by teams from the Americas (North and South, which includes Canada). They seemed to tell stories. European and other nations seem to be into abstract art which I don't understand.

Front view (fyi, I love the walrus with his head through the hole)



Back view




Ellie loved this mommy and baby bear one.

Check out the claws on this bear.



Back side showing baby bear.



After spending time looking at the sculptures and then braving the bathrooms (which involved some creative removal of clothing so it wouldn't take me 10 minutes to get everything back on), as Ellie is potty training, we went to the snow castle ruins built specifically for kids to play on. Someone at this festival was a genius or had kids to have this area. Do you know how hard it is for kids to see snow sculptures and not touch or climb on them?

Ellie crawling through a tunnel.



Ellie and mommy looking out of the castle tower.



Ellie and daddy with the Budwiser horse carving.

Looking at Jake's outfit explains why I was climbing on snow castles pregnant instead of him. One of us dresses to play in the snow.

Ellie enjoyed herself by throwing snow at daddy's bum and putting it on mommy's legs. Ask her, see will tell you about it. She even let me buy and put on snow gloves (after our first snow adventure and frozen fingers). We didn't spend a lot of time up there but I almost wish we had. We had been on the freeway only about 10 minutes when everything came to a screeching halt. It was 5 and had anticipated making it home by 6:30ish to have dinner. Well an accident that completely shuts down the freeway over a weekend with the International snow sculpture championship in Breckenridge, some X-games/dew tour activities in Aspen, in addition to any day ski person traveling back to Denver turned a hour and 20 min drive into a 3 hour one. It was pretty bad. Luckily I had packed a few bottles of water, a bag full of snack foods, and the ipod with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on it. We survived to enjoy dinner at 8:15pm.

Still enjoyed Breckenridge, although now that we know about the Ice Castles in Silverthorne, I think we will try to hit both places the next time we make it out for the snow sculptures.

Scots Fest

This is one of those blog posts a long time in the making. Actually, The past month just got away from me. Anyway, about a month ago we traveled up to Estes Park for one of the largest Scottish Festivals in the nation (supposedly). On our drive there, we realized that we didn't pay attention to the football schedule and were stuck in traffic in Boulder, as the freeway takes you right through the center of town as the main road. Next, we underestimated the quantity of people traveling into Estes Park that day. It took us at least 30 minutes to drive the last 5 miles into town. When stuff like that happens, you end up with a few of the following pictures. 

Notice the house 3rd up from the bottom. Almost the entire thing is lifted on beams.
You have got to be desperate to build a house like that.



I was curious about the Cider Cherry (other stores sold Cherry Cider) but I wasn't sure about the Elk Nuts.

We finally made it into Estes Park, found a parking spot, and entered the festival. They had all sorts of booths, vendors, and activities. Jake loves watching the Scottish sports; barrel toss, beam throw, etc. We started by wandering around the Clan tents.
 

For Uncle Jon and family (sorry about the behind in the pic)

After looking at the Clan tents, I suggested to Jake that his family set up or find their clan info. Although Watterson's aren't Scottish, they are from the British Isles (the Isle of Mann) which shares similar histories.

We walked through some vendor tents and not a single place carried on hand the Manx tartan (or whatever the family line name is). We could have paid or even ordered a kilt but it would have been close to $1K and right now, we don't have that kind of cash flow.

The food area smelled delicious. Some places had your typical fair food (deep-fried anything) while others strived for a Scottish/Medieval feel. After Ellie played on the giant playground, so Jake could watch Scottish games, and after grabbing food we headed over to the rodeo/jousting arena. Yes, they had live jousting and it was awesome.  

Real-ish Jousting

To finish off the day, we stopped by the bag-pipe contest area. Although they were loud, Ellie really enjoyed the music. 

The Utes played later that day, hence the red outfits.

And you should know Ellie enough by now, that if there is music, she is dancing. Notice the people on the stands start to watch her. Most people around us laughed. We loved it.

The drive home wasn't as bad as the drive there. We did take a different route home. Of course, Ellie was exhausted and slept almost the whole way. Must have been a fun day.

Shopping and Taste of Colorado

Over Labor Day weekend, we spent most of the time at home. Since Jake has holidays off, Monday we decided to go shopping at Castle Rock Outlets. Kids stores have great sales over labor day and Ellie needs clothes for winter. I think we did pretty good. After spending some time there, we drove home for a break and then headed downtown for Taste of Colorado.
Last year, Ellie and I went by ourselves. This year Jake was able to come with us. I think he was a little shocked to see how big this event is.  We ran into some friends there. We could only walk with them a short time as the crowds were too big to try and walk with 2 strollers.

We did sample so foods too. Jake tried a taste of buffalo brat. We all ate chicken fingers and fries. I think the best was dessert. We sampled some key lime pie and beignets (like what Tiana makes on The Princess and the Frog). They were both great. The beignets are a scone like dessert served with powdered sugar and frosting.

One thing Jake and I noticed while walking around the venues was that we are becoming more a "peculiar people". Almost everyone there was drinking alcohol, had many tattoos, were dressed immodestly, had multiple piercings, or some other thing about them that screamed "LOOK AT ME!!! I AM UNIQUE!!!" It made me wonder what things will be like in the future. How different will things be and will we stand out even more as time goes on?

Stef's Visit, round 2 (part 2)

Friday, we started of the morning with a trip to Belleview Park. I had just heard of this park from some people in my ward so after lazily getting ready for the day, we headed out. We came here because we were told there was a small train ride and petting zoo, for cheap.
It was just a cute electric train with a cute old man as the conductor. We bought our tickets and went for a ride.

Ellie's first train ride.

Here's one of the few pictures of me. Usually because I am the camera woman.

Ellie and mommy on the train.

She had such a great time pointing out everything as we went by, waving at everyone we passed, and saying "choo choo" each time she thought about it. It was a short ride, I'm sure not even 5 minutes but that was good enough.

Right next to the train was a small barn. As you enter, there were some pets in their cages you could look at before entering the petting zoo. Of course they give you the warnings about the goats and making sure the kids aren't too loud or chasing the animals. And be sure to wash your hands after.

Ellie made all the animal noises as we walked up to each one. She wasn't afraid to pet a single animal, which sometimes can be scary with ducks and chickens around. 

She loved this sheep.

They had one of the softest sheep I had ever felt. Actually, the helper told us they use to call it a "geep". The helper told us this because when it walked over to us, I said "Ellie, come look at this goat" cause I only saw the head and face. Stef said, "That's not a goat." That's when I looked at the rest of it and realized it was a sheep. The face and head looked like a goat's but the body was definitely sheep and the wool was super soft.

Nice cow (well, calf).

Look carefully at the picture below of the ducks. The white ducklings have tufts of down feathers on their hands. The helpers at the zoo said they will keep these or rather as real feather grow in these will be replaced by regular feathers as well. I knew there were chickens with crazy "hair" but apparently there are ducks as well. 

Swimming ducks.

This little goat was hungry. Can you tell?

We headed home for lunch and naps before heading out on our next adventure. The last time Stef was here, we drove up to Buffalo Bill's grave too late and we barely got to see anything and she wanted to go back. We walked around the grave and the gift shop and looked out across the plains from the hillside.  

How... do you do?

Our plans had them been to meet Jake in Golden with some friends to have dinner and go to Music and Movies in the Park again (they were showing Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader) but after driving down the hill and into town, it started to rain. There was a good chance it stopped before the show even got under way but with a small child, we thought better to be safe than sorry. So we headed back to Denver to meet Jake and our friends for dinner at the Cherry Cricker. Ellie and I shared the appetizer platter; chicken strips, fried mac and cheese, cheese sticks, etc. Then back to our house for games, talking, and a little "Better Off Ted."

Earlier in the week, the Colorado Wattersons had invited us to a family lunch at one of kid's house in Colorado Springs. Stef was ok with that so we went. They are always good company and Ellie loves playing with the kids. Nya was so nice to play with Ellie and gift her some dress up clothes and a Tinkerbell purse.
Kara told us about a hike nearby so we headed off there before driving to Manitou Springs.

Starting our hike up Helen Hunt Falls.

In case you didn't know, Ellie is a big girl now and wanted to do half of the hike herself. The other half, she only wanted mommy to carry her. Yeah for mommy.

When we first arrived, people (of other ethicities) were down playing in the water. Apparently they ignored or couldn't read the sign that said "Keep out of water." This water feeds the Colorado Springs water supply. Ellie was a little upset that after we told her she could play in the water (before we saw the signs), we couldn't after all.

What a cute family pic.

Girls picture

 Then we headed into Manitou Springs to walk around and look at the shops. This time the entire arcade area was open and in full swing. Some nice people let Ellie snag a ride on the extra horse.

After a diaper blow out and some more window shopping, we started back for home.  We stopped in Castle Rock for some dinner and to buy diapers (apparently 3 isn't enough for half a day's trip). I had seen Black Eyed Pea Restaurant and so we tried it.  It was pretty good food, or we were really hungry. It was probably a good mixture of both considering most of us ate less than half of the main dish.

Stef flew home right after church the next day. It was a short visit, but we had lots of fun for such a low key trip. We love having visitors here (have I mentioned that before?).

Stef's Visit, round 2

Aunt Stef came out to visit again. We love when people come visit. It always gives an excuse to do things. She flew in late Wed so we just talked and planned out the short trip.

Thursday we decided to head out to the Wildlife Experience. I had seen a few things about it and it looked interesting but not too many people I know had visited. They had a special visiting exhibit about the Megalodon (an ancient, extinct, giant shark), so we were able to learn about sharks.


Stef and Ellie standing next to the metal model of a Megalodon.

The reflection on Stef's leg is from a knee brace from a tube war accident with my brother Jeff.


How do you size up to a shark?

Look at those chompers.

Scale models of various shark mouths. I've heard about big sharks but I don't want to meet the one with a mouth that big.

They also had dig site to uncover various bones and artifacts. Ellie had to take off her shoes because the mini rubber pieces kept making their way into her sandals and sticking to her feet.

Ellie collecting all the brushes.

The main part of the whole experience showed all the climates and ecology's of the world. There was taxidermy of common animals, some interactivity, and computers that educated about the animals, plants, human influence, and what we can do to help for each of these areas. It was fun to travel through the tundra, into desert and plains, and down to the ocean.

For whatever reason, Ellie decided to slide down this ramp. Seriously.

At the ocean was one of these new interactive light images. I have no idea how they work, I only know the first time I saw one was at Old Navy. It projects an image on the ground but then as people walk or move, so do the objects. 

Trying to catch fish.



They had some small fish tanks and we were able to watch some of the feedings. I am pretty sure there was at least one of every fish with a major part in Finding Nemo in these tanks.


Ellie was confused by the name "lion fish".

We ate lunch outside, which Ellie was very good to make sure that everyone had the same food on their napkin. She loved having a picnic with mommy and "Stessie".

To kill some time before our "Animalopolis" movie, so we went into the kids area to play. They had these great animal costumes and Ellie actually let me put them on her. I want to find these costumes now for Halloween.


Oink, oink



Happy little frog.

After we headed to the theater for our short Suess like movie on animals. Stef bought some popcorn, of which Ellie ate half, and we watched the movie. It was really cute and quite funny. Of course Ellie laughed hysterically anytime Stef or I did.

I liked the Wildlife Experience. Of course the majority is for older kids but can be a great educational activity for kids who love animals.

Then it was nap time so we came home for naps and to make delicious Chicken Kabobs. It was a fun but low key day.

Garden and Park (with Music and Movies)

There are 1 or 2 main reasons I am glad summer is coming to an end; everyone else's kids are back in school so indoor play areas and parks aren't as crowded and SCDF Free days start happening more frequent.

The Botanic Gardens at Chatfield had a free day, so Ellie and I drove out so we could be out of the house and she could run around.  It was a gorgeous day, a little warm in the sun but we packed a lunch and went to see if things were any different from our visit earlier this year. Mostly it was just greener. 

Old barn and solo

Ellie wanted her picture taken sitting in front of the car.



"Mommy, picture. Cheese"



She wanted to sit on this railing but wouldn't look at me.

"Ba-gawk."



Playing in the fort. "Cheese"

Although it was hot, the sprinklers came on.

It was a nice morning adventure that allowed us to be home in time for a nap.

A day or 2 later, some friends invited us to join them in Golden for Music and Movies in the Park. The movie, Back to the Future. I hadn't watched that movie in so long.

They start the evening off at around 6:30-7 with live music. The band we had was awesome. I wish I could remember the name. The played "Elvis" type songs that were great for dancing. A couple of times, Ellie made me walk to the front of the stage so she could dance with the other kids up there but every time we got there she wouldn't dance because she was too busy staring at the crazy outfits and tattoos of the players. The female bassist (who you can't see well in the pic) was wearing short shorts and had a trail of small stars tattooed up the back of her legs (yes both of them) with a larger star at the top, just below the short cuff. One leg also had a garter tattoo.

Ellie did like dancing back where we were sitting. She really wanted Josh to dance as well, although he doesn't quite stand on his own yet. She did try to mimic some of the dance moves done by Sarah (our friend with the red hair).

The Valdez couple asked us to watch Josh for a bit while they walked and found ice cream. They were nice enough to buy us popsicle. Guess who wanted to try to eat one on her own?

Popsicle!!

Mmm...a-licious!!!

I still made her share with me.


We are each trying to make sure we eat our fair share.

Although the movie didn't start until almost 8:30, Ellie did everything she could to stay up the whole time. So at 10:45 as we climbed into the car, she fell asleep. Silly little girl. I had a great time. Thanks to the Valdez family for sharing the evening with us.