July Vacation

The end of June and beginning of July we celebrate birthday week in the Moore household.  With two birthdays in quick succession and our nation's birthday right after it's a week of cake, ice cream, celebration, and almost always a dedicated week of vacation for us.

This year we vacationed in the Vail valley.  After having so much fun two years ago we tossed around the idea of going somewhere else but nothing sounded quite as good as a cool, relaxing week at high elevation.  Knowing some of the local tricks makes vacationing there laid back and easy for us.

Making a photo frame at the Vail Art Festival

King of Vail Mountain

 We played like classic Coloradoans.  We hiked, biked, swam, and ate outside a lot.  Because of the extreme fire danger across our state all fireworks were cancelled and so we opted for the Beaver Creek 4th of July on mountain clambake picnic.  What a treat!  BBQ, burgers, oysters, clams, crawfish, and more sides and desserts than any of should have eaten.  FFM remarked that the clams were too sandy but the crawfish were GREAT!  During and after food everyone, especially kids, played games on the lawn.  Perfection!

4th of July picnic at Beaver Creek, learning how to eat crawfish

Picnic lawn games

 Later in the week we headed out to Glenwood Springs to swim in the hot springs pool.  FFM is tall enough for both water slides now and he and Travis had a grand time SHOOTING down what they declared the fastest slide in the world.

The Blue Comet, fastest slide in the world

Green Amazon, most fun slide in the world

 Halfway through the week my cousin Sarah and her husband Brian joined us.  Sarah is expecting a baby in November but every morning FFM was convinced that the baby was going to arrive THAT day.  He's super excited about the new arrival.  Brian likes to go to the top of the mountain so up, up, up we headed!

Riding the chairlift up to the top

 The four of us went for a hike and Travis opted for some mountain biking.  He made it down really fast while we got stranded at the mountaintop restaurant by the lightening and thunder produced by the season's first GREAT MONSOON!  Yes, rain finally came to Colorado.  We had a few days of rain, enough for us all to breathe a small sigh of relief.  Hopefully it will continue and our record breaking dry spell will end.

Sarah, Brian, and FFM hiking down Beaver Creek