Easter!

 Easter!

Easter fell on conference weekend for our church, so it was pretty special.  We tried to not plan things that would take away time from our church services, that meant a Friday night egg dying session!

We tried a new tie die kit.  It sort of worked, but was pretty messy.  I don't think we will do that one again.  We all had stained fingers for a few days...

 We also did the traditional, good, old fashioned, food coloring method.

 Here are some of the eggs we ended up with.

 The next morning, in between conference sessions, we went to our communities egg hunt.  It was like a mosh pit gone wild.  I don't think we will go next year.  Most of my kids did ok, but my boys are used to more civilized egg hunts.  Like just our family.   They didn't understand the concept of "start running right away", "grab any egg you can find", "fight your way to the middle as fast as you can", it was madness.  Jack is pretty aggressive, so he ended up with a handful of eggs, but poor Hunter hesitated just a bit too long.  The pack got ahead of him and ravished everything in sight.  Luckily I (illegally) guarded an egg for him to find.  So he left with just one egg, but I made his sister's give him some.  Still, it was kind of sad.  I like our "just family" egg hunts much better!

 The Fire truck saved the day!

 Both boys got to sit in the drivers seat, and they even let Hunter push the siren switch.  He was so excited.  Now he wants to be "Chief Firefighter Hunter Sir" when he grows up.  He even has the fire station he wants to live at all picked out, it just happens to be up the street from our house ;)

 We went and watched the second session of Conference with our good friends.  We have known these guys for a good while now, and they have popped up here and there on my blog before I am sure.  After conference was over, we did a combined family egg hunt.  This was much more fun!  Hunter ended up with many more eggs this time!

 Our friends have a great back yard for hiding eggs in!

 Easter morning.

Our spoils!

I think they liked what they got!

Easter Sunday, we actually didn't have our official church meetings.  It was the last day of our General Conference, which we can watch on TV.  So, I took these pictures the week before, which is when we wore our new Easter clothes.  I also made my kids wear them the week after Easter too.

Some cute kiddos!

These handsome boys just can't let a beautiful, sunny afternoon pass without getting their "motorcycles" out and having a race.

Sneaky, sneaky.

good thing they are so cute!

It was a wonderful Easter!

Florissant Fossil Bed National Park

The last Saturday of Spring Break, we drove about an hour away to the Florissant Fossil Beds.  This was pretty cool.  I had no idea that Colorado used to have a RedWood forest like Oregon and Northern California.  A volcano erupted and covered the area with volcanic ash which preserved part of the Redwoods.  Now all that is left is about 15 to 20 petrified Redwood stumps.  It was still pretty cool to see. 

 Touching part of a petrified Redwood.

 The stumps are starting to disintegrate, so most we were not allowed to touch and are being held together by cording.

 This was one of the largest still preserved.

While there, the kids completed a booklet and scavenger hunt.  Afterwards, they were able to be sworn in as junior park rangers.

It was a very neat place to visit, and very informative.  I love learning about new things.

Spring Break continued...will I ever finish?

We finally made it to Glenwood Springs, more importantly Glenwood's Hot springs pool.  The only other hot springs I have visited and swam in, was pretty rustic.  It wasn't built up, you hiked to it and pretty much just felt like you were sitting in a heated pond.  This was very different.  This was a spa pool, for all ages.  The springs feed directly into the pool, mixed with cooler water to adjust for different temperatures.  There were two different pools to choose from, one was much hotter then the other.

Here we are in the morning warming ourselves by the fire before we headed outside to go to the Hot springs.

Glenwood Springs spa

 We went in the morning, it was about 9 am when we arrived after the long walk across the street from our hotel.  It was a balmy 38 degrees.  

 In the morning, I loved how you could see the steam rising off the pools.

 By mid morning, early afternoon it had warmed up to the low 50's.

 What a scenic place to swim!

 The sides and edges of the pool were all built up with the scaly residue from the hot springs.  It was pretty cool, and very smooth.

 Anya and Hannah using the therapeutic pools.  Matt and I made the mistake of staying in this pool too long.  When the recommend no more than 15 minutes, it's now joke.  We were a little woozy for a minute after getting out.

After this we hiked to Doc Hollday's grave nearby.  I didn't get any pictures, but it was a fun hike.  And then we drove home and hit a snow storm.  Do you believe it?  Still, it was a fun, quick, trip for spring break!

Anya and I ended the Spring break week by doing some work for our ancestors at the LDS Denver Temple.

It was a great Spring break!

Spring break 2: Heading down the lane to Glenwood Springs

There are a lot of little mining towns turned boutique towns along I-70 as you head towards Glenwood Springs.  These are my absolute favorite type of towns, and we never seem to have time to stop and look around.  During our drive down to Glenwood, I wanted to make a point to stop and visit these towns and look around the cute shops.

 We had to fuel up, so a fun stop in Idaho Springs to partake of some delicious Colorado style pizza was on the itinerary.

Beaujo's pizza was the bomb.  We loved their Mountain pie!

 The waterfall and water wheel across the highway from Beaujo's.

 One of my favorite towns is Georgetown.  It's this historic town that used to feed into a silver mine town called Silver plume.  Now it is full of fun boutique shops, many with a European flair.  We found a fun park in it's center that the kids just had to get out and explore.

 Old Georgetown fire house, turned apartment.

Near Georgetown is Silver Plume.  This isn't even big enough to be a town...it's more of an abandoned village.  The store fronts still look like they are from the early 1900's, and the main street and all roads are still dirt.  I loved this cute little jail house!  It was used until 1915.

 We made it to Glenwood Springs.  

This was a spa town of yesteryear.  Many East coasters would flock to this town to partake of the healing waters.  Now, it is a fun vacation spot, with an amusement park at the top of the mountain, a hot spring swimming pool and modern spa.

 We decided to stay in the historic Hotel Colorado.

Matt and I saw a PBS special on historic hotels in Colorado, and this one was mentioned.

It is definitely older feeling, but it was kinda cool to stay there for the night and dream of it's grandeur of olden days.

Historic Hotel Colorado at night.