Family Adventure to Colorado Springs

This summer we have two trips for family reunions, so we decided to do a 'trial run' family vacation to Colorado Springs with Elizabeth over Memorial Weekend.  I tried to plan with foresight; 'kid friendly' activities, booked a hotel, packed.... but alas we learned that a easy weekend trip with a baby is not an easy weekend trip.  

Here is some of what we learned:

- Carseats = NO FUN AT ALL!!  Elizabeth has never really liked her car seat but she usually whines for a bit and then falls asleep- during this trip however, she never fell asleep.  She screamed for two hours down to Colorado Springs, throughout most of our 'activities' and then the two hours back home.  

- A plan (even though it was tentative and very flexible) gets thrown out the window with a baby and your activities revolve around survival.   We did not end up doing even half of what we had planned but we were still able to do some fun stuff.  

We went to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.  These are a small group of real Anasazi Indian Cliff dwells with a pueblo visitor center and museum. It was cool to explore these and I was in wonder at the architecture and engineering put into these dwellings. (Elizabeth was in the baby backpack for this and Ben learned that 'low ceilings' with a baby carrier means...crawl!)

We went to Manitou, CO-  this is a super cute little tourist town.  We walked up and down their Main road, ate delicious food and enjoyed being out of the car.  

We also went to the Garden of the Gods but... more on that later. 

- Hotels have noises- even at night.  We didn't think about all of the 'little things' that we have at home to keep Elizabeth content, such as gas drops, lightweight blankets or a sound machine.  I love staying in hotels, I think it's fun and kind of an adventure, but I am a good sleeper so I have never thought about the constant sounds caused by tons of people sleeping in one building.  So our good little sleeper slept pretty bad and woke up to everything! Lesson learned- White noise sound machine is our friend!

- The Garden of the Gods is a National Natural Landmark with huge beautiful sandstone rock formations and paths interweaving among them.  I research this and found that to go on all of the paths is was only about 6 miles (something very 'do able') and the paths were paved- so we could take the hiking backpack or the stroller.  When we go to the park Elizabeth was already screaming (carseat!) so we went to the visitor center and ended up spending a LOT of time there to cool off and calm her down.  We then took the stroller and the path from the visitor center to go on a hike.  Well, we picked a less than 'stroller friendly' path and soon turned back to the car.  So we decided to drive around the park (and found the paved path on the other side of the park) but by this time Elizabeth was really hating her car seat- so instead of a beautiful relaxing hike, we drove through the Garden of the Gods to see the sites with a screaming baby. 

Not really working....

If this picture had sound- you would hear a wailing baby...

So our first 'family vacation' was not what I had hoped or expected.  Ben was wonderful and tried to keep a good positive outlook on the whole adventure (while Elizabeth screamed and I stressed/fumed/whined).  On our way home we got to go to Wyatt's 4th Birthday Party and the wonderful food and delicious desserts helped to calm me down... a little.  I am now worried about how our summer trips will go but am glad we got to spend some time together and learn A LOT about trips with the little Misses. 

That Sunday Ben spoke in Sacrament Meeting about Missionary work and did GREAT.  That Monday (Memorial Day) Ben ran the Boulder Bolder; he did better than his past two years (almost got his goal time;He did stop to use the bathroom in the middle of the race and we are pretty sure he would have made his goal if not for this detour.) and we are so proud of him!!