Camping with the kids - Part 3 of 3

 

 We woke up in the morning to these visitors in our camp site.  The sun was just coming up and they almost seemed to glow.  The kids were obviously psyched and couldn't wait to get out of the tent.

They snuck out and quietly posed in front of the deer in the background.  After about 15 minutes of foraging in the bushes around our camp site they slowly walked away into the forest.  What a great treat at the end of a fun camping trip.

Camping with the kids - Part 2 of 3

After a long hike, we were starting to get hungry so it was time to do my best McGyver impersonation and start a fire.  Actually, I brought a lighter from home but we still went over the basics of setting up the wood properly in order to start the fire.

Here we are with a nice fire, though these guys wanted to keep on adding more and more wood.  I had to make sure we didn't let the fire get out of control. 

We had a nice dinner of noodles and brautwurst and followed it up with some roasted marshmellows.  What is pretty funny is that none of the three of us actually like cooked marshmellows that much so I think we ended up eating like three or four total.

It actually started to get a bit rainy and cold so we moved into the tent to watch some Pixar movie before bedtime.  We had plenty of room in the new tent and I (Brent) slept between these guys.  The only real mistake I made was only bringing two thermarest mattresses.  Gavin and Gage each got one and I slept directly on the tent floor which was quite uncomfortable.  They both fell asleep fairly easily after a bit of stories and questions about all the forest sounds they could hear.

Camping with the kids - Part 1 of 3

In what has become an attempted yearly tradition, this is the camping trek up to the base of Long's Peak to camp for a night with dad.  We arrived mid-day and thankfully found that most of the informal camping spots off of the side of the road were open.  This fact was also probably aided by the fact that we were there on a Thursday and not the weekend.  In any case, we arrived with two excited boys.  This was Gavin's third trip but Gage's first.  They started scoping out the fire pit and the nearby area.

Because the old tent was only a two-person tent, we obviously needed a bigger tent.  This is the new 4-person tent we got from REI and I have to say it was a million times easier to set up than our old tent.  It even has a nice front "porch" type area that serves as a mini mud room (which you will see in pictures later).  They helped me get all the poles ready while causing some mild chaos so that I could set it up, but they wanted to pose like they set it up themselves.

The next chore is always to gather fire wood for the evening and meals.  There is an abundance of wood all over the forest that has fallen down and these two are made for collecting wood.  They love man-handling the wood and pulling it down the hillsides to a pile.  They even worked together fairly well as they carried these large trees. 

Here is Gage sitting in the mini mud room.  I think we were getting ready to go on a longer hike for the afternoon, but Gage has a frisbee in his hand which we took along.  It was a fairly warm day, but you needed jeans and a jacket or long sleeves.

We hiked up this road quite a ways and Gavin and Gage loved throwing rocks into the forest off of the side of the road.  There aren't too many places in the world that they can be totally free to do whatever they want without worrying about breaking something or someone.  We also found some nice ant piles and various other bugs, spiders, and squirrels along the way.

Hiking in Eldorado Springs - Part 2 of 2

After we hit the cave, we continued up the trail and we were left with only one direction to go.  As you can see this quickly turned  vertical and we were almost rock climbing up this boulder field.  It was actually pretty fun, but I found myself fairly worried one of these guys would tumble backwards or something and get hurt.  We were safe and they did an awesome job.

This is a view of one of the areas across the canyon from where we were hiking.  As you can see it looks like some great climbing and makes for some great scenery. 

We eventually ran out of trail and headed back down to the main road.  However, the kids weren't quite done yet so we walked up the road a bit and followed the river.  We found some great waterfalls and also were able to go down to the river a bit further up the road and play a bit in the freezing cold water.  We really had a great time together and I enjoy letting them be boys and explore and get dirty a bit.

Hiking in Eldorado Springs - Part 1 of 2

It is clear that our boys love to be outdoors.  Fortunately, we live close to so many awesome places.  I (Brent) had the opportunity to take them hiking in Eldorado Springs.  This area is world-renown for its rock climbing.  Here they are above just beaming with excitement as we head out. 

We started out on what could be considered more of a dirt path than a true hiking trail, but its hard to find a good balance between something fun that won't immediately tire these guys out.  Gavin quickly found some huge rock to climb up and was quite proud of his effort.

Not to be outdone, Gage scampered up the lower section of the rock as well.  In an attempt to not have to take my kids to the hospital after this hike, I promptly had Gavin return to a more reasonable location down on the ground.

I had not really hiked too much around this area and we quickly found some awesome places.  This huge cave was one of the first finds and I am quite sure there were bats and other things all around so I made sure we didn't venture too far into the cave.  It was pretty cool though.

Valmont Bike Park Fun

As much as we can, we try to get over to the Valmont Bike Park in Boulder.  The kids absolutely love it there and most of the time we are able to come home without anyone bleeding or hurt.  Above is Gavin working on the pump track in a nice Superman shirt.

Gage is here making the rounds in his favorite part of the park which is the skills loop.

Here is Gavin just finishing up a lap on the skills loop, as well.  Occasionally, Gavin will try to cross this log but I get a bit nervous as I have seen some really ugly falls off of it.  He has made it across the log before but often ops to just come around it, which is fine by me.