...'cause I already did

June 2021-part 2

The second leg of our journey took us to Colorado! Woo!!! I hadn't been back to visit since my parents moved away, so we opted to squeeze in an extra night in CO and drive past where we needed to go just so that we could drive through Broomfield and Boulder and just see a little more Colorado while we could. I dream of moving back one day, so we just considered it scouting for our future house. We ate a giant pizza, got Blue Bell ice cream, and let the kids swim at the hotel. It was a short stay, but I got to run some Colorado miles again, enjoy the views, and get a little nostalgic. AND THEN WE GOT TO GO TO WINTER PARK AND SEE MY WHOLE FAMILY!!

Thawing/toasting bread on the dashboard because I'm resourceful

I mean...

Dang, that side eye

I just don't get these views when I run at home

K, so I got a little excited back there. Sorry for the yelling. But, y'all. I had not been together with my whole immediate family in seven years. My siblings and I have had 4 more kids since that last get together and my brother got married. Matthew was a tiny baby. My little sister was 8...and now Adaline is 8. That gathering was super quick. It basically felt like forever ago. In December of last year when we were struggling to pick a place for a family reunion and not a lot of action was being taken, I volunteered to get us a place and get the ball rolling. Naturally, I picked where I wanted to go which was the Rockies. Then I spent the next six months obnoxiously emailing, planning activities, making an escape room, and trying not to pee my pants out of excitement.

The day after we got there, we went to Winter Park resort for the alpine slide, gondola, rock climbing, kids' ROPES course, mini golf, ice cream, and the best views.

They honestly barely know each other and it made me so happy to see them become instant friends. They were born just 6 days apart.

4 of the 8

We ended up staying basically the whole day, then we headed back and had our Oreo tasting bracket and watched the kids play Just Dance while it rained.

Setting up the bracket

We ended up with 18 different flavors to try. Peanut Butter won and some surprises were Pop Rocks (delicious) and Hazelnut (disgusting).

Over the next two days, we had family pictures, human pinata for the kids, dollar bill shuffle board in the hallway, hot tubbing, actual shuffleboard tournament (double elimination and Dave schooled us all), lots of rain, tasty food, saran wrap prize game with over $100 of prizes hidden throughout, a little hike, and so many games (charades, code name, the game, the name game, heads up, risk...) It was the best and I am already brainstorming about where/when to go next.

If your can lands on the dollar, it's yours. This was much harder than anticipated, and provided lots of entertainment. And Amy gets 100% of the credit for this one.

Amy and I had the same idea to bring magnet tiles for the kids to play with when we weren't doing something structured. I saw everyone from the youngest kid to the oldest adult playing with them.

I used a little too much hot glue for our pinata and the kids had a hilariously difficult time pulling off the prizes. Thanks for being a good sport, Andrew.

Adaline picked these flowers on our walk and arranged them herself.

The funny part about the shuffleboard tournament was that it was preceded by two solid hours of my dad and brothers/brother-in-law leveling the table. I think it's possible that they enjoyed that as much as the tournament.

I loved seeing these cousins becoming friends.

Oooh I forgot to talk about this one! Andrew and I started planning an escape room style game back in December for everyone to do at the reunion. We enjoyed the challenge of thinking of puzzles, clues, and ways to unlock things. We made it really specific to my family by including old house numbers, people's high school mascots, birthdays, and other trivia about our family. It was so fun (and sometimes difficult) to watch everyone puzzle through it. They had to find clues in an old, burned letter, find a way to pop balloons stuck to the balcony, unlock adamantium shears to cut through vibranium chains, connect all the pieces of a QR code, find a key in a roll, and solve a crossword. I was cracking up while they examined a watermelon we brought for dinner and plugged in the numbers on its sticker to a padlock. I beamed while they stared at papers with "random" numbers on them until someone said, "wait, these are addresses!" And I sat slightly stunned and giggly while they breezed through my family trivia crossword. Totally worth all the effort.

Running in the Rockies is just a million times better than running in my neighborhood. I might've struggled up the hills, but the smell, the aspens, and the views made it still the best.

Before I knew it, it was time to say good-bye and head off toward Idaho for the next leg of our road trip. I think the next reunion will have to be just a little bit longer and definitely not seven years away.

Oh, and here are the pictures from our family photo session. They turned out amazing! If you're in Colorado (especially the Colorado Springs area) Steve Willis is your guy.