Last day of vacation

We enjoyed our last day in Telluride by spending the morning riding the Gondola....  Matthew's request.  He just loves the "up up".   After a leisurely morning the boys took a nap and I went shopping on main street.  Then we spent the afternoon at some nearby lakes.  I wish we had my parents new CRV as he dirt 2 tracks to the lacks were less than smooth but our little Carola did just fine.

View on the way up to Alta Lake

Beaver swimming in one of the Alta lakes

Notice our car along the lake. 

Matthew had to be like Daddy and take his shirt off. 

There were wild flowers everywhere... I'll spare you all the photos I took of them. 

One side of the lake

1...2...3 and in they went... BRRRRR!

We hiked up to another lake and ate a snack while watching the afternoon storms roll in. 

Matthew loved watching the chipmunks run around and feeding them cookies. 

Matthew enjoys the view... what you can't see in this is there is a lake right in front of us. 

We had to play with the car a bit before driving to the next lake. 

In route to Trout lake we passed a family of Marmots.  They let us get really close.  Matthew absolutely loved them and the babies were very cute!

Mama Marmot.

Mama Marmot up close

Papa Marmot keeps a look out. 

The three babies kept peeking out.  I didn't zoom in on this... I was really this close. 

One last shot of Papa Marmot. 

Pretty view of mountains around Trout lake

The color doesn't come through in the pictures but they are so red. 

Its just too pretty for words!

Trout Lake

Sadly, tomorrow we will drive back home to Fort Collins.... Boo Hoo!  It was a great vacation!

If at first you don't succeed....try, try, again

Yesterday we tried to drive to some pretty lakes in the mountains but I took a wrong turn and we drove for an hour before realizing it.  After a big fight over whose fault it was we just drove the two hours back to Telluride and played in the pool for the afternoon.  At least the drive was pretty though.  Today we tried it again and this time I didn't miss the turn!  The picture quality is not great as I was shooting through dirty car windows most of the time - sorry!

Matthew is still dragging one of my hiking poles with him EVERYWHERE he goes.   He wold prefer to have both of them but we finally compromised with him and let him take one. 

We are headed out to find the lake - view abound on the way. 

More pretty views

And more amazing views!

Everywhere I looked it was just amazing... the pictures don't do it justice. 

We headed off down into this valley along the "Million Dollar Highway" in to the San Juan Mountains.  I must admit - this highway has some of the most spectacular landscape I have ever seen... and I've been to a lot of places.  

We forgot a "binky" so nap time did not exist during the drive... why he refuses to sleep with out one...agh... this is a picture of the screaming child taken in a mirror.  We eventually took to letting him suck on peppermint candy's just to make him stop screaming.  

More Pretty

Not a great shot of the mountains but the red color was AMAZING!!

More pretty!

We stopped at one point to hike down to a stream to play for a bit .... Notice Matthew's expression when he is excited and having fun.... Very serious... just like daddy!

The Creek - I'm standing in it for the picture... it was so clear and cold!  loved it!

After going swimming, Alex warmed Matthew up and we watched the fish and skipped rocks.  Good Family Fun!

We stopped in Silverton for lunch - I lost my iPhone and we spent an hour trying to find it - gave up and then I found it under the passenger seat 6 hours later. UGH!

And finally we made it to lake Molas.  By then Matthew was completely exhausted and passed out asleep in the car.  So Alex and I sat on a rock on the sore and soaked our feet.  I wished more than anything Matthew was awake as it was the prefect place to swim and play... alas, we had some nice quite time at least. 

On the way home Matthew had had it with all of the time in the Car.  He had a 30 minute tantrum of the loudest screaming I have heard yet.  So when we got back to Telluride and he wanted to keep his shirt on to shower... well, I couldn't bare to hear any more screaming, so he showered with his shirt on.  The evening got messier when we had to finally break down and give poor Matthew an enema... lets just say it got really messy.   Oh the joys of parenthood.   After the long day we went out for pizza and a stroll down Main street.  What a fantastic day!

Beautiful Hike

Alex and I took Matthew on a beautiful hike today.  It was pretty strenuous (10K to 12.5K in 2.5 miles) but it wasn't the elevation gain that was the challenge.  Normally Matthew loves to go hiking and he ends up sleeping in his backpack most of time... Not today!  He refused to eat breakfast and so an hour in to the hike he had a huge fit because he was hungry.

He didn't like the way I opened the granola bar wrapper so he screamed for over 39 minutes --- all he would do is yell the word cookie.  It was actually kid of funny. 

Eventually we got him a different "cookie" to eat and he spent the next 40 minutes slowly eating it.  It was also at this point that we had realized that we had walked a mile past our trail turn off!  Ugh!

Matthew loves my hiking poles and insists on dragging them with him everywhere!

The views were so expansive and the pictures really don't do it justice!

So pretty but was hard to appreciate given that our son suddenly be afraid of bee and was now screaming "BEE!! BEE!!  NO NO NO! NO BEE!" every five seconds as we were hiking. 

Eventually he got tired of yelling and fell asleep with his face buried. 

If we weren't all sweaty and Matthew was smiling this could have been our holiday card photo.  Alas. 

more pretty

Towards the end of the hike - looking down. 

One last pretty view. 

 Overall it was a good hike but a bit emotionally exhausting!  On a side note, we got word today that Petunia will NOT be a breeder.  Something to do with her knees not being right.  She is going to be fixed and then enter formal training.  Good Luck Petunia.

Evening

We spent the afternoon today at Telluride's public library.  It has the most amazing kid room I've ever seen!  I think we may have been sitting on the floor hanging out with a big celebrity and his 4 year old but Alex and I can't quite figure out who he was.

The afternoon rain finally let up so after several hours at the library and a long family nap we all went out for lunch and then went for a swim in the pool.  We then decided to go get dinner and head up to the top of the mountain for a picnic.  It was absolutely gorgeous!

I snapped this picture of Matthew while we were waiting for our Pizza.

Beautiful!

Pretty rocks!  : )

Everything looks so much  better with sun shining on it.  This was the view from our "picnic". 

Pizza picnic at 8 at night.  Fun!