Colorado here we come...

It's official.  We'll be headed to Colorado in a few weeks to do some hiking and camping in Rocky Mountain National Park!  We did a trial run with camping this past weekend down in Shelbyville to see how the kids would like it.  We took Jeremy's Dad's boat down and met up with him, Amy, Katie, and Blake on Saturday.  We got out on the water for a little bit late Saturday and then spent all day on the boat on Sunday. 

(Ty is not sunburned here..just the red awning casting a glow on him.)

We were thrilled to see that Ty and Noelle absolutely loved the whole camping experience.  When we put the tent up, they ran around in it, giggled, laughed, fell down, twirled around and just plain had a good 'ole time.

Their favorite part was the doggie den in the back of the picture, as well as the little doggie window.  You see, we registered for this tent for our wedding..ahem...five years ago when we were into the whole "2 people + dog = perfect family".  With two kids, we know realize how disillusioned we were, and we don't hesitate to laugh at our friends who are in that stage now.  The reality is that once the kids come along, the dogs take a distant backseat to everything else, so do yourself a favor and get a tent geared towards actual people, or do one better and ditch the whole "get a dog" idea.

 :-)

At least the doggie den won't go to waste since the kids LOVE IT.  Yes, I know, you would think that we'd have opened the tent sooner than when the warranty expired, but it never happened.  I was on my deathbed the summer after we got married due to being pregnant with Noelle, the next summer I was nursing an infant and couldn't imagine breastfeeding/pumping in a tent with all the dirt, sweat, etc.  Gross.  Repeat year 1 and 2 for Ty. 

But alas, our time has come and we were so thrilled at how smoothly it all went.  With a 3 and 1 year old, you just never know what can happen.  But one thing I realized this weekend is that sometimes you just have to do it.  I'm a worrier/planner by nature, so there is always a part of me that wants things laid out 100% of the time with no surprise.  Of course, life isn't like that and I learned this weekend that you just have to let go and roll with it.  Not many people would take 2 little-littles on a 15 hour drive to camp out west, but we are.  It's doable and totally going to be worth it.

I happen to have a slight (okay, a HUGE) obsessions with National Parks and have been researching like crazy.  Can't wait to post all about it! And if all else fails, we'll just run the kids ragged until they look like the last picture here...then we'll know they'll sleep well at night :-)