Estes Park Trip: June 6, 2009; Day 1 (written on day 3)

First of all, Dave wanted to make sure that everyone knows that this was written on Day 3 of our trip. The first day of our trip started very, very early. We left the house at 2 a.m. and started the long drive. We met up with my mom along the way and headed north. I went to bed early the night before so that I could drive the first leg of the trip while Dave slept. We hoped that by leaving in the middle of the night that the kids would immediately go to sleep once they got in the car, but they both stayed awake for almost an hour. Tyler stayed up even longer because he was so excited to go to Colorado.

With bathroom breaks and meal breaks, the drive from our house to Estes Park took 17 hours. It was a very long day, but the kids did great. Tyler, who we only started potty training on the 1st did exceptionally well and never had an accident along the way.

Tyler was so excited to go to Colorado, but we learned that he doesn’t realize that there is a state of Colorado and that we were only in Colorado if we were up in the snow. We decided to quit fighting that battle and just go with it.

We arrived at the YMCA campus in Estes Park around 8:00 central time and checked into our cabin. We had requested a couple of cabins that we had scoped out the previous year, but ended up with a cabin on the other side of the campus. We were a little disappointed at first, but it turned out to be just fine. The kids were so excited to finally be out of the car that they ran around the cabin like crazy. They also slept really well that nightJ

This year, since my mom came with us, we got a three bedroom cabin. It was a huge difference from last year when we stayed in the 2 bedroom basic cabin. Dave and I did the math and our cabin last year would fit in the living area of this cabin.