Estes Park Quincy family reunion

We had our 2nd annual Quincy family reunion last weekend.  Number one priority? GET A FAMILY PICTURE!  Seriously this is the first thing we did in morning our first day there.  My mom wanted to make sure we got one and I feel the same way, pictures are what you have to look back on and remember good times.

After pictures we went to Fun City, where they in fact SELL happiness!  Quick explanation for the nerdy arcade game Dan's playing with the thing over his head.  When we were dating Dan once took me to a movie and we missed a showing so while we were waiting for the next showing he decided to play that same game... FOREVER!!!  I was so annoyed that for seriously 45 minutes I had to stand there, by myself, with no one to talk to while my boyfriend played that game, I couldn't even see his face!  He was excited to see it again and asked if I wanted to watch him play, what a smart aleck!  Sophie rode in the go cart with me and LOVED it.  She tried to mini golf but opted to jump off rocks for the most part instead.  She really enjoyed that big slide, and so did the grown ups!  We had a big race with everyone, Jonathan won.

That night we took over the game room at the condo.  It was a good time.  Well it was until my camera BROKE!!  That's right I think one of my shutters broke mid picture so the rest of my pics were half black.  I am devastated.  As soon as it happened mom said she KNEW there was a reason we needed to hurry and do a family picture!

The next morning we we drove the 2 miles to Rocky Mountain National Forest.  It was absolutely breathtaking!  Our first hike was Bear Lake, supposed to be nice and easy... well it would have been if it weren't for the 4 feet of ice crusted snow on the trail.  The weather was perfect, hard to believe that snow was still sticking around.  The girls both loved riding in the hiking back packs, thanks to Liz for letting me borrow them!  The silly Houston girls thought sandals would be a good idea to hike in... but they made it, no complaints!

After our snow hike we got some advice from a park ranger and ended up at Sprauge Lake.  Same difficulty but NO SNOW!  It was gorgeous.

In the afternoon the boys went to see Terminator (yeah I don't have to go see it now!) while the girls all went shopping, MUCH better!  Downtown Estes Park is pretty cute with little stores lining main street.  Our condo/cabins were just beautiful and so very nice inside.  We were all spoiled to eat such good food the whole time too, I enjoyed trying new recipes from my siblings.  My girls were well taken care of and hardly had a chance to complain as their every desire was fulfilled by their doting aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

The next morning a few of us "serious" hikers (rather those who can't sleep in) went on an early hike, the van left at 6:30 am.  We hiked up to Cub Lake.  The scenery was flawless and it was really fun to see SO many elk, they are every where up there and hardly skittish.  James let me borrow his camera and take some wild flower pictures.  Again the weather was perfect and Dan enjoyed discussing politics with Jason and James... Jenny joined in a bit and I tried.  I think that's about when I asked for James camera. :)

That afternoon we went to go rent bikes to ride around Lake Estes but got there 5 min too late and they wouldn't rent to us.  I got kind of nasty and said, "That's lame. Thanks for ruining our vacation!"  On my way out after they explained that even though we were there 30 min before they closed they don't like to rent anything that close to closing time.  I can be a bit of a brat.  But there was a park next door and we ended up having a fun time playing on the playground there instead.  And not just the kids either!  We all made fools of ourselves trying to do pull-ups on monkey bars (well except for some of the guys who could actually do them).  There were some pretty crazy chicken fights and Sophie enjoyed throwing rocks in the water scaring away the fish for the nearby fishers. It seems not matter where you are but who you are with to have a good time.  And we always manage to do it when we get together!

 

I'm so glad that everyone could make it out this year, it was so much fun!  I'm also very appreciative to my family for giving me their pictures afterwards it helped ease the pain of not having my own.  I love my family so much and that love just grows whenever we're together.  These folks mean the world to me.