A sighting of a baby moose, a beautiful day, and a great hike with the family!

I was excited to see this moose driving to our hike.  Luckily, we saw it leaving too because none of my pictures even resembled a moose until later in the day.  This is a better picture but not by much!

The hike was quite a ways uphill and we never actually made it to Lookout Mountain (that was never the plan with the two small kiddo's along). 

 

 We passes this mining area on the way up.

 We turned around at a split off for multiple trails and had lunch there.

 Overall, it was a great hike for the Thanksgiving day weekend with the family.

Hike: Lookout Mountain (Larimer County)
Trails Used: 

Distance: 5.6 miles

Difficulty: Moderate
Overall average: 1.3 mph
Overall Time: 4 hrs, 13 mins
Total Ascent: 2382 ft.

A visit to the High Park Fire burn area

 

We got invited up to some peoples cabin this weekend that they had built by hand.  It was located up Rist Canyon down Old Flowers Road.  We hadn't been in this area since the big fire this summer so it was interesting to see how the flames moved and left some areas virtually untouched.  Luckily, their cabin was slurried otherwise it would no longer be here.  

 

We took a nice walk through the surrounding meadow (recovered) and the burnt forest area (this will take a long time to recover).  The trees were blistered and spotted and cast cool shadows on the forest floor.

 

The jeep even got to do some 'real' jeep work.  The picture doesn't look like much but the kid's were having a blast in the back seat!

Happy Halloween!

 I had fun taking pictures of the kids this week.  I wanted to see how spooky and moody I could make the photos!

 I liked the ghost effect on these of them moving through the shot.

Garbage Can & Recyling Bin Cake for Son's Birthday

My son doesn't like my typical chocolate and sea foam cake (usually without gummy worms and crushed Oreo's)

 

that my family has been having for years.  I'm bummed!  I love this cake, however, I realized it was not my birthday so I needed to make a cake just for him.  This year he asked for a garbage can.  I was pretty excited to try something new and different.  First, I baked the cake then cut to fit the top layers, and finally spooned out the insides to allow for ice cream later.

 I had a lot of extra pieces left over.

The next step was to frost the garbage can and recycling bin.  I did this obnoxious turquoise color since it matches our garbage cans!

 

 I filled the bins with two different types of ice cream.

 The garbage can was topped with a lid and given some 'garbage' (yogurt covered pretzels and gummy worms).  The last step was adding the licorice recycling symbol.

 Add some candles and you are ready to go!

 The hardest step was figuring out how to cut this monstrosity!

 Overall, I think the cake project turned out pretty good and tasted great.  Now I need to get ready for whatever is coming my way for the next birthday!

I couldn't resist a little crayon art!

I saw this on Pinterest a couple of months ago and finally got around to making it.  I'm so glad I did. I love how it turned out.  It was a cheap, easy project.  What more could you want?  I laid out the crayons first to see roughly how it was going to look.

 After gluing the crayons on I melted them one way then the other with my hairdryer on low.  The kids are excited to try their own version!

This was the perfect complement to their new 'art display' area.

Now if only I can stay off of Pinterest for awhile...I don't need any more projects and everything on there looks so cool!

Steam Train, toot tooootttt.....

We had fun this past weekend riding a steam train (One of only 90 ever built) in a friend's backyard.  How many people do you know who would have a backyard big enough in Colorado for a steam train?  We now know one couple.  This was a great experience for the kids to see how they get the train ready to run.  They built a fire inside first

then once it was warm enough they threw in the coal to create the steam.

 

Oh, the places you'll go...

 

 

 

 Of course, no train would be complete without a bridge to go over a tunnel to go through!

A little goes a long way when you've been dying for snow!

 

My little girl was eagerly anticipating the predicted snowfall that fell this morning.  Unfortunately it didn't do much more than lightly cover the ground.

 

She didn't let that stop her.  I had to go searching and then climbing in our garage to find our sleds.  I admit I even took a ride or two.

 

 Notice the dress, tights, and boots:  one must always be sensibly dressed to frolic in the snow!

Fall colors and cooler weather...our last camping trip of the year

Cool, crisp mornings and warm, slow afternoons make for a great camping weekend.  We headed up to the Lyons/Allenspark area to do some camping/hiking/biking.  We stayed at Camp Dick campground.  Luckily, we made it there around 2:30-3 in the afternoon on Friday and got the second to last campsite available (you weren't allowed to reserve spots after a certain time).  We were stuck out in the grassy, open area instead of nestled in some of the 'better' campsites but it ended up working out for us.  The sun in the morning helped warm us up and the sun in the late afternoon kept us warm as it started to get cool. 

We started Saturday morning out with a nice family hike.  The views were nice

and the Aspen were in full fall color.

 

 

We tried to show the kids how the GPS works and to use landmarks to keep track of where they are. 

 We saw these cool caterpillars all over the area this weekend.

I liked how wiggly this guy was.  It's hard to believe he was moving fast enough to create camera blur.

 

Hike: Sourdough Trail Cut-off to Beaver Reservoir

Trails Used:  Sourdough Trail Cut-off

Distance: 4.94 miles

Difficulty: Moderate
Overall average: 1.5 mph
Overall Time: 3 hrs, 17 mins
Total Ascent: 1529 ft.

 

 We went on a small hike in the afternoon along the river (Middle St. Vrain) and found some neat rocks and these cool, overturned trees.

 The cousins showed up Saturday night for a quick camp experience.

 

The kids had fun collecting 'wheat', and building their own campfire rings.  We went for another hike Sunday morning down Buchanan Pass Trailhead to Timberline Falls.  The kids had a great time trying to capture the falling leaves and shaking all the Aspen trees.

 Luckily he didn't fall in...but he did lose his sunglasses!

Hike: Timberline Falls

Trails Used:  Buchanan Pass Trail head to Timberline Falls

Distance: 4.82 miles

Difficulty: Easy
Overall average: 1.5 mph
Overall Time: 3 hrs, 16 mins
Total Ascent: 1281 ft.