This year my family rented out cabins at the highest functioning city in the United States, Alma Colorado. It's basically the top of the rockies. It was BEAUTIFUL!
We started our trip Wednesday evening and drove to Grand Junction to stay the night. We didn't get there until 1 pm, so we were extremely grateful that we had a hotel room to sleep in. We had breakfast the next morning with my mom, Kortni, Jori, and Carson. (they stayed the night in Grand Junction as well). The boys thought it would be cool to pretend to have a professional breakfast.
We rested for a bit before check-out and then headed up the road again. We did end up stopping to let me walk a bit and use the bathroom.
Dawson thought it was cool to see if we could make our feet touch the tracks with the camera. He totally has my legs- lol!
We were so excited to almost be there, be away from home, be in the mountains, and with family.
We stopped for a good 30 minutes to let Dawson stretch his legs too, which he loved as he climbed on the fences and showed us his mad skills.
We were the second family to arrive at the cabin behind Chad's family. We were stoked when we pulled up and saw where we would be hanging out the next few days, The Dolly Varden Ranch. It included our own personal pond and jacuzzi!
Chad's kids were already kayaking and fishing! This cabin was INCREDIBLE and HUGE! The bathrooms and showers were decked out with spa equipment and luxury.
We went kayaking....
Jaidon above and Miki and Dawson below. Dawson was a little scared in the beginning, but he soon learned that this was awesome!
We cruised around (slowly) in the paddle boats...
We fished, and fished, and fished every single day and night! Grandpa was a good help with this!
We played TONS of card games, even the little ones got involved!
Sometimes we would just hang out and chillax because we stayed up so late and played hard all day. We are a big movie family, so we were glad there was a big screen TV to satisfy our movie need. Of course, Dawson had to have his daily dose of chocolate milk as well. :-)
J.D., Sari, and Layne enjoying the good times. We have an incredibly funny family and ended up laughing so much! There was never a dull moment- honestly!
Uncle Choc getting Dax to sleep. This is a genuine moment because if you know my brother, you know that he has a hard time holding babies. He is a pretty big and strong dude, so he has a fear of the babies not liking him, being scared, but mostly he gets nervous he is going to hurt them because he's so strong and big and loves to play around with them. Once they can walk, he is usually okay to hold them. Daxon has probably seen Choc a total of 3 maybe 4 times in his life and he's just 3 here. When Daxon's mom and dad were gone he started to get tired, and I was getting him some chocolate milk. I asked him if he wanted me to hold him and he said, "No, I just want Uncle Choc too." So I handed him to Choc, and he was out. I think it made Choc feel good that he was wanted and known by the little kids.
We had a t-shirt day as well! Every sibling had a different color for their individual families to wear. Our color was tan. You can see each family by the color of shirt. The only one missing is my brother Matt. :-(
Above is the big family picture together. Below is the nieces ranging from age 19-3. (L-R: Rylee, Miki, Lyndee, Sari, Jessi, and Breslynn)
AND the nephews...who are clearly living upto the goof ball shelley boys stereotype. (L-R: James, Jaidon, Dawson, Chase, Carson, Daxon, and Layne).
Dawson's only request for the cabin was to have a party (his most favorite thing to do). He wanted a pinyata and a cake. So we made that happen. I set up a treasure hunt for the kids and the prize was the pinyata and cake. It was so much fun to watch those kids run all over the ranch finding clues. You'd think they would've gone to bed good, but the candy reversed that....
All the kids got to hit the pinyata except Sari...which means this pinyata went through 13 grandkids! James broke it in the end. Here is Dawson taking his turn. The pinyata was hand chosen by Dawson....it was such an ugly dog. lol!
Since Sari didn't get to hit the pinyata, we decided she could wear it. Thanks to Uncle Choc, the kids split up 20 WHOPPING pounds of candy!!
We also had several 4-wheelers that we all rode all over the place! J.D. even took them clear up to the top of the mountains where he found GOLD! We have had it pass a couple of tests by jewelers to see if its real and so far it is....
The rest of the time was filled with plenty of entertainment, AMAZING food, and lots of memories.
Daxon, Jori, and Sari
Jessi read books to the kids and they loved it! Here is Jessi, Breslynn and Daxon.
Here are the 3 year olds, Bressi, Daxon and Dawson.... partners in crime.
this re-iterates 'partners in crime.'
Our personal jacuzzi!
My sexy husband! I didn't know he could lift his leg this high....
Me and my little prego belly. We told our family at the cabin what the gender was. It was so much fun and Dawson loved showing off his shirt.
The old man- my awesome dad!
My awesome mother- she was so happy to have her kids all there. We really did miss Matt though. :-(
Dawson and Daxon eating their candy....such silly boys!
We monkey'd around the cabin... that's James holding Dawson up!
The kids played several games of pool
And Dawson wore his pirate costume non-stop the last 2 days. He is in love with pirates and being one. I found the hat when we went shopping in Breckenridge one day and couldn't resist. This was the topping on the cake for Dawson.
After all was said and done, we had an emotional goodbye with all the family. No one wanted to leave. Dawson cried himself to sleep....in his pirate hat.
We really had a blast. Dawson told us that he wanted to have a birthday party with just his cousins. He has dreamt of going to the cabin for month and it finally happened. He just loves family so much and I love this about him. He truly wants to be with his cousins all the time every single day.
We drove the whole way home Monday and stopped every couple of hours with Amy and her kids. That made the drive much better because Dawson could get out and play. It helped keep us awake. We can't wait for the next reunion.
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