While the kids are away, the parents will play

Estes Park, CO

Today was a great day in the Rockies. The kids checked out the YMCA day camp where Jared works. Jared actually works only with the local kids, Kindergarten and 1st grade ages. Our kids were in the program for visitors. Chloe was a "Pioneer" and spent her day playing games, swimming, doing crafts, learning magic tricks, and just having a great time! Leah was a "Mountaineer" and did a high ropes course, a short zip line, played games, sang songs, and also had lots of fun! Seth was an "Adventurer" and went mountain biking in the morning and zip-lining on a 750-foot zip line twice in the afternoon. Although he loved the zip line, and said the mountain biking was "okay," he has had no experience in mountain biking and therefore took many spills (some over the handlebars) and was quite scraped and bruised by the time he finished.

Tom and I had a quiet day to ourselves--a rare occurrence on this vacation! We headed over to RMNP and took a nice long hike (5.4 miles--not bad for our first one) to "The Pool" and then on to "Fern Falls." We loved the falls, the pool (a large spot in the river), the many varieties of wildflowers, the moose we were able to watch eating lunch in a pond, and just the awesome wonder of God's creation all around us.

By late afternoon we all gathered back at the room. We ordered in pizza for the kids (including Jared), and Tom and I headed to the Pine Room (a historic restaurant with prime rib buffet at the YMCA) for dinner, after stopping by Barb and Fred's room to wish Shanna a happy birthday and to say good-bye to their gang before they head off tomorrow. After dinner we met the kids at a Christian illusionist show here at the Y, before calling it a night.