lake city 2012...part 1

Lake City, Colorado is our "place".  We save pretty much all of our vacation time to go there.  The boys talk about it every day of the year!  We just spent a week up there and a GREAT time. My parents have a 5th wheel travel trailer and take it up there in the summers.  We stay at the same campground every year.  It's got lots of grandma's and grandpa's who are missing their own grandbabies, so Parker and Grey become the camp grandchildren.  They are safe and loved and watched out for.  Our next door neighbors like to fish.  They come get the boys when it's time to clean the fish and let them "help."  Parker loves to dig around whats left.  This time, they found a barely alive worm inside one of the fish.  Is there anything better for a little boy to find?  I don't think so!  I read a book in 2 1/2 days...not a huge thing for most people, but I haven't read a book in a while, so it felt really good!  We did our fair share of relaxing...

There are 2 great parks.  One has a new playground with a dock for fishing and a baseball field, but we use it for throwing rocks in the river and perfecting our rock skipping technique. 

The other park is the city park.  Grey loves to ride this little skunk.  He calls it a chipmunk, but whatever!  When he was on his way to get on it, another kid hopped on, and he yelled, "HEY!  I was about to get on that chipmunk!!"

He's the meanest kid at the park. :)

The campground has the river running along one side.  There's a very shallow, still part that the boys can get in.  

Parker and Grey wanted to go swimming...

Think that water is cold?  They didn't last too long!

We went to the lake one afternoon for more rock skipping and a picnic lunch.  Grey found THE very hungry caterpillar on his sweatshirt.  (minus the red head)

The view from our lunch spot...

Grey pondering how hard his life is after getting in trouble for pushing Parker over a rock...

It's really, really, really tough to be 3 1/2!

We drove up to Deer Lakes (moose lakes according to Grey) in the evenings.  It's a great place to see wildlife.  The first night, we saw a mama moose with her baby and a bull moose, but of course didn't have the camera.  I didn't even have my phone.  The next time, we saw two moose.  They are young, but not young enough to need their mom anymore.  (kind of like Parker thinks he is sometimes...)

They walked right up by the truck and took their time eating and moseying around before running off and playing.  SO neat for the boys to see! 

JT hopped out of the truck to get some pictures of a beaver swimming around in his pond.  Grey was afraid it would bite his leg off and now he has a VERY BIG story that he tells about that beaver.  

When we didn't go up to the lakes in the evenings, we sat around the evening campfire stove with the "old folks".  It's Parker's favorite thing to do there.  Really.  He gets to hear a lot of stories and a lot of bull.  For a kid who's an old soul, there's nothing better!  And we get to see sunsets like this one.  Can you ask for anything better??

On the way home, we stopped at a friend's ranch in Clayton.  They had been branding and were having a crawfish boil that evening.  They boys got to swim in the swimming hole, play in the mud, get up close and personal with the horses, and see some of our favorite people in the whole world.  The only way it could've been better is if baby Mary, Liz, and Ben had been there.  It was a great way to end our week!

I'd like to think the mama is telling her baby, "Don't trust that one.  He can play kind of rough."  Ha!