Day Five...

Whew. Day Five. We weren't sure what to expect when we headed for North Pole, Colorado...home of Santa's Workshop. We figured perhaps we'd spend a couple of hours before heading north again. We ended up spending more than six hours there...and enjoying every minute. Let me explain. Santa's Workshop has rides (from kiddie style to big kid fun)...reasonably priced food...specialty gift shops (a boy's shop, a girl's shop, a candy shop, a Christmas shop, etc.)...an actual North "Pole"...and a live Santa to visit year-round. Add to that the fact that the weather was pleasantly overcast for a change so we didn't need to tote drinks with us the entire time, and you've got one rockin' day.

Obviously, the boys loved the rides. That's a given. Not all rides were created equal, though. Rides like this:

were quite popular with the boys...where they got to just sit and ride around in circles and push buttons that made obnoxious noises while pretending to steer. :) Here's another:

Yup, all three loved stuff like that. Asher, however, was the only one willing to ride the "bigger" rides with Nathan:

Aside from this one, they also rode the Tilt a Whirl and some Dive Bomber ride. Noah and I agreed that so much spinning quickly in circles (and at great heights in two of the cases) wasn't our idea of fun. (Micah, too, obviously.) But Asher loved being the "brave" one and totally delighted in his own exuberance all day. Seriously, the kid had a permanent smile. :) It was beautiful.

In the end, we managed to convince Noah to ride the little Sky Ride with us (basically like a ski lift/gondola sort of nice sedate ride not terribly high off the ground but still definitely aerial)...though I had to promise to keep my arm across him the entire time in addition to the safety bar. That was cool. But we simply couldn't budge him in his refusal to ride the Ferris Wheel. It's the highest Ferris Wheel in the world (elevation about 7500 feet). Micah loved it. It was one of his favorites of the day and one of the few rides that we went on more than once. Here are Micah and Nathan's legs below Asher and I (there's an empty and covered seat between us):

Lots more pictures of rides...but that's enough for now. :) After we'd made sure to hit all the rides we wanted to get to, we turned our attention to some shopping (in the Boy's Shop and the Candy Shop, of course) before departing as they were closing for the day. Yup, spent all day there. Before we left, though, we were sure to get this picture:

The boys had just come out of the Candy Shop (note the suckers, which Micah had chomped and finished before we hurried to the exit)...imagine Noah's surprise when he went to lean against the pole only to discover it's actually made of ice! Truly. Very cool. :)

And that's our vacation in a nutshell. Plenty more to say about it, but if I put it all here I won't get the pictures and journaling prepped for the crop I'm going to this Saturday with some friends. ;) Will need to get to work on that if I'm going to get the most pages done, eh?

Days Three & Four...

Days Three. Let's see. Where were we? Ah. Yes. On Day three we opted for a more low key day. We started in the Money Museum where the boys learned the word "numismatist" (coin collector). To be honest, we were rather taken by surprise by the extent of the collection and exhibits. The boys had fun searching for questions and finding answers to earn their "prize" at the end (a cool coin from Tanzania) but weren't as interested as Nathan and I in actually looking at everything...hence, we didn't see everything. :) We did, though, see a fabulous collection of gold coins (which was pretty amazing...at least a couple were worth millions!), some of the simply stunning medallion exhibit (seriously could spend a lot of time just looking at all of these...it was like a miniature art gallery), and the fun exhibit on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly featuring coins of different world leaders (be they good, bad or ugly...kinda funny and cool all at the same time). In the medallion exhibit, Asher thought this one looked like Dr. Doom from the Fantastic Four:

After the Money Museum, we headed to the Olympic Training Complex . We had a quick picnic lunch on the grounds (complete with an overly tame squirrel that the boys chased afterward) and took a tour of the facilities. I don't know that the boys were as impressed by everything, but I'm hopeful that having this experience will help them put things in perspective better when the Olympics start in a little over a week. The pool, for instance, impressed Noah who'd watched a good bit of the Olympic trials for swimming. He was able to put the two together and see that this is where the athletes train for that. The indoor shooting area was amazing, in that we were able to see the actual targets that these athletes shoot at...dude, that's incredible. In any case, one of the highlights to the boys was having this picture taken out front:

After all that, we decided to take a break from our daily swimming and went to see "Wall-E" in the theater instead. The boys were resistant at first (they're not huge theater fans...the scale freaks them out a bit) but, as expected, adored the movie and want to see it again (and again and again). I had to totally laugh at Micah, though. I was sitting next to him and throughout the whole movie he thought the girl robot's name was Evil (it's Eve) and kept shouting at her...pretty darn cute.

Day Four. The next day was much more full. We started early at Seven Falls. Managed to snag a pretty good parking spot so that we didn't have too far to hike to get to the main attraction. We took the elevator up to a viewing area (and pressed more pennies while we were up there) then headed down to actually climb to the top of the falls. Now, first of all, these falls were a bit low on water and less impressive than I'd hoped...but the boys, having not seen as many real waterfalls, thought they were awesome. Secondly, yes, it was a bit daring for us to attempt the climb with a two year old and a 7 year old who proclaims himself afraid of heights. But climb we did, and we made it just fine, though Nathan did end up carrying Micah part of the way. Not sure you can see all the 224 steps to the top of the falls here (this shot is taken from the observation deck at the top of the elevator), but I have enough depth perception issues that putting the camera away and concentrating on climbing were top priority. :)

At the top, we followed a little trail to another waterfall. The hike was nice:

Then, as inevitably happens, we had to climb back down those 224 narrow and steep stairs. That took longer than going up and Nathan ended up carrying Micah the whole way down, as I led the other two slowly. Handrails are our friends. :)

We did the picnic lunch thing just outside of Seven Falls then headed for Cave of the Winds. Our timing was great, btw. We left Seven Falls just as it was getting pretty busy and hot and arrived at Cave of the Winds in time to take cover inside the caves to miss getting soaked by the afternoon thunderstorm. Inside the cave, photography was obviously trickier but I managed to get this shot before our tour really got off and going:

Micah decided to become Mr. Independent inside the caves...insisting on walking on his own much of the way. So we were at the tail end of our tour and didn't hear as many of the details. But the boys liked it. So that was good. :) Back outside the cave, the storm now over, the boys discovered this fun activity:

Each of them purchased these bags of dirt/gravel that had a bunch of cool rocks/gems mixed in. They dumped the bags into these trays, washed the dirt away and collected their loot. It took a few trays to complete each bag and this was heaps better than the panning for gold, as they were assured a good outcome and got to keep the products of their labor. Noah loved it so much he splurged and bought himself a second bag. :) Good times.

Unfortunately, the evening laser show at Cave of the Winds that we'd planned on going to was canceled that night due to technical difficulties. The boys were pretty bummed, but the bags of rocks and the last night of swimming seemed to make up for it. 

So. Those were our third and fourth days. I'll wrap up our trip next time...

Days One & Two...

Decided to break up the vacation photos a bit, so as not to make a mega-huge post. :) So. On Day One, we loaded up the ol' minivan and headed south for Colorado Springs. After a stop for lunch, we hit our first destination...the Western Museum of Mining and Industry. It wasn't a huge attraction or anything, but the boys were impressed by the big machinery and the allure of panning for gold (which, after seeing it done, they decided they weren't interested in as it looked "too hard" LOL). We did the inside tour first (which was pretty cool actually...very informative and they actually operated a number of the machines) then headed outdoors to wander...

Nathan and the boys enjoyed pushing this old grinder thing (yes, it has a real name...Nathan's not here right now to remind me what that is). Before we left, we stopped at the first of many Penny Presses:

By the end of the trip, we'd made 26 pressed pennies. The boys plan to add them to their little mini albums and I'll likely find a way to use them on scrapbook layouts, too. :) Gotta remember to take some rolls of quarters on our next trip, though.

After the mining museum, we headed for our hotel, checked in and found the pools...opted for the indoor pool the first day because it was shallower and was right next to the hot tub. ;) Found a local restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs for dinner then grabbed some groceries for the next day (lunch and drinks and ice for the cooler).

Day Two. We got up early (for us) in an attempt to beat the heat and headed for the Garden of the Gods. Beautiful. A bit small scale, really, if you've been to places like Arches National Park and Zion and the like, but a great introduction for the boys. They particularly liked the Three Graces:

And all three boys took turns pretending to hold up Balanced Rock (here's Micah):

After Balanced Rock, we visited the "award winning" gift shop. (Btw, we decided ahead of time to try to avoid the inevitable begging for toys and money by giving each boy an allowance each day...it was interesting, though not surprising, to see how they handled their money...Noah hoarded it pretty much, buying minimal things each day and then splurging a bit on Day Five...Asher would happily have spent it all every day if we hadn't reminded him that Noah was saving his and that we didn't want to hear any complaining when Noah had a lot to spend and he didn't...course, Asher still managed to spend a nice bit each day and have fun doing so...Micah pretty much followed Asher's lead.) The boys made more pressed pennies but opted not to buy anything since we had another stop...

So, then we headed to Peterson Air Force base. We had to call ahead of time (last week) to get permission to enter the base and give them our identification information and all, but it was worth it. When we arrived, we had to get a special pass and have our ID checked again. Then we proceeded onto the base and to the Peterson Air & Space Museum. We had a nice little picnic lunch and then headed inside for what turned out to be a private tour. Our awesome guide, Jim Bowden, was a wealth of stories and knowledge and led us through the main terminal and hangar then let us wander the outside exhibits. In the hangar, we got to go inside an ICBM Mission control area (I make no promises that I actually know what I'm talking about here...I'm sure I'm getting terminology wrong) where people trained for launching missiles. It was quite interesting and a bit scary how much responsibility and power those people had. The boys just liked all the buttons and didn't really "get" what it was about:

Outside with the planes, though, the boys were in their element. Nathan, Noah and Asher went from plane to plane examining more of those things I don't know the names of but that they all do. Micah, more at my speed, opted for pretending to *be* a plane and come in for a landing:

Upon the suggestion of our guide, we found this perfect spot for dinner...a restaurant where seating is inside an actual plane. Micah was a bit worried that we were going to take off, but the other two thoroughly loved it. We sat in a booth by that window just below the "T" overlooking the wing:

And then we swam (tried the outdoor pool that night...sticking in the kiddie pool and having fun with torpedo toys in the dark) and crashed. And that's the first two days of our vacation in a nutshell and minus the many other pictures I have. :)

Oh. And, yes, we made tie dye shirts for all three boys for all five days. We got a LOT of comments on the shirts and didn't have any trouble keeping track of them in the crowds. :) 

More coming soon...

Did ya miss me?

Well, we got home from vacation last night around bedtime. Whew. Wowzers...what an awesome week!! We seriously had tremendous heaps of fun and it was so exactly what we needed and just wow. Obviously I have tons of pictures to sort through and I'll share some of them along with stories...give me a bit, though, okay? :) In the meantime, here are a handful of layouts I've done for PRISM for this year's CHA shows (CHA is an industry trade show)...finally getting around to sharing:

On this first one, I was having fun playing with printing digital brushes directly onto cardstock and then coloring with chalk pencils. Fun! (This one, btw, was for the winter show back in February. I was and still am totally in love with this new green!)

Here's another from the winter show...pretty simple. I was just playing around with torn paper for the title. I love how substantial Prism paper is, yet how easily I can mess with it!

(Sorry. Image removed for publication purposes.)

Okay, this one is one of my all time favorites! It was also for the winter show and features some of the special Prism Mirri paper. The pictures don't really do it justice. Imagine a mirror. That's what this paper is like. Stinkin' cool. I played around with some heat embossing on top of the silver and love how it came out...part with white embossing powder and part with clear, using this great pattern stamp by Cornish Heritage Farms...cool! Oh! That white-ish strip between the silver and the red is one of Prism's fun embossed papers. I don't remember the name of this pattern off the top of my head but it's beautiful and oh so versatile. I can easily see using this on wedding invites or (as here) fun boy truck pages!

This is from the most recent show (last weekend) and features some of the cool new Prism Seaside line! Love the texture!! (and it comes in many colors)

Again, more Seaside paper. This time I played with stamping some of these fun Hero Arts leaves and then heat embossing with clear embossing powder. I also crumpled the paper like leaves and popped it up with foam dots. :) 

Okay. Off to sort through photos now. I'm so excited to scrap these all...going to a crop this weekend and am setting myself the goal of finishing this album. The boys are already anxious to see it so they can relive all their favorites. I may have to make some small albums just for them so they don't constantly take mine. :) Actually, though, they started their own during our trip...each night they wrote out what their favorite part of the day was and, in some cases, added some memorabilia collected during the day. Will work on finishing those this week with them and adding pictures. Yay!

Another layout to share...

Finished my June 2008 Album in a Year layout last night and wanted to share:

 

Have I mentioned how much fun I've been having with working from these sketches? So quick and easy! Have you been keeping up with your Album in a Year? :)