A second honeymoon

For the first time in almost 3 years, Brad and I spent 6 glorious days and nights together WITH NO CHILDREN! We have done a couple of 1 or 2 nights away, but nothing this long or this far from our children. And I have to say they were the most wonderful 6 days of the entire year.

I love my children. I sacrifice so much of who I am and what I want for their good, their learning and growing, and their spiritual, mental and emotional development. And I just really like being with them, playing dress-up with Sammy, running to stop Caleb from playing in the toilet for the 10th time that day, and just being their mom. Most days, though, I find myself being 90% mom and about 10% wife. And with them being so young, that will continue to be a daily battle. But for 6 days, I was 100% wife, and it felt really good.


After spending a day and 1/2 with my parents, we left Bismarck and headed to Colorado. We decided to take the 14 miles scenic highway near Spearfish, SD, and it was definitely worth the drive.


Then we had a short stop in Windsor, CO with the Tomans, and then it was off to the MOUNTAINS!!! We arrived at Estes Park (the east entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park) by 8:00 a.m. (Brad woke up at 5:30 that morning at the Tomans and wanted to get up and leave right away...and I was like, "We have no children, and we're on vacation!!! Why are we getting up at 5:30!!!" "To see the mountains," was my husband's reply. A very sleepy Tina was also pretty surprised by our early departure as well.

That first day, we must have hiked 12-15 miles...most uphill several hundred feet. We started at Bear Lake and hiked to Dream Lake, Nymth Lake, and finally Emerald Lake. It took us almost 4 hours to hike up to those lakes, but definitely worth it. The above picture was from Dream Lake.


Our next stop was Alberta Falls. Again, a beautiful hike to some beautiful waterfalls...which happen to be my favorite thing to see in the mountains.


After that, we took a shuttle back up to Bear Lake, and (after getting some AWESOME advice) hiked down to Bierstadt Lake. This was one of Brad's favorite stops.


Even though I tried hard not to think about the kids, it was hard not to think about coming back with them some day. There really were quite a lot of hikes we could have done with them. Sprague Lake was a level hike that our stroller could have easily done. This lake we came back to at least 2 different times.


There really is something about mountains. Almost every vacation we have taken in our 9 years of marriage has been to either a state or national park. And even though I would love to go to the ocean or to Hawaii or on a cruise someday, there is something about God's incredible and majestic mountains that I just never get tired of.


Didn't this elk pose nicely for us?


This final picture was a Lake Irene. It was nestled behind some hills, and it was very early in the morning when we arrived there. The reflection was really amazing.