Last week while in Denver, we opted to go hiking with my sister-in-law, Rebekah, and her 5 darling children! We drove to a state park south of Denver a ways called Castlewood Canyon. It's a bit out of the way, but it's a pretty little canyon and a kid friendly place to hike. Unfortunately, when I was packing for our trip to Denver, I didn't expect it to be as cold as it was all week long! I DID pack jeans for everyone, but no long-sleeve shirts and no jackets for any of us! We ate our lunches before heading off on the hike, which turned out to be the smartest thing of the whole day! After a quick potty break, we were on our way!
All the bigger kids, ranging in age from 12 year-old Brooklyn, to our 6 year-olds Canon & Eliza, went on ahead with Paul while Rebekah and I walked along with Charlie and Jeanette, and their newly halfblind little dog, Penny. These two kiddos are so cute together!
They wanted to jump off of every rock along the trail, but that was slowing us down significantly! We met up with the big kids at this beautiful overlook. Paul is showing the boys some sort of wildlife.
They all walked ahead and we met up with them again at this stream.
It was already getting windy with dark clouds rolling over us, so the kids didn't get to play much in the creek. By the time we got much beyond this point here,
it began to rain... HARD... with HAIL!!! Carrying two little toddlers and 6 other kids in tow, it was a semi-stressful situation. The last place you want to be during a flash flood is at the bottom of a canyon. But once the hail passed and we were completely and utterly DRENCHED, we just kept walking as quickly as we could back to the top where our cars were parked. We did stop for a minute to hide from the hail and huge raindrops, but ultimately, had to keep moving. Look how miserable Charlie looks!
By the time we reached the top, it had mostly stopped raining... OF COURSE!! Here's how we looked after the drama subsided!
I know... attractive!
We were scheduled to spend the evening with my cousin, David, and his darling wife and daughter in their new home. Since the last people you want to look like a total dump in front of is Dave & Becca, we opted to spend a couple hours at Scott & Rebekah's house to get washed up and run our clothes through the wash. It was great to get to spend some more time with our cousins and Rebekah. We definitely don't get to see them often enough. It was also very nice to be clean and dry as we spent some good, quality time (as well as a delicious dinner) with Dave, Becca, and Genevieve. Despite the weather, it turned out to be a great day.
So that was our little adventure in the rain (or at least one of them... it rained on us at the Denver Zoo the day before as well). It's too bad we had to hurry so fast out of there. It really was beautiful and it would have been so nice to leisurely walk through this canyon! We'll have to schedule another hike for our boys this summer. We don't get them outdoors enough and they enjoyed it!
5 comments:
Yikes! that sounds like fun, but not fun at the same time. Glad that you got out of there safe and were able to get dried off before dinner.
that sucks!! thinking you are going to go on a relaxing and fun family outing and end up stressed and drenched at the end. at least you can probably laugh about it now eh. :)
Sounds like quite the adventure--one you will always remember. Glad you were safe.
You guys are hot! ;) We had a hike like that once...in the Uintahs! We got lost, it started to snow...3 hours later thanks to some twizzlers my nephew had accidentally dropped we realized we were walking in circles and found our way back. Those are the things that memories are made of ey? :)
I'm not sure where the concern for "not looking like a total dump" comes from, but am glad to have had you. I'm hardly worth the trouble to get spruced up, it must be Becca's perpetual neatness that drove the decision.
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