Four Is Enough For Us: Trip to Estes Park with Amanda and Lauren

Earlier this year, my bestie (we were college roommates for 3 years!), Amanda, asked if I wanted to run a half marathon with her in Estes Park this summer. I'm always up for new races so I was definitely in!

She has a daughter about 20 months older than Isaac, named Lauren. Isaac and Lauren have never really met since Isaac was a baby, so he HAD to come with me so they could play together!

We spent the majority of time in Estes Park. When I was growing up, my family went to Colorado nearly every summer/winter, and often we went to Estes Park, so this trip brought back so many fun memories.

We stayed in an awesome 2 BR townhouse/condo just a few minutes from downtown Estes, so it was the perfect location. There was a small park next to the condo that Isaac/Lauren loved and we cooked many meals there which was so great with kids as well! Bryce and I have since talked about taking a family vacay to Estes maybe next summer, if so we will definitely stay there!

Here are some phone pics from the trip. Thanks, Amanda and Lauren, for being such great hostesses to us! We had so much fun!

At the airport, riding the train to the terminal. Love him!

On the plane with my little travel buddy! He was so good!

Apple juice and Frozen. What could be better?

Amanda and Lauren were waiting for us at the Denver airport, then we were off!

With a 6 am flight leaving Washington, Isaac didn't last long when we got toe Denver.

Riding the giraffe at the grocery store.

Driving up to Estes Park (about an hour from Denver)

First morning in Estes has to start with yummy donuts!

Doing some shopping and trying on silly hats.

I remember riding these slides when I was probably less than 10 years old. Brought back so many memories and we had had a great time making some new ones!

Isaac giving his stinker smile. Silly kid wouldn't smile normal.

Amanda and Lauren on the slides.

The employee working at the top told us the blue slide was the fastest... so of course thats the one we went on first!

Next up was the go-karts. I think this was Isaac's favorite!

We had the Cheerios car.

We rounded out with the bumper boats.

We were hiding from the water sprayers on the other boats. See Amanda and Lauren in the background!

We went on lots of "bear hunts". This was the closest one we found (which was probably a good thing). :)

Isaac picked out a small hedgehog from a store and named him "Hedgey". Hedgey went ev-er-y-where with us.

The night before the half marathon, some of Amanda's friends drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park and camped that night. They had us come out to their campsite and made us dinner and smores. Yum!

View from their campsite

Making s'mores. It was getting to be dusk and we (okay, maybe just me), were freezing! The fire helped. :)

Amanda and I before the race. It started at 6am was only about 42 deg. It may not look like it in this picture, but we were freeeeezing! Amanda's friends that were camping watched the kids for us during the race. So nice!

Generally, I finish in the top ~20% of the field in races. At 8,000 ft elevation (with 500' elevation climb from miles 6-10), I had to reset my expectations. It was humbling to be light headed and nauseous on the side of the course at mile 4. Despite the (very) difficult elevation challenges, the course was beautiful and I would do it again.

View from ~mile 11. Thankfully the last few miles were downhill.

The medals were awesome! We were all signed up as a team together for Amanda's employer and our team came in 3rd! We all received a bronze medal of the same/size and shape. Awesome!