Trip to the Springs

The kids and I decided to join Luke on one of his weekly visits down to Colorado Springs. The kids absolutely love adventures and staying in a new hotel is one of their favorite things! The way they squealed when they saw that our hotel had an elevator was hilarious. We could have spent all day running up the stairs and riding the elevator back down.

And then of course sleeping in a new bed is always exciting! The kids were giggling in their beds well past bedtime:

For our first full day in the Springs we met up with a friend at America the Beautiful park. The last time we went here Jack was just one year old.

Jack at America the Beautiful in 2009

Jack four years later

 The kids had a blast playing in the water even though it was freezing!

 One they were shivering and blue in the lips we decided to move over to the park to play

Then we visited Luke at work and Jack got to sit in Luke's chair:

That evening I decided that I wanted to try the incline. In case you don't know, the incline is pretty famous in the Springs. It is the remains of a former incline railway and is about one mile long with an elevation gain of about 2,000 ft. It is pretty much like walking steps straight up the mountain. Even though we lived there for 2 years, I never tried the incline. I had always heard horror stories about it and never had a desire to try it... until now. Apparently, most first timers take 60-90 minutes to complete the incline. Since I felt like I was in pretty good shape I told Luke to give me an hour. So he dropped me off at the trailhead and then he took the kids to get dinner. To my surprise, I made it up the incline in 37 minutes. Woohooo! Guess all the running finally paid off.

It is so steep you can't even see the trail.
It looks like it just drops off the side
of the mountain.

The next day we drove to check out our house and then we visited Garden of the Gods.

After that, we met up with our friends that we met while living in Switzerland who are now back in Colorado Springs. We took all the kids to a local bounce place and they had a great time together. We even discovered this really cool roller coaster toy:

Lily and Jack reunited with Izzy and Sabrina. 

It was a fun trip and great to see old friends again!