A Week in Beaver Creek! (Part One)

In June, we were treated to a week in Beaver Creek, Colorado with Jeff’s family.  It was an amazing, relaxing, wonderful week and of course I have tons of pictures and memories  to share. 

In the months leading up to our trip, Jeff and I had been telling the kids how beautiful it would be in Colorado.  When our airplane landed, Ben looked out the airplane window (at the concrete tarmac), sighed, and said to me “I just thought it would be more beautiful.”  Haha!  I guess he was expecting Colorado to bring the beauty from the moment the plane’s wheels touched down! 

After a few hours of running around getting our rental cars, going grocery shopping for  weeks worth of supplies and a few other stops, we were ready to head to the mountains and finally convince Ben that we weren’t a bunch of liars.  This was my first trip to the mountains of Colorado and I have to say that it was even more beautiful than I was expecting.  They had an extra snowy winter, so even though it was mid-June we were still able to see snowcapped mountains and pretty waterfalls formed by the melting snow rushing down the mountain were plentiful on the drive up to Beaver Creek.  The kids and I were loving the scenery and Katie enjoyed a bit of it too when she could take her eyes off the crazy mountain roads for a second.  Mountain driving is not for newbies or the faint of heart! 

We got to our condo super late on Saturday and after a little fiasco trying to figure out where to pick up the keys, it was straight to bed!  Sunday we decided to head over to see Vail and check out the Farmer’s Market/Art Fair there. 

The kids tried on some silly hats.

They were both still a little worn out from the day before and there was a fight over who would get to ride in the stroller.  As you can see they did not like my suggestion that they both ride in there double-decker style.

They managed to cheer up enough for pic with mommy.

And we really got them smiling again with a ride on this little train.

The following day was overcast and drizzly so we used it to explore Beaver Creek.  They have a great little Village area with shops, restaurants, and even a year-round ice rink. 

The next day was Janet’s Birthday!  The weather was nice so we did a little swimming and afterwards Grandma Janet painted Hallie’s toes.  It was her first time having them painted and she thought it was pretty cool!  She now likes her toes to be painted all the time.  Such a girly girl!

That night we celebrated Janet’s birthday with a barbeque at the condo.  Jeff and Chris missed the cookout but arrived just in time to wish Janet a happy birthday before the clock struck midnight.

Now that the whole gang was present, we could start the fun activities!  First on the agenda was white water rafting……okay white water floating.  We wanted the kids to be able to come along (and most of us adults are wusses anyway) so we booked a low-key ride with only small rapids. 

Ever the Erdall way, we had to keep the trip interesting.  Hallie got puking sick in the middle of  the night before the rapids trip, but she woke up with lots of energy, a smile on her face and even ate breakfast.  We thought about keeping her home with one of us, but decided to chance it and hopped on the shuttle and headed to the rafting place to get fitted for gear.  Since we were taking such a low-key ride, helmets were not required, but as you can see, Ben insisted he wear one.  He thought he looked awesome.

After getting suited up, we had about a 40 minute shuttle bus ride to the place where we would put the raft in.  This is when things got interesting.  Hallie sat in the back with Jeff and Ben and all of the sudden I hear coughing and smell vomit.  Uh oh.  Jeff’s shirt and shorts were covered in yuck, Ben was horrified, and poor Hallie looked like she felt terrible.  Jeff and I learned that cleaning up that kind of mess with napkins and baby wipes is not exactly an ideal situation and also received some not so nice looks from our fellow shuttle riders (as if we had planned this and were enjoying the puke smell).

When we got to the raft site, Hallie was feeling better and wanted to go on the boat.  I seriously considered staying on the bus with her but she insisted she was fine so we took along some plastic cups and hoped for the best.  She really was fine this time and the ride (and the rest of the trip) was puke-free and awesome! 

The ride was perfect for the kids – and for us - with enough rapids to keep us entertained but nothing so crazy that we might be flying out of the boat.  Ben loved the rapids and said  “whoa, oooo, ooooo, ooooo, oooo” the entire time we were going over them.  We were rafting on the Upper Colorado and the scenery was a little bit more desert like than the lush areas of the resort but we had some nice eye candy in the back of the boat thanks to our raft guide Erik.    Sorry ladies but I have no pics of him to share, but here are some of us!

Group pic before we got on the raft.  Notice Jeff is shirtless.  He washed off in the river before we got on, but there was no saving that thing. 

On the water! 

The rafting trip was so much fun and was probably my favorite part of the trip.  If you ever have the chance to go on a low-key rafting trip, say YES!  Even if you have to bring a pukey toddler along with you!  :)  If you are near Vail/Beaver Creek, check out Lakota Guides.  We did the rafting trip with them and also a cool vehicle tour (coming in part 2 of this post) and both trips were great!  They also take pics for you while you are on the trip – you can check out some of us and the other groups who rafted with us here:  http://lakotaguides.smugmug.com/Rafting2011/Upper-Colorado-6-22-2011/17693035_4KB7wN#1349749424_B5ZGgvM  if you want.

Later that night, we went to a dinner at a fancy pants restaurant in the Beaver Creek Village to celebrate Janet’s birthday again now that we had the whole group together.  I snapped this cute pic of Katie and Janet while we were there.

Okay, that’s it for Part One.  Coming in part two:  our vehicle tour (wait until you see the thing we rode in!), swimming pics, and pics from our gondola ride & the top of the mountain in Vail!