Every year, more of our friends and family make the trek out to Snow Mountain Ranch, and this year is no exception.  Over the last month, a couple families have come and gone before we arrived, but we were grateful to spend the last week eating up time with the Dworchaks, Kinsellas, Hoffs, and a few other families that Chuck has taught back in Naperville.  Most of this crew was from back in Illinois, but Kimmy and Ben made the journey all the way from Thailand!  With 24 of us (13 kids and 11 adults) on many occasions, we served as a large group everywhere we went.

We arrived to an amazing campsite bordering the yurt village, which was great for us with 2 of the 3 groups staying there. 

 

There was our own little park just below our campsite,

 

and a covered pavilion with gas grills to meet in the middle for dinners. 

I think the Kinsella and Hoff kids could have just stayed in that area in the middle all week building forts and playing board games,

 

but there was fun to be had, so we kept them on the go.  Our first evening was spent saying hello to Trueman (the camp director) and staff, learning about birds of prey at the Hawkquest presentation,

followed by s’mores and mini golf. 

 

Late nights ensued as none of us wanted each day to end.

Day 2 included a great dogsled presentation with the YMCA chaplain (and we filled most of the seats!),

and the kids were able to make their own dog sleds. 

After more mini golf and a quick lunch, we enjoyed participating in a new SMR activity, ‘Lollygagging with llamas.”

 

Everyone took turns walking the llamas through the woods and trying out the string maze. 

One of our favorite places to take newcomers is the chairlift at Granby Ranch.  To our dismay, they now charge $5 for each person over 5 years of age, but after discussing what to do and the cashier negotiating a lower ‘family price’, we decided to walk all the big kids up,

and send a few adults up the lift with the littles.  We were so glad we made it work, as the views are amazing and the lift was quite the thrill for many. 

 

Snow Mountain Ranch has free s’mores almost every day, so we raced back for another sweet treat.  After dinner, we decided to take the 13 kids on a little adventure to the cave.  It was fun for awhile, but unfortunately, one of the kids was hit with a giant boulder, warranting a trip to the ER that evening.  She was so tough, and even smiled for a picture with that big rock before heading off to the hospital.

 

Day 3 was Father’s Day, and SMR celebrated with a free fishing derby.  Even though this is one of Chuck’s least favorite activities, he willingly spent the morning making it fun for the kids.  We didn’t catch anything, but it was a great way to start the day, and a testament to the kind of dad these kids have, which  is something I am thankful for daily. 

On the other hand, miniature golf is one of his favorites, so Chuck challenged the kids to a quick game before lunch. 

Steaks on the grill was a great way to celebrate before heading to the trike park,

 

followed by ice cream treats from the grandma we were all missing back home. 

Down by the craft shop, we enjoyed looking for some bugs.

Lucky for us, Chuck’s mom, sisters, and family all arrived at the ranch shortly after. 

As luck would have it, they were yurt neighbors to the Kinsellas!  It has been so nice having them enjoy one of our favorite places with us.  The kids were in a big hurry to go down to the Kiva for some roller skating (free for guests), so we raced our new arrivals off to see what this was all about. 

 

 

What a crew we had! 

We even ran into the Garloughs from Naperville.

It wasn’t hard to coax this crew out to the tennis courts for a few games of dodgeball.  Back at camp, we all made dinner over the fire, one of our favorites – pizza pie irons. 

Mary was in her groove by now, and finished off the night with cherry cobbler over the fire in her dutch oven.

By Day 4, the boys were used to running everywhere on camp, and boy are they getting fast even at altitude. 

Ethan’s cross country training log is coming along nicely!  Snow Mountain is the only place you can spend your morning painting a pony,

 

and the kids enjoyed branding our name on him. 

After a quick lunch, the whole Hoff crew enjoyed racing down the awesome summer tubing hill, free for Snow Mountain guests. 

 

As competitive as Chuck is, his family may be his match, proven during another friendly game of mini golf, also free for guests.  Free s’mores followed, including horseshoes and trying to locate a couple geocaches. 

In our first couple days here, we offered to get the geocaching program back up and running, so we continue to check to see which ones are still hidden, while others have disappeared.  Back at the campsite, we have been lucky to have a park right between the yurts and our site, which makes for fun during dinner.

Day 5 was a big day for everyone, as we spent the morning at the homestead making walking sticks,

getting a tour from Ann, our favorite guide,

and heading off property to Grand Lake.  I wasn’t sure how it was all going to work to have lunch, hike, get ice cream, and spend some time on the beach with our group of 24, but it couldn’t have gone any better.  We stopped at a favorite park in Grand Lake to eat lunch since there is lots of parking and a picnic shelter with more than enough tables for our big group. 

It was a gorgeous day, so heading off for an afternoon hike was little risk with endless blue sky.  One of our favorite trails is the East Inlet Trail to Adams Falls

and beyond to a beautiful meadow. 

To our surprise, we ran into several moose on the trail!  In the past, we would tell people about how many moose we have seen there, but stopped advertising it as such since many do not see them.  Additionally, we were hiking with the crowds in the afternoon, so we thought it was not the most opportune time.  However, after seeing the first bull moose deep in the meadow,

we continued on to discover another bull, right next to the trail!

 

Thankfully, the rangers were there and allowed us to take pictures and continue on to one of our favorite valleys. 

On our way back, we came across a female moose grazing in another location. 

As if all of this wasn’t enough for a day, we ate ice cream at our favorite spot

and spent the next couple hours on the Grand Lake Beach, with the kids happily engaged in their sand building. 

All of the adults were able to sit back, relax, and have some much needed relaxation and adult conversation.

 

We came back to camp just in time for a late storm during dinner, so we piled the entire Hoff crew in our camper for taco night. 

We are thankful for this space daily right now!  The best part about these mountain storms are the amazing rainbows afterwards. 

The skies at sunrise and sunset are also something impossible to capture with pictures, but Chuck’s photographer sister, Kimmy, does a pretty great job as shown below.

Day 6 was another busy day – sadly, we would be saying goodbye to one of the 3 groups with us, the Dworchaks.  We spent the morning climbing with them and the Hoffs,

(Chuck’s makeshift band aid so he could keep climbing)

 

 

 

followed by an afternoon on the summer tubing hill with our giant group! 

We got rained out during the last few minutes, so we raced over to the Kiva for roller skating, pool, ping pong, and volley bounce before saying our final goodbyes.

 

 

The Hoffs spent some time making crafts while we said goodbye to our friends.

We are so thankful for the opportunity to have so much fun with our friends, but saying farewell to each of them is so difficult!  Since the Kinsella family decided to stay an extra day after loving it so much here, they moved over to one of the lodges from the yurts, as they are very popular and fully booked most of the time.  After more Kiva fun on another rainy evening, we said another farewell to the Kinsellas before the left early the next morning. 

 

I am sooooo happy both of these families were able to make such a big trip happen with us this year, and we hope to see them again!

Day 7 was our last day with the Hoff crew, so we packed it in once again.  Chuck started it off with a run with old college friend, Seth.

First on the agenda was a hike to the waterfall on property. 

We had a few injured or tired, so only half of us made the trek, but it was a blast.  From there, we raced off to the Granby Ranch chairlift for the great views. 

Once again, the boys and us hiked up the mountain and sent the girls up with the family.  We are so glad we did this, as we got some great family pictures on top. 

 

After another quick lunch, we made it to archery just in time.

 

  

Afterwards, Jenny wanted to see the mining cave, so we took another little field trip down the road before another storm rolled in. 

 

I love how Jenny took advantage of every minute of her time here, soaking it all in, and eating it up.  Zip lining was next on the agenda – it was so fun to see our exhilarated guests and kids (and concerned Grandma)! 

 

 

 

Dinner, ice cream,

and s’mores followed,

 

but unfortunately, the evening ended before we would have liked with a big storm rolling in.

We helped the Hoff crew pack up their yurt early the next morning before our final goodbye.

We feel privileged to have been a part of so many wonderful families vacation so far.  It was so sad to see them go, but we cherish those memories, and look forward to round 2 of visitors coming in this weekend!

 

After spending a wonderful evening with the M family on our first night in Colorado,

we looked forward to all the fun we could fit in for three more days on the Front Range.  As hard as we try to keep some semblance of Central time and reasonable bedtimes, the light just doesn’t seem to dim and it’s 10pm before we know it!  There is always more fun to be had, and the goodbyes and goodnights are difficult.  Even though the Boulder County Fairground Campground is more like a parking lot, and the inmates seemed to be cleaning the bathroom every time we woke up, it served as a great basecamp for us. 

We were thankful to be right in the center of all the activities we had planned for the next few days.  Every morning started with a run around our old stomping ground for different groups of the Hoffpack.

We spent Tuesday with the Van Alstyne family,

visiting and feeding their new pets,

 

walking the dogs and biking to the park,

and then spending a relaxing day at their pool after travelling. 

It was so cool to be greeted by a fabulous family welcome sign for us on their driveway. 

Suzi was such a wonderful host, helping me with some back exercises to get myself healthy, and even treated us to a wonderful lunch and dinner before we headed off to meet Kyle at Chataqua in Boulder. 

Thankfully, we will get to spend more time with them when they come up to Snow Mountain to spend another week and a half with us!

Wednesday morning was spent driving into the mountains to see the flood damage and running into a mama moose and her baby. 

In the afternoon, we visited one of Chuck’s former students, Allie, at Pearl Street in Boulder. 

 

The kids loved playing in the water,

seeing the street performers,

cruising the creek to a little island,

and checking out the farmer’s market. 

Dinner in the park was just what we needed before heading to the Grooters house for a giant trampoline jump fest, and hike.

Thursday came too quickly, but Chuck couldn’t wait to meet up with an old college friend and his kids for a nice 6 mile run,

and I was pumped to spend the day climbing with my old boss, Chris. 

Just as we pulled into Boulder, Ellie threw up all over the car, and we weren’t quite sure what to do.  We were pretty sure she had altitude sickness (something we have managed to bypass the last few years, but didn’t get so lucky this time), and knew the high mid-90 temperatures were not going to help the situation.  Thankfully, we went up Boulder Canyon to where the temps in the mid 80s felt so much better. 

Chuck parked Ellie under a tree along the rock wall, with her car seat, blanket, and pot to recover. 

Kids never cease to amaze me – within the first couple hours, she was back to herself and begging to follow her siblings up the climb!  Ethan and Braden scooted up the first climb like it was nothing,

 

 

 

and Ethan made the second route look easy, although the 5.9 climb was quite impressive, especially for someone who had never climbed outdoors.  Chris quickly created kid-sized full body harnesses out of 20 feet of tubular webbing that we had picked up the day before.  Gav and the girls got quite the thrill out of getting up on the rocks. 

We finished off our climb with Chris belaying Chuck and me up the first route.  I think motherhood did something to me – as fearless as I think I was in the past, climbing the 100 foot route sure made me weak in the knees this time!  As if climbing wasn’t enough, Chris offered to zipline the boys over Boulder Creek (which is more like a raging river). 

 

It was so much fun!  Since we hadn’t gotten to see the rest of the Hill gang, we were invited back to their house for a barbeque. 

Colt and Lauren showed the kids their storm chasing videos and somewhere along the way, we discovered that Chuck’s friend Tim lived right down the street.  Of course, we had to pay a visit to them too. 

As quickly as our time in Boulder seemed to fly by, we are so thankful for all the visits with friends from afar.  We were able to connect with 25 awesome people, and are looking forward to spending time with all our Illinois friends at Snow Mountain Ranch!

After three consecutive years of troubles making it to Colorado, we have naturally been nervous about this year’s trek across the plains and beyond.  The last few weeks have been spent planning, researching, packing, and preparing the best we could. Chuck installed solar panels and an inverter for the many days we will be off the grid.

Although we have been filled with fear, we are so thankful that excitement won. My sore neck and back with two ribs popping out slowed our progress exponentially (this 40 thing is overrated), but we are hopeful that was this year’s breakdown and that I have been through the worst of it, with only recovery on the horizon.  My dear friend Cassie gave me a 40th birthday gift that serves as a daily reminder that “the mountains are calling.”

Anxious to get adventuring, we were able to leave 4 days earlier than originally planned.  While the list to leave seems to multiply the closer we got to departure day, we were able to head off Subday morning after some last minute preparations.

Our first gas stop was calculated when we saw a large station that would be easy to pull in and out of, but as we got close, we noticed the diesel plaza was in full swing, but the unleaded island was closed. We pulled into the station across the street only to realize we would have to back out… Our first growing pain with our big camper.

Shortly after, we pulled off at a rest stop designed for people like us, and were thrilled with the idea of pulling in and walking right into our camper for a restful lunch break. It may take us awhile to get used to that!

Along the way, we had decided this would be a great night to boondock at a Walmart for the night, so we made a few calls and narrowed our first stop down to three.  While it was in the 70s back in IL, we discovered there was a giant heat bubble over the state of Nebraska, which could make for difficult sleeping.  We stopped at a KOA to refill our propane tanks to keep our fridge going through the night, a gas refill, and another easy dinner and stretch break at a long awaited rest area.

650 miles later, we pulled into the Lexington Walmart at sunset. It was so easy to roll in and step into our camper for a plush and FREE night of rest!

We woke early, with only Colorado on our minds. You see, there are many times we have driven through the northeast part of Colorado with nasty storms and tumbleweed flying across the highway.  Today’s challenge would be here, where the cold and warm fronts met.  If living in Colorado taught us nothing else, we knew we wanted to cruise through that area before the afternoon storms gathered!

The storms came through just after we arrived in Longmont, where we lived when we were first married.  After setting up camp at the Boulder County Fairgrounds (which is not the most picturesque campground, but very convenient to the Boulder area), we were elated to spend the afternoon walking the Lake Macintosh paths and hanging out at the park we passed on our daily walks near our first apartment.  The kids shared our joy, walking hand in hand.

The rainy evening ended with rainbows and meeting some of our favorite people in the world, the M family for kids eat free, all you can eat Italian at the greatest place, Cinzzetti’s.

We are so excited to spend a few days on the Front Range with old friends.  After arriving without issue for the first time in years, we are cautiously optimistic that things are going to go our way this year.  Colorado and beyond, hope you are ready for the Hoffpack!

As we get excited to take off to the mountains, we are busy packing up the camper and car.  I will admit – organization is not really my forte, but so many people have been asking what to bring on their adventures, we decided to break it down a bit.

We have a system in our car that works really well for us.  At high altitudes, we often find that we need a variety of gear and apparel, so this is the most important place for us to have all our stuff in order.  We have a bin in the back of our car where we keep a few bags of essentials that continually pop up as necessities, whether we are hitting the soccer fields, headed out for a hike, or just heading into town for a bit.  There are separate bags of rain coats, fleeces,  an extra set of clothes for everyone that can double as comfy clothes to sleep in (as well as socks), winter hats and gloves, water bottles for everyone, and a bag of sunscreen, baseball hats, sunglasses, lip balm (believe it or not, that’s the first thing to burn at high altitude!), first aid supplies, and medicine.  This eliminates the need to pack up all this stuff on a daily basis every time we want to head somewhere.

Sometimes, we even carry around our swim bag (suits, towels, and goggles) for the unplanned dips in a lake.  Our bin or bag of shoes travels in our camper, but it often finds its way to our trunk so we can switch shoes when we get done hiking or want to hit the water.  One of my favorite and most commonly asked questions is whether the kids need hiking boots.  No!  We usually limit our shoes to a pair of crocs, gym shoes, and water shoes.  The crocs (or flip flops) are great for getting in and out of the car when travelling, and perfect for taking on and off at the campsite.  Comfortable gym shoes work great for any of the outdoor activities we do, including rock climbing, hiking, and running.  Even though Chuck and I have nice hiking boots and waterproof hiking shoes, we choose not to bring them just to keep things light.  Simplicity is key when travelling- we try to minimize what we bring by choosing the things that will work well across the board.  We spend a lot of time near water on our trips, so water shoes (typically keens) are perfect for hiking up the Narrows in Zion,

or just walking around in a rocky lake or river. 

The girls still like bringing cowboy or rubber boots for fun and to slip on in the morning over the footie pajamas. 

 

Even though our popup had a stove, we like to do as much as we can outside, including cooking, so we have a big trunk that stays near the camper with all our kitchen necessities, including pots and pans, rags, towels, dish soap, a dishwashing bin, plates and bowls, mugs, silverware, foil, zip lock bags, tablecloths, clothes line, paper towels, cutting board, lighters, barbeque tools, wipes, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, a collapsible water container, and more. 

Our Coleman stove is not only our #1 cooking source, it offers the security of a backup stove, which we have needed on more than one occasion.  Plus, we can use it wherever if we end up away from the camper for dinner. 

If we have electric for some of the trip, we like to bring along a toaster and electric griddle for cheaper and easier cooking.  Our most creative method of cooking is using our pie irons, a perfect way to use your campfire, limit dishes, and enjoy a delicious meal!

Although we have contemplated bringing only a few chairs, we continue to bring 7 camping chairs, one for each of us.  As crazy as it sounds, I am not sure if there was ever an occasion where all of them were used at the same time – the kids stay so busy exploring our campsites, and rarely take a break to sit down, even by a nice warm campfire.  Wonder if this will change some day?

We carry around a large piece of Astroturf for outside the camper – we like it because it is light, folds up pretty small, and if it gets wet, it is still manageable as we move around.  We also have a couple mats for outside and inside the camper to wipe off shoes.  Despite our best attempts at keeping the dirt out of the camper, it seems like the floor is always getting dirty, so a small broom is a necessity for us.

Nights are regularly in the 30s while camping in the mountains, so we also bring a ceramic heater to take off the chill, along with lots of blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags. 

Another favorite item is a portable lamp with a nightlight in the base.  We can’t use it when we don’t have electric (which is usually more than half the time), but it has been very useful several times when we struggled with a bad converter box and other electrical issues.

As far as clothes, we bring a variety for all sorts of weather, including fleeces, comfortable long pants, jeans, t-shirts, and long sleeves.  Everybody has their own suitcase. 

Because I’m crazy about pictures, I bring one bag with a coordinated family set of clothes (hiker friendly, yet a little nicer than our norm) that is only used when we are going somewhere I might want a nice family picture.  We have also enjoyed making matching shirts – it makes it easier to keep track of everybody as we count off 7 on and off the trails, and looks good in pictures.  A friend helped us make them last year, and this year,  we had them screen printed for under $5 per shirt. 

My new favorite trick is to bring along a few zippered throw pillow cases, but instead of a pillow, we put some essentials inside that don’t come out a ton, like coats.  They are so much nicer to look at than another suitcase sitting around!

One of my favorite things about camping is escaping from all the toys at home!  So, what are the toys that make the cut?  We bring playing cards, travel games (our new favorite game is Splendor-thanks for the intro Tom and Heather!), a soccer ball, frisbee, buckets, coloring books, crayons, paper, journals, pencils, pens,  books, movies, iPads, and bridge books (to keep the kids on top of the school game, we have them complete a page in their bridge book for each day we are out).  Our favorite toy after years of travel is our bucket of animals.  These are the souvenirs the kids have collected over our years of camping, and perhaps their favorite vacation pastime is sitting in our campsite building intricate homes for them in the dirt. 

Perhaps we didn’t have to leave home in the first place 😉

Some other necessities include binoculars, cameras, go-pro, headlamps, lanterns, backpacks, more water bottles, bear spray, propane bottles, batteries, a cooler bag, and a medium sized cooler (for those times our camper fridge doesn’t work).

Our mechanical must haves include a tool box, extra extension cords, tire pressure gauge, leveling pads, etc. And this year, passports!  I finally packed those up today after days of fearing I will forget them.  This list is far from complete, but these are some of the items we could not live without.  Everybody’s list is different, and we enjoy some of the luxuries other families bring along as well, such as crock pots (we don’t have electric often enough to warrant bringing one though).  Happy trails!