Family vacation/camping to Colorado Springs

Best family vacation ever!  We went camping for 3 days and 2 nights all-the-while spending time at some of Colorado Springs attractions.  This was our first "real" family camping trip.  We have gone a few times with my family - using my dads stuff - we went for one night last summer - borrowing stuff from friends, but this year we bought all of our own camping stuff with our tax return and this was our official inauguration.  

We camped at Thunder Ridge campground overlooking the Rampart reservoir.  It was absolutely beautiful.  My camera is completely broken and incapable of taking good pictures - so these pictures are a very very sad attempt at the beauty of our camping spot.  We were right up against a hill over looking the lake and the whole valley.  We had a wonderful ravine and a burnt mountain (wildfire in 2014) right next to us - this allowed the children to wander, explore, and hike for miles and we could see them the whole time.  When we went originally we thought this was our last time camping in Colorado Springs, but now we want to return to this campsite every year.

When we got there it was cold, rainy, and WINDY!!  The wind blew so hard that our tent would bend almost all the way to the ground.  Jason is a great stake setter because our stakes never gave way!!  The kids are great little troopers though, they helped us unpack and set up tent with very little complaining and slothfulness - even in the cold and wind.

The camp ranger came through camp telling us a major thunderstorm was coming through in an hour - so we better get everything put away and get in our tent for the rest of the night.  Of course we had to hurry and roast some smores - priorities people!!

Camping in bear country is a lot harder than camping in Utah.  Everything has to get put away every night and every time you leave - not as much fun.  But it does provide us with more opportunities to teach the kids to work. :)  We all made it into the test just in the nick of time - except for Jason.  He was putting our last cooler in the car when there was a crack of thunder and then.... down pour.  He ran into the tent, pretty wet.  It was only 7:00 - so we huddled in our sleeping bags and Jason read us our current chapter book "Henry Huggins".  This always ends up being the kids' favorite part of camping, reading in the tent.

Jason and I camp very differently - so we are trying to find our own way as a family.  One point of diversion is food.  He wants to only eat basic non-prep, no-mess food.  I like having really yummy dutch oven campfire food.  As of now we have compromised on really yummy tin-foil dinners.  I spent several hours online finding great tin-foil dinner recipes.  This one was amazing.  Like the best dinner I have ever made, period.  It was a lemon garlic shrimp with asparagus and red potatoes - I threw some summer sausage in there becasue we can only afford 3 shrimp per person and I knew everyone would still be hungry.  I made these all ahead of time and froze them - then just stuck them on the fire.  They were fantastic!

Funny family story:  I forgot to tell Jason what was in them, so when he ate his he thought the lemon wedge (which was in there for flavoring) was a pepper -so he stuck the whole thing in his mouth and ate it - the whole thing.  The kids thought it was so funny!

After our first night of camping we went to Cave of the Winds in Colorado Springs.  It was pretty expensive - but our kids are really into caves right now.  We spent a couple of weeks a few months ago watching "Planet Earth" documentires from BBC and they loved the ones on caves.  So we thought this would be a great educational extension.  The tour was quick paced and I had to be VERY attentive to the children - if they TOUCH the cave walls at all we get fined, Jason and I had 8 hands to keep track of for an hour - SO... I didn't take really any picutres.  I thought it was great and a very uniqu expierence and the kids loved it.  Our dear sweet little Noah, however, was struggling.  The best thing about Noah is how inquisative he is, and there were SO MANY things he needed to discover and figure out.  Noah, who is SO SLOW and ALWAYS 20 feet behind us anywere we go, could not for the life of him stay BEHIND the tour guide - he kept going in front of him from room to room and touching everything.  About 10 minutes into the tour and after his 20th warning - he had to hole my hand for the next 30 minutes.  It was as if I was torchering him.

Our kids are great though, they asked question after question after question.  There were lots of other kids on the tour and not one other kids had a question.  My kids love knowledge and are always trying to figure things out - they get all of that from their dad - I find it mostly annoying and are happy to just find things mysterious. ha

The next day we went and explored Garden of the Gods.  It is a beautiful *free* park that has red rock all over that you can climb and explore.

It was hot, and Madison did not bring her hiking legs.  We only got away with doing about a mile and a half - but we saw a lot of awesome birds and the scenery was beautiful.

On our last morning we took a hike down to the lake.  The hike was beautiful - we were hiking on this small trail literally "into the woods" - we may of may  not have sung the whole song to the musical as we were walking (one of my kids' favorite musicals).  It was actually kind of scary since bears and rattle snakes are pretty common - but hey - hiking has risks right?

The lake was amazing - one of the prettiest lakes I have ever been too.  I could have stayed on that beach all day.

On our way back home we took our last stop to the Chyenne Mountain Zoo.  It is supposed to be one of the prettiest zoos in the whole country becasue it is IN the mountains.

The featured event - the giraffes.  They have the largest girrafe herd in the US and they get up close and personal.  You can buy some lettuc and feed them - but we quickly found that you can pick lettuce up off the ground that people have dropped and feed them with that.  Thrifty or cheap?  I will let you be the judge.

It was SO cool, they wrap their long black tongue all around your hand - I tried to get  a picture but couldn't.  We also love feeding birds with peanut butter on the end of Popsicle sticks and watching a rhino eating a whole head of lettuce.

On the drive home we introduced our kids to a new musical: Le Mes.  They loved it (we did not play them a couple songs or explain some aspects of the story).  It has become a new family favorite and my kids love singing "Do you hear the people sing".