Hot Springs and Art Walk

For our second full day of Shields Family Reunion fun, a group of us went to Old Town Hot Springs. The boys had fun playing in a kiddie pool with slides and water spraying. Next we tried the 2 ft pool and played there for awhile. All the pools were varying degrees of warmth. We moved on to the mineral spring pools, the big one was probably in the high '90s. Isaac and I took the boys to the hot pool which was nice and hot. We also got to try the water slides; there were two, I only went on one and it was rough, bumpy, and hot, hence the reason I didn't go on the other one. Uncle Dave, Laura, Gryphon, Matt, Aunt Joanna, Isaac, Evan, Natalie, me, Micah, Nathan, and Cheri. We had a snack, then returned to the water for a little while and the boys had fun swimming and jumping. We returned mid-afternoon and everyone was tired. This is the place we are staying. After an early dinner, the group went to an art walk around downtown Steamboat Springs. We got to see some neat things and the downtown was fun to walk around in. Natalie slept through the whole thing. We came back by the river and that was pretty. We all met up again for strawberry shortcake. Gryphon and Natalie love climbing the stairs.

Shields Family Reunion Day 1

We had a relaxing morning having breakfast and chatting with relatives. At noon we went to a string quartet concert at the Yampa River Botanic Garden. The garden was beautiful, but not as much shade as would have been nice. Micah and I took some pictures while we waited for the concert to begin. The theme was "Musical Jokes". About halfway through, Heather, Natalie, Micah, and I walked around the garden and it was fun to continue to hear the music float through the garden as we wandered around looking at flowers. After the concert, we had lunch than had a little down time before it was time to start dinner. Today was our family's day to make dinner for the group; Mom and I made pasta, salad, green beans, bread, and gingerbread. Then we had a Shields family counsel to decide the schedule for tomorrow.

Lunch at Clarks

Wednesday morning we packed up our campsite at Island Acre and got back on the road. We stopped in the small town of Meeker for lunch and ate at what appeared to be a local favorite, Clarks'. There were a lot of people there, so we ordered our food and sat down. After waiting about half an hour for our food, we started hearing rumors that the cook had walked out during the lunch rush! We finally got our food and it was okay, but the experience was interesting and the boys didn't mind being out of the van for a long break. We made it to Steamboat Springs mid-afternoon and settled into our condo. The Shields family reunion is here through Sunday. We met the rest of the group that had arrived to have hot dogs for dinner. After coming back to our condo and putting the boys to bed, Isaac, Dad, and I finished watching Transformers.

Camping in Colorado

We stayed in one place for the first time on Tuesday, enjoying a chill day at our campsite by the Colorado river. In the morning, we went to a dinosaur museum nearby. It was small, but fun. There was a sneak peak into the area where they keep the bones and lots of interactive exhibits for the kids. This dinosaur spit venom at people, purely speculation on the part of the designers, but Micah liked it and really wanted to get wet. There was also a pit where the kids could dig for dinosaur bones. While the kids were playing there, Isaac and I looked around the rest of the museum. We got to feel a 5.3 earthquake and take a picture with one of his favorite dinosaurs. After the museum, we went back to camp for lunch and a warm afternoon. It was in the high '90s with no a/c. So Mom and Heather took the boys to swim in the lake while Dad, Isaac, Natalie, and I drove to the grocery store. We all came back and made dinner, then we had JiffyPop and sarsaparilla soda.

On to Colorado

We woke up to a beautiful morning in Fishlake on Monday. The aspens were even more beautiful in the sunshine. This is a picture with the Three Sisters trees, Heather and I were sad to not have Michelle with us. We enjoyed breakfast at our large picnic table, then loaded up and returned to the road. We drove to Colorado and made camp at the Island Acres state park by the Colorado river. That was a beautiful campsite too, surrounded by cliffs. Our first campsite had no shade and was far from the bathroom so we decided to switch, after we put the trailer up. That was a bit of an adventure moving the trailer while it was up, but we didn't have any problems. Heather and I took the kids to the play structure and the lake. They started by throwing rocks into the lake, but ended up getting quite wet by reaching down into the water to pick up rocks and then just sitting down in the water. When we went back to the campsite, it was time for dinner and the mosquitoes were out in force. It was so bad, we were swatting them consistently during dinner and still ended up with a number of bites. My legs are speckled with red dots that are uncompleted bites. We had a fire and roasted marshmallows before retreating into the trailer. Micah roasting his first marshmallow.

Sharks to Aspens

Our event for the morning Sunday was visiting the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. It was a good little aquarium. We saw a komodo dragon, huge fish and piranhas from the Amazon, jellyfish, rays, sea turtles, and of course, sharks. They had a touch pool where the boys got to pet some rays. The jellyfish were a favorite, but hard to get a picture of, it was really dark. There were lots of sharks swimming around; under our feet, over our heads, and around us. We had a good time. Then we drove for the afternoon to our next campsite at Fishlake National Forest, UT. We had some trouble finding it and then setting up the trailer because one of the beds was broken, but we got everything straightened out and had dinner. It was cold! The difference in temperature between Las Vegas and Fishlake was about 50 degrees. But the campsite was beautiful, surrounded by aspen trees. After dinner, we got ready for bed and snuggled up in our sleeping bags.

Visalia to Vegas

Time for another Chandler/Nickell family vacation! The schedule for this year's trip is camping our way to Steamboat Springs, CO for a family reunion with Mom's side of the family, then camping our way back. Saturday was the first day of the adventure. We left Visalia around 11:00am and made the drive to our first stop in Las Vegas. We arrived in time for dinner and had Chipotle then we drove down the strip to see all the lights before calling it a night.