Ouray Camping Trip & Tour De Colorado!

This past weekend I went on a big camping trip to Ouray, CO! About 17 of us went and we had such a great time! Ouray has been on my Colorado Bucket List for a while....it is gorgeous and already can't wait to go back. :)

This is the first big road trip that I took my car on-go big or go home right?! 

{the geeky space-planner in me was really excited to see how much 3 girls could fit in car! turns out, quite a bit!}

Ouray is 5.5 hrs away from Denver. LOTS of scenery along the way!

Emily, Christy and I decided to drive straight through and do a smaller hike once we arrived. Some of the other cars stopped to hike in Buena Vista.

{Emily, Christy and I a little giddy at finally being in Ouray!}

Darling little shops, restaurants and mercantiles lined the street. Every mountain town seems to have a blend of these.

We took a hike to a 'scenice view' but it was a little tricky to find. The view was worth it!

So thankful to have a car that doesn't break on long road trips!

This is the view from our campsite. Absolutely gorgeous and ridiculously, ruggedly Colorado!

{Glow stick bracelets and campfire.}

Heading up to the Blue Lakes Trailhead, we ran into some cows on the road taking in the view. Why not?!

This was the first of much snow. Not planned and a couple of us had on shorts!

{Bear Paw track!}

{one of my favorite shots of the weekend}

So we crossed this big snow field. To be honest, this was the least scary part of the snow. There were areas we were thigh-deep in it!

Lower Blue Lake! We made it. Emily picture. :)

We had gotten a later start than we would have liked but as you can imagine, getting 9 girls up and ready to hike was not a quick process. ;) The clouds had rolled in by the time we got up there and after hiking through so much snow (and anticipating the climb back down), we didn't stay long up there! Brrrr...

Another shot from the campsite.

This is Sophie. She stole my heart. The dog of our friends who came. She's a rescue dog-4 years old. Poor thing had a hard 1st year of life and her docile nature and old soul tell her story. SUCH a sweetheart!

On the way back home, we decided to drive back a different way in order to stop by Hanging Lake to hike. This meant we drove through the very arid western slope. It's amazing to me how many different landscapes Colorado has. This area looks like Arizona or Utah...not your typical Colorado mountains.

Hanging Lake!

I am so proud of my mud-caked car! We earned every speck of dust and mud on this thing. I love Colorado!!

You can click on this link to see our drive through Colorado! Sorry can't get the image to cooperate.

Overall, we had 17 people camping this weekend and it was a blast! Feeling so blessed and happy to get to explore.

December.

Well, it's been nearly a fully three months since any words hit this page. Ha! Lots has been going on and I will begin the catch up by writing about the fun of December and all the Christmas spirit! :)

Last year, I was able to help out at the very end of our Operation Christmas Child's shoe box collection at church. It was a great opportunity to serve and meet Kim who I would eventually be in Bible Study with for a while. This year, I wanted to get in on it from the beginning! We spent a few weeks handing out boxes, answering questions for people who have never put one together before and eventually taking 344 boxes to the drop-of center! We were so excited to see this response from our church body.

A couple weeks later, we had a time slot to go to the big regional packing center here in Denver, to get the boxes ready to ship out all over the world. (You have to sign up in September within the first 10 minutes of the registration opening to get a spot. There are so many people who want to volunteer-it's that wonderful!) It was amazing! Basically this giant warehouse is filled with assembly lines of people sorting through each box, making sure that every single child will get a special Christmas gift. Christmas music is blasting in the background and collectively we were able to sort, fill, pack and scan out for delivery 43,200 boxes! :)

{(L) Emily, Kim's in-laws, (R) Kim}

{Kim's mother-in-law was our box taper...she was a pro!}

{people wrap their own shoe boxes, buy tupperware, or use the boxes that OCC provides. Pretty fun to see the personal touches.}

Matt has been making fires when he comes over during our cold spell. It's been really nice to hear a crackling fire. :)

Have you heard of the TV show called Mythbusters? It's basically where they take common myths and actually create an experiment to see if they are Busted, Plausible or Confirmed. Pretty fun science-oriented information. Well, they had an exhibit that came to the Denver Museum of Natural History, so Matt and I invited Mom and Pa up to see it with us! We had so much fun...it was interactive, interesting and complete with a live presentation.

{This was from the "is it realistic for superheros to get changed that quickly in a telephone booth?" exhibit. Ha! There were two buttons on the outside of the telephone booth: start and stop. You pushed start, hopped in, got dressed, hopped out and hit stop. Ha! It took me 1min 35sec to get outfitted... :\ At least they had a pink cape!}

{Is it plausible to pull a tablecloth out from under a table full of dishes?! Yes! p.s. the dishes were plastic. :)}

{Mom nailed it!}

{Matt might need a little practice...ha. Pa is in the background testing out how long you can hang from a cliff...}

{It's harder than it looks and 15 seconds feels like an ETERNITY!}

{Mom beat us all!}

{Matt still has his feet on the ground...ha. Or maybe that's because he's so tall...}

{Blind driving...this was hysterical. One person is seeing the course on the TV (Matt) while the other person is actually driving the car (me). The person viewing the screen has to talk the other person through the course. We did pretty well when Matt was directing and I was driving...he was very calm in telling me what to do. When we switched roles, it was bananas! "hard left, hard right, oh no, turn, turn, turn...CRASH!" is pretty much how it went-ha!}

Well, getting my house decorated for Christmas is one of my favorite things! I have been obsessed lately with Scandinavian design/style. They use a lot of light woods, felted/knit materials and neutral colors. My tree this year ended up being an animal sanctuary-ha.

{Birch wood tree topper.}

 {Fuzzy owl.}

{Felted penguin.}

{Knit hedgehog...because why not?!}

{And don't forget the llama.}

{Still love my artwork from last year and added some stockings!}

{Saw this on the sidewalk behind the store one day. :)} 

The past few weekends have been filled with all kinds of get together's relating to Christmas! Yesterday was no exception. We came together at a restaurant for a cookie exchange/white elephant. There were so many cookies! We had a great time!

{Tiffany, Sarah and Suz}

{Megan, Megan, Michelle, Emily}

 {Anna, Susan and Megan}

{Carrie, Emily, Becky}

{Mindy and I}

{Emily, Becky, Anna and I}

There's a little ice cream shop in the same neighborhood as the restaurant and it was so festively decorated!

Then last night, some of us went to Cirque Dreams Holidaze. Not actually associated with Cirque du Soleil, it was a similar production of acts all themed around Christmas. It was fanciful, terrifying and amazing all at the same time! {No photos are allowed so you'll have to use your imagination!}

{Downtown Buell Theater was festively lit up!}

{Mindy, Megan, Megan}

{The Emily's}

I hope your December has been full of Christmas cheer and time with friends/family!