Vacay- Part 2

Consider this a photo dump. I have a trillion.

 Isn't this video just the cutest?

Untitled from Shannon Linser on Vimeo.


The pizza at Beau Jo's was really good. They have Rocky Mountain Honey on the tables to put on your pizza crusts. Honey is one of Bennett's favorite things, so he spent most of dinner just eating honey off of his pizza. Yum!



Matt's parents lived in Colorado before they had kids and Beau Jo's was one of their favorite places to eat. The first picture is just them (obvs) & the second one is of them and all the people who they've "helped to make" since they left Colorado.



After supper at Beau Jo's we browsed some of the shops in Downtown Steamboat Springs.  Bennett is pointing out Abe's nose and giving him a pound. Matt thought the shirt in the upper right picture was funny. It says, "Confidence: the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation."



One of my favorite things that we did was hike at Fish Creek Falls. It's a 5 mile hike up the mountain if you go all the way to the lake at the top, and then another 5 miles back down. The girls only went about a mile up, I think. The boys went a little further, almost to the second falls, so probably 2.5 miles up.




1.Warning about rock climbing 2. Initials carved into trees along the path 3. Sarah looking at the falls 4. The girls after we came back down. We were waiting for the boys to finish. 5.Bennett fell asleep in the Boba carrier on the way up the mountain and enjoyed the rest of the ride with Matt. 6. Elizabeth, Sarah & Rebekah feeling the cold mountain water



Philip, Jake, Sarah, Matt & I went river rafting one morning. We were hoping for a level 3/4, but ended up with level 2 with one spot of level 3. It was still a lot of fun, but definitely could have been a little more challenging.





 We went on a bike ride on the last full day we were in Steamboat Springs. Bennett hadn't ever ridden in a Burley and he really liked it. We might have to start looking for one on Craig's List. When we started our bike ride, I was having a really hard time. Before this trip, I hadn't been on a bike since before I was pregnant with Bennett, so about 2 years. We went on a bike ride earlier in the week and I had been just fine. I couldn't understand why everyone was able to go so fast and I felt like I was going to die. I mean, even the 6-year-old was doing better than I was. I kept having to stop and walk or get water. It was rediculous. When we stopped for lunch, Philip looked at the bike I was riding and realized that the brakes had been stuck on. Yeah, I'd been riding that bike with the brakes on. It was good to know I'm not that out of shape!



Bennett & Linda checking out the trees and river when we stopped for lunch on our bike ride.




1. Bennett playing with my sunglasses on the long drive home 2. Hello, Wyoming! 3. Crazy Nebraska weather 4. More time playing with sunglasses 4. &5. More crazy Nebraska weather


Okay, I'm done with my vacation pictures...at least until we get back from taking our youth group students to camp next week.

"Who wants to see my HOH rooooom?!?"

Okay, okay...no HOH room. I'm just really in Big Brother mode. Seriously, I've had several dreams involving the game. So, the real title of this post should be something like "Who wants to see pictures of my vacation?", but I kind of feel like I'm asking you all to come and see my HOH room. As in, you don't really want to see all these pictures, but will look at them to be nice. Um, so sorry to all of you who are totally lost by all of these references to Big Brother. I'll stop.

I think I'm going to break these posts up into a couple different ones because I took 182 pictures. I won't bore you with all of them, but you'll probably see a lot of them.
We left for Colorado at about 8 pm and decided to drive as long as we could. We eventually decided to stop for some sleep about 1:30 am. In retrospect, we probably should've stopped sooner...for Bennett's sake. He was asleep in the van, but freaked out when we tried to lay him down for the night. He was so overtired. We eventually got to sleep about 3 am. We were on the road by 9 or so the next day and drove to Colorado Springs.

We stayed at my Great Aunt & Uncle's house on Thursday night. It was so much fun to see my family. {See this post about my excitement for vacation} Bennett & Marley didn't really notice each other too much, that is until we put them in the same chair.

There's a big rock-thingie (I really want to call it a mini-mountain, but I know that's not what it is. It's just bigger than anything I've seen in Iowa...haha) in their back yard, so we walked up to the top to enjoy the view.

On Friday we went to the Olympic Training Center (sorry, no pictures) &then Focus on the Family. I loved listening to Focus' Adventures in Odyssey program when I was younger, so it was fun to see Bennett explore the play area.



Bennett & Matt playing with the puppets, Matt helping Bennett check out the toy train that was running around the ceiling, Bennett & Bekah climbing through the tunnel



There is a 3-story slide at Focus on the Family. I'm not a fan of twisting around in enclosed spaces, so I passed, but Matt's sisters all took their turns and really enjoyed it.

When we were done at Focus, we headed north to Steamboat Springs. These next pictures will be super boring to you if you live anywhere with a level of elevation higher than 934 feet (yeah, that's the elevation of the town I live in...I looked it up). The sky was just so beautiful and we really enjoyed the view of the mountains!

Part 2 to come...

V-a-c-a-t-i-o-n

We're going on vacation! I'm pretty excited. Just a little. We leave tonight. Bennett's getting excited, but his idea of packing and my idea of packing are very different. He's decided that we need to bring a big ball, one flip flop, two throw pillows and a plastic rake.

Mine looks a little more like this:

Oh yeah, there's a back side to that. Do you notice the color coding? After reading this post, my friend Sarah McElvaney gave me a set of Gelly Roll Pens! I've been using them almost daily.

Anyway, we are going to Colorado with all of Matt's family (His dad, mom, 3 sisters & 1 brother-in-law). We'll be gone for 10 or 11 days (we haven't quite decided). I have some family that lives in Colorado & we're going to stay at their house one night. I'm pretty excited to see them! My cousin (technically, technically my first cousin once removed...or my dad's cousin) has a daughter who is almost exactly 6 months younger than Bennett and we haven't seen each other since before either of them was born. I can't wait to meet her little girl! We'll also see my Aunt & Uncle (technically great aunt & uncle, but whatever). We last saw them when Bennett was about 6 weeks old.

We've gone on vacation with Matt's family years ago and have tons of memories and fun stories from our trips. I'm excited to create some new memories. I also can't wait to have Matt away from work for a week and a half & enjoy the beauty of Colorado! I have a couple of posts auto posted for while I'm gone, just so that things don't get boring here. I might get a chance to post a little while I'm gone, but we'll see about that. I might just spend all my time enjoying our family.