Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Back at the beginning of August, the 4th-9th to be exact, we spent nearly a week in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, vacationing with my family. We had the best time.

We decided to split up the 7-hour drive, and spent Saturday night in Vernal, Utah. It was a good move. Upon our arrival in Vernal, we checked out the dinosaur museum, which Sullivan LOVED, and didn't want leave, even though they were kicking us out for closing. 

At the museum Sully found this little cave and ran round and round and round and round...and round. He would have gone all night if they hadn't kicked us out.

The next day we went up the dinosaur quarry to be tourists and see all the dinosaur bones. It was really fun, and again, Sullivan totally loved all the big dinosaur bones and pictures. And he especially loved the choo-choo (shuttle) ride up to the quarry and back.

After the dinosaur quarry, we drove the last 3 hours to Steamboat, where the real fun began. We had the best time. We biked into town almost every day to do something fun like eat ice cream, go out for lunch, or do the alpine slide. We each did the alpine slide three times...and thanks to everyone wanting to take Sully on a ride, he got to do it 4 (or was it 5?) times. Lucky little boy!

We went to Strawberry Park Hot Springs, which was HOT. And gorgeous. And the most amazing hot pools I had ever seen. We checked out all the hot pools trying to find a suitable pot of water for a toddler and pregnant lady, and after about an hour of just dangling our toes in the incredibly hot water, we finally found one bath-tub-like pool that we could actually get in and enjoy. It was heaven.

And if you know me, you know no vacation would be complete without daily trips for gelato or ice cream. Sullivan didn't care much for the ice cream, but he would scarf the gelato. He is so particular about some things!?

And, of course, we ate great food. We ate great food in town and we ate great food at the condo. My family knows how to eat! The pictures below are of us at a cute little Italian restaurant. They let Sullivan play with some pizza dough and then cooked it up for him so he could eat it. Sullivan made a spider (of course), and he loved it...and actually ate it.

And we took the gondola (or in Sully's words, the choo-choo) up to the top of mountain. It was gorgeous up there. Heather and mom ran down the mountain to get a workout in, while my dad, Eric, Sully, and I just took a little nature trail hike around the top of the mountain and rode the gondola back down. It was great fun.

And we even managed to squeeze in some ice rink time. Eric is big into hockey lately, and he went to open skate three times while we were in Steamboat. We all accompanied him one day to get out of the heat, wich was awesome. Ice rinks are the place to be during the heat of summer! We thought Sullivan would love the little ice-sled, but he actually hated it. He preferred to be skated around by holding on to dad's hands.

In addition to all these fun activities we also had a great time just hanging out at the amazing condo, swimming, hot-tubbing, and watching movies at night. And we even managed to make it to a matinee movie one afternoon (The Dark Knight Rises) during Sully's naptime. It was pretty much a perfect vacation that was over much too soon. I definitely vote to do this again next summer! Thanks mom and dad for such an awesome get-away!