Sunday, June 29, 2008

Fire Pit, S'mores and Camping Outside Under The Stars

Hamsnordhoffs

Tonight is our last night with the Ham's in Woodland Park, CO.  Boy, did we have a great time.  We culminated our time by building a fire in the Ham's backyard.  Britt spent many summers as a camp director and builds amazing fires.  The wood in Colorado is so dry, the fire started immediately or maybe Britt just made it seem easy.



The boys and the rest of us plus the neighbors, Doug and Patty, joined us all and roasted some marshmallows.  As the night air cooled us, the fire warmed us.  I personally ate 3 S'more's.  So bad for you, but so good for the taste buds!  Yum! 



We drank some Kenya Bold Starbucks coffee and chatted about how great these last 10 days have been.  Alex and Jack are as close as ever.  We've never felt closer to Britt and Michelle.  The time just flew by. 



Stars Then, the boys broke out the sleeping bags, laid them on the trampoline.  I laid next to Kaden and Alex and just looked at the wonder of the stars with them.  Out in the middle of the outskirts of Woodland Park, the sky was so clear.  In our plain site, we could see hundreds of stars all around us.  The boys quickly found the big dipper and little dipper.  Then, after Doug and Patty left, Britt, Michelle and Krissy joined us on the trampoline.  We cuddled up close, had some laughs about the trampoline breaking with over 800 lbs of weight and prayed. 



Kaden was the first to fall asleep at 10:30pm.  Alex and Jack kept laughing and joking around saying "butt", "fart" and "poop" a lot.  It's the simple things that keep them entertained!  After a while, the girls got cold and Dylan went inside.  Eventually, we made up a story about rain coming and the rest of the boys came in. 



It was a special night.  The boys are now finally asleep - after 11pm.  But, it was worth the memories.  Tomorrow, we leave for Nashville again.  We'll miss Colorado and the Ham's, but we'll always remember the great moments we had here on our trip. 



Chalkboard20welcome We kept a list on the Ham's chalkboard of all the activities and memories we had. The board said "Welcome Nordhoff's" and I kept adding memories around it.  I hope we get a picture of it before we leave.  It will be fun to look back on this special vacation.  We'll end it tomorrow with lots of hugs, maybe some tears, but we'll leave full of wonderful and special memories of our vacation with Britt, Michelle, Jack, Dylan and little baby Bennett - who wins the "Most Chilled-out Baby Award" of the vacation! 




1 comment:

  1. Hi Eric,
    It's been too long! I'm just getting caught up on your blog. Wanted to say that I grew up in Manitou Springs, CO, in fact I was just there last week for my 20th high school reunion. My grandma lived in Cascade and we would always head up to Woodland to go to the grocery store, the Donut Mill or just to see what was goin on. So glad you had fun! Hope you've had a nice summer. Oh and I love your vision statements and your fitness goals! Blessings to you and your family.

    ReplyDelete