Molly asked me what is going on in Nessie land Colorado. That is a good question that I should probably answer...after I think about what's "has" been going on. Hmmm. I said that I would blog about our outdoorsey adventures, but haven't done that yet, so I think I will do that now!
Summer has finally come (though we still have silly cold spells every so often), and I know how much Aaron likes to hike and go camping, and so I thought that this summer I would show him that we can still do those things with the Aloria. Sooo, we picked a short hike to take her on. It was a mile loop in a place called Rabbit Valley (it took us about an 1 1/2 hrs to hike)...only about twenty minutes from home. It has a gorgeous view and it's kind of a fossel preserve. Every so often there is a little sign to stop and read that tells you to look at certain rocks where you can see dinosaur or plant fossels, which makes the hike educational as well as fun. So, we used a baby/toddler framed backpack for Aloria, covered her legs with pants and socks (despite it being a warm day) to keep them out of the sun and bathed her arms and nose with sunscreen...put on her hat, made sure we had plenty of water, pedialite, and some snacks for her and we were off. I couldn't believe how good she was. She wouldn't drink her bottle, but she drank a lot of the pedialite...she only fussed when we stopped to read the signs because she liked Aaron walking around better, I'm guessing. We handed her a rock (too big for her mouth but not to big for her to hold) and she carried it for almost the entire hour and a half hike. I wanted to save it, but she dropped it right before we got back to the car. She slept for hours once we got home.
The next weekend we decided to go camping at Mud Springs...about 30 something minutes away. It's up on the Monument passed Glade Park for any of you who know what I'm talking about. Basically, the Monument is well, a monument to this part of Colorado. It's a mountain/plateau type thing where people go on lots of hikes. It's part of a State Park, so they charge a fee during the summer, I think. Glade Park is a small town community up on the Monument with one general store, as far as I have seen, and a volunteer Fire Station. Anyway, it's cold up there at night, no matter that it's summer, because of the elevation...so it was more difficult to prepare things for Aloria, not knowing how she would handle being cold in a tent at night. I brought her warm jammies, one light fleece and one heavier blanket to put over it, a thermous to keep hot water in so that in the middle of the night if she woke up wanting a bottle, all of our water wouldn't be ice cold...this was probably the most important thing I thought of, aside from warm clothes. She doesn't normally wake up in the middle of the night anymore, but I knew she probably would and be confused at where she was and so a bottle would soothe her...it worked! I brought very little toys, as she I figured she would most likely ignore familiar things in favor of grass and rocks, so I brought a toy hammer to pound things and the Barrel of Monkeys container for her to pour dirt in and out of. It worked!...she spent most of her time in the dirt pouring things in and out of her container. For a first time mommy taking her little one on her first camping trip, I was getting all A's...woohoo! No catastrophes yet! My in-laws came with us (as did Jeremy and Nathan, another guy from church...they only stayed until dark), so Marlene helped hold her while I fed her...so did Uncle Jeremy (thought I should give him so proper credit to make up for the time he didn't watch her while she was on the couch and she fell off!...I'm not bitter!) In the morning I brought cream of wheat to warm us all up...Aloria loves it! She woke up several times at night, but didn't really cry to long...just sort of wined and cuddled up close to me, which was strange, because she usually likes her space when she sleeps, but she was probably cold and wierded out by the whole nightime experience. I didn't keep her in the sleeping bag with me because I heard of two year dying from asphyxiation (sp) from a sleeping back. I don't know the whole story, but I didn't want to smother her on accident...and she was fine with her own blankets. ...though in the morning all four of her teeth were chattering when I got her up. ...and her little bottom and legs were all goose bumpy when I changed her diaper. So Grandma wrapped her in a blanket and they cuddled by the fire until the sun warmed everything up...around 9:00am or so. Anyway, all in all a good experience! Aloria handled her first outings extremely well, I thought.
We want to make a habit of going out once a week or so...on a small hike, etc...but so far we haven't been able to follow up on that, but that's okay, sometimes life demands other responsibilities of you. We'll go again eventually:-) Our goal is to hike up to Hanging Lake. It's an 1 1/2 hours away above the hot springs at Glenwood Springs (a town on the way to Denver)...and feel we need to work up to it because, besides the longer drive, it's almost a straight up hike (I mean walking up hill almost the whole way), so I want Aloria to not freak out since we won't be as close to home...though I have a feeling she would do fine, and I'm the one dragging my feet on this one. I'm fine once we get to a place, but getting ready almost always stresses me out a little...or a lot depending. ...and I just don't want to get to the top and forget something like food or a bottle for Aloria. Most likely I wouldn't forget, but it's kind of like those naked dreams you have when you're all panicky because you all of sudden realize you aren't wearing clothes and there's nothing you can do about it. Okay that was a rough analogy. Here are some pictures! :-)
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