My husband has always wanted to take the kids to Colorado like he got to experience in his younger years. I personal had never seen the Rocky Mountains so I was on board! The boys and Dad had no idea what was in store. Dad came back from vacation needing a vacation and the boys were a mix of feelings due to differences in age. My stepson who is 16 years old currently enjoyed the views but of course is at the age where he would have been fine being home with friends hanging out and couldn’t wait to get back. My youngest who is almost 2 was pretty excited, seemed like he know exactly what the mountains were and that we were experiencing something that we don’t get to experience every day. As soon as the mountains were in view you could hear him in the backseat saying “oh wow” “oh wow” haha. I forgot to mention WE DROVE!! We drove eleven and a half hours with 3 kids in the back. Our middle son who is 7, I would say enjoyed it the most! He was all about getting all the souvenirs and taking in any and every adventure that came his way!

We stayed in Estes Park for the week and visited allot of near by attractions such as all the shops downtown, nearby parks, and eateries. Our first day was spent mostly taking in the beautiful views of all the breathtaking mountains. The first day in we went to a nice easily assessable park to make it easy with the littles. This is where we hoping to get to spot some wildlife, but the closest we got was seeing the bear prints. Not allot else happened on our first day as we arrived early and we were exhausted from driving all night. There was a hot tub where we were staying so dad and chase spent some time is there together, for some daddy and me time.

Our second day is when we got our passes to the Rocky Mountain National Park and this was by far my favorite! Such beautiful views I could spend days in there walking around exploring. Not to mention the beautiful creeks filled with gorgeous rocks. I’m a huge fan of gemstones and was determined I was going to find some, or even better yet, some gold!! haha My 7 year old was the only one on board with digging for treasure. We spent hours driving around in the mountains and taking in all the views.

The third day was spent going to all the shops that Estes Park has to offer. We went to the Laffy Taffy shop, where we got some of the best Salt-Water Taffy I’ve ever had in my life. We visited far too many of the candy shops, but had to make sure my boys had some rock candy! I of course, wanted to go into every single shop there was and my husband informed me, that I in fact, do not have to get something at Every Single Store. ha!! I had to make sure every one had a souvenir! All the boys had to have their Estes Park Pennies, their Rocky Mountain Park pennies, everyone had to have t shirts’ from both Rockies and Estes Park. You know, just the basics.

By the fourth day everyone was getting wore out from hiking and adventures and Dad had to go see the stadium of his favorite team while we were in Colorado!! So we took off to Denver! Our first stop in Denver was the Empower Field at Mile High.

My favorite part of this day had to of been the look of excitement in my husbands eyes. I could see how much it meant to him to be able to take his boys to see the stadium. Hopefully one day I will be able to take them all there for a game! After leaving the stadium we went to the Downtown Aquarium. This was probably all of the boys most favorite part of the whole trip. The youngest kept taking a seat in front of each aquarium and saying “hi fishy hi fishy”. The oldest got to pet the sting rays and I hadn’t seen him smile like that in quite some time! The middle was just overstimulated but very happy to see the sharks!

Verdict after returning home.. Next time my husband plans to let me pay a higher fee upfront to have amenities and everything planned out in advance. He also definitely would rather fly next time! He said he was not prepared for a vacationwith the kids! Maybe next we will do a cruise on the Caribbean just the two of us! However, all in all we all greatly enjoyed our time in Colorado and I would highly recommend Estes Park to any friend! – Brandie Mae- Lovely Journies #livelifeonpurpose

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