Colorado Family Vacation

Hello everyone! I wanted to share a little bit about what we have been up to the last week! The Maeschen family took on Colorado last week and we all had a blast! We left on July 20 and got back on July 27th. With 3 kids we broke up the drive over a couple days because 10+ hours in the car with 3 kids 7 and under can be quite the task. Now don’t get me wrong it isn’t like they didn’t have things to keep them busy but for their age staying in hotels is their favorite parts. Now as they get older and start fighting over who gets to push the elevator buttons and swipe the hotel card for the door it starts to get less fun for us!

We didn’t tell the kids we were going anywhere until we showed up at Grandma’s ready to hit the road. Alektra had just gotten in the pool and needless to say showed us some attitude because she wasn’t done swimming. But once we told her why we were there she perked up a bit. Stealth played it cool per the usual.

Colorado Springs

Great Wolf Lodge – Our first official stop in Colorado was Great Wolf Lodge where we stayed for 3 nights. A couple of years ago we went to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas and they always have asked when we were going back. First of all if you have never stayed in one they make it extremely convenient for you to spend a lot of money. I mean they give the adults a wrist band that you can scan at any point in time and they will charge you. So you don’t ever really have to get out your wallet to hand over cash or a credit card.

They have Dunkin Donuts, gift shops, Ben & Jerry’s, Build a Bear, restaurants, bars……etc I think you get it. Just scan your wrist band at any of those places and cha ching……

The water park was broken up into 4 sections. 1) The water rides/slides, there were 4 2) fort mackenzie 3) the wave pool 4) the baby/toddler area. You have to be certain heights for each of the rides. Stealth was able to ride everything and Alektra was able to ride all but 2 of the slides. It was a big deal last time we went that she wasn’t able to do any of the bigger slides so she was excited that she was able to do it this year. Lexis went down the slides in the baby toddler area about 168 million times. And Bronson or I had to be at the end to catch her all 168 million times. Lexis also enjoyed the wave pool but it also required physical exertion to help her “jump” the waves.

As far as time at the water park we typically would do other things during the day and let the kids run their energy out in the afternoon. A couple hours at the water park was more than enough for them (and us).

Things we liked particularly about this Great Wolf Lodge was that it was less crowded than the one in Texas, much less. We didn’t feel instantly stressed walking through the doors. The downside is it is all indoors where Texas had some outdoor water slides and pools that was nice to have but then again they are able to utilize them a bit more for their weather.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo – The zoo is on the side of a mountain which is awesome. You basically drive through a nice neighborhood up the mountain and wham you are there. The first thing as you walk in the zoo is a giraffe feeding experience which the kids absolutely loved. I found it a bit weird that they had the best part of the zoo right when you walk in which made the rest of the zoo a bit of a let down and it became congested quickly.

Other than the giraffe experience it was your typical zoo experience except with a great view. Lions, elephants, orangutan, gorilla, etc…….all good stuff and the kids loved it especially our zoo keeper Alektra. Stealth and Bronson took a sky glider ride from one end to the other which they said was fun while the girls and I went to get some souvenirs from the gift shop. Alektra is slowing accumulating all the big cat family stuffed animals.

U.S. Air Force Academy – The kids really wanted to go here (NOT!)…..needless to say we had to remind them that there were things that mommy and daddy wanted to do besides go to the water park. We had passed the academy going to the zoo and we could see planes from our balcony at Great Wolf Lodge dropping off sky divers from the academy.

They play a video every 30 minutes that shows you what the academy is all about and what you can expect as a student there. In my opinion it was pretty hard core but I respected the way they went about it. The visitor center had all the gear you could want and then had a bunch of pictures and factoids about the college and U.S. Air Force. They also had some students in there that were holding hawks that the kids got to pet. We also visited the chapel which was my favorite part. It was uniquely shaped but was beautiful on the inside with the stained glass and tall ceiling pitch.

Golden/Denver

After staying at Great Wolf Lodge we made our way toward Denver. We didn’t stay in Denver but nearby Golden which was a bit cheaper. The drive down to Denver wasn’t really bad but we didn’t hit rush hour traffic or anything.

Mile High Stadium – We visited the Denver Broncos stadium while there. No we aren’t necessarily Broncos fans but it is always interesting to visit these types of places since we are football fans. We have never been to a professional football game so it was fun to see. We went on a guided tour by some college kid who said “alright” after every 3 words. He was a nice boy but I wish I would have counted how many times he said it during the 75 minute tour. Alright.

We visited one of the suites, the writers room, the CBS room, and John Elway’s suite (which was surprisingly small). We also went to the visitor’s locker room which was pretty spacious but from what was described not near as luxe as the Bronco’s locker room. We also went down to field level but had to stay off the turf so no one got in trouble. Apparently they take a lot of pride in the grass. They were getting ready as practice was supposed to start the following weekend for the team.

Hammonds Candies – Our last official stop was Hammonds Candies, which by no surprise was Stealth’s favorite. The tour was a bit lack luster but won the kids over because they give out candy canes at the end that were big enough to hurt someone. The tour itself started with a video and then you get to watch the factory workers through the windows as someone walks you through the process and the different stations in the factory. The tour ends at the actual store where you can buy/sample just about every type of candy you can think of. We bought some taffy, caramel, chocolate marshmallows, and some caramel popcorn. All were delicious and didn’t last that long.

Yarn Stores – No trip is complete for me without a stop at some local yarn shops. I hit up 3 in Colorado and re-visited one in Omaha on the way back home. I of course didn’t remember to snap any photos of any of them but will tell you about them anyway. The first one was Everything Alpaca which was run by a group of local Alpaca breeders and this sweet old woman was working and I scored a couple of skeins of hand-dyed yarn.

The next stop was in downtown Denver, Fancy Tiger Crafts. The store was super cute. It had yarn on one side and fabric on the other. It was my favorite store of the 3 I visited. I will say that once I settled on some purchases and had the yarn caked it took forever. The lady doing it was so slow and I could tell the other workers were trying to get her to go to lunch so they could get my yarn finished up and I could get out of there. I probably stood there for at 15 minutes waiting for her to finish up, it was painful.

The last stop was Yarn Shoppe Denver, it was a bit of a let down. It didn’t have much selection and I had the hardest time finding it. It was downtown Denver in a janky building that I had to take an elevator to and it was just all kinds of weird. That didn’t stop me from getting a couple things but still…I probably wouldn’t go back.

Well that about wraps it up for the vacation recap. It was a great week to spend with the family with a little bit of everything for everyone!