On Monday night Shauna Arrington, Abe’s cousin, and her mother, Vanessa, came up to Estes Park. Shauna is a photographer, and we love her. She came up on her birthday, so while we were in Boulder I got some cupcakes from Tee and Cakes for her. They were really yummy.
Tuesday morning Benji, Janine, Sruthi and Swathi got up early to go on an able-bodied-adult-only hike in the snowy mountains. At one point the hike included sliding down the mountain on their bums because the terrain was too icy. They then started over at another hike and successfully climbed the whole way.
Then we all went to Lily Lake to take family pictures. When Shauna finishes editing them, I can fill in this post more completely. In the meantime, here are some Abe took of Ammon during the shoot, and one of Sruthi and Soren.
After the photo shoot, we all headed to Estes Park and ate at a Nepalese restaurant. My mom, Abe, my kids and I were all pretty sick, so the warm, spicy food was very pleasant and comforting. Ammon is crazy and uncontainable after about ten minutes, so Abe took him outside and let him play after Abe was done eating. During that time Ammon crashed his face into a boulder and got quite cut up. At least that happened after the pictures!
Now to be perfectly honest, I completely forget which day we did the climbing wall. I feel like we did it one rainy morning, but I can’t place it. In any case, we went to an indoor rock climbing place in Estes Park and discovered that our family has a lot of rock climbing talent! Lydia blew some experienced rock climbers away by climbing up an adult section of the wall successfully, Mary and Soren both made it to the top of the wall, Liem was a lightning bolt of speed during his climb, Swathi and Sruthi succeeded in their climbs, and so did Clark, Pao and Abe. I have since put Lydia on the waiting list for our local kids’ climbing club. That girl looked so good climbing, and I was so proud of her.
Benji and Janine cooked us all a feast for dinner. It was so delicious.
I was so full that afterward I went straight to bed. The girls stayed up with Liem and Pao and played monopoly for hours. Abe went over to get them and ended up spending an hour playing with them. I was glad for my 8pm bedtime because between his cold and his black eye, Ammon ended up waking up all night long…