Monday the kids slept in – when I woke up at midnight, I could still hear whispering going on, so they weren’t up quite as early as usual the next morning :-). Almost as soon as they did get up, though, they headed outside to play in the sprinkler, and to continue with their critter catching – Clara and Mason’s favorite activity. Here they are comparing frogs on the front steps

When it got to be too hot to play outside, everyone came in and we made cupcakes. It was another good day.

Sunday night four of the six grand ones came to spend the night – Charlie and Adam were in Georgia to go camping with Sherri and Gary for the week.  I had a busy afternoon, so it was sort of late by the time everyone arrived – but not too late for catching lightning bugs, of course!

Cousins in a swing. What a good evening.

I have been wanting to travel to Newberry, SC, and take in a show in their restored opera house ever since I first heard about it.  I finally did just that Saturday, with a group of folks from our church.  We went to see the play Nine to Five.  I have to say, the play wasn’t as good as I remember the movie being, but the opera house was absolutely lovely.  I’d love to go back sometime just to tour it.

We had a wonderful vacation, but it was good to get home, too, and get back into our regular schedule.  When June and Mason were over last Wednesday we fixed spaghetti casseroles for us to have for supper.  Yum.

Here are a couple of final pictures from our vacation.  Still pretty much basking in the glow.  This is a view from the top (back) of the Red Rocks Amphitheater.  If you look to the left, in the grey area in the distance, you may be able to pick out the skyline of Denver.  What a gorgeous view.

Trying to catch one more glimpse of the prairie dogs before we leave. Awesome, awesome trip.

Saturday morning we all met up at Red Rocks Amphitheater to check it out before we headed to the airport and our flight home.  It was an amazing place.  I hate we didn’t get to take in a concert there.  Next trip!  In the bottom of the center there was a museum with the history of the place, starting with the dinosaurs that used to roam there, and then through the Indians that lived there, and the building of the amphitheater, finally to the acts that have performed there.  Very cool.

Group photo before we left. It was just a very neat place.

Last Friday it was time for us to check out of our condo where we’d spent our week’s vacation, & head to Denver to spend a couple of days as we closed out our vacation 2015.  We drove back a different road from the one we’d come on, and we got more beautiful mountain scenery to enjoy on the way.  I’m so glad we got to see the Rockies up close and personal one last time.

Each of us picked out one thing we didn’t want to miss on vacation, and Mallory’s was Molly Brown’s house in Denver.  It was a great tour, even though they didn’t allow any pictures during the time we were taking it, and there was a special display at the end about fashions of the period, as well as history of fashion, which was really interesting.  Here is Mal afterwards on the side porch.  It was a cool place.

What a fun day we had our last day at Steamboat Springs, at the hot springs – the first time I’d ever really been to one.  It was wonderful!  It was a great set up.  There were hot springs flowing down a mountain, and filling up a couple of pools with hot water.  It felt soooo good – I could’ve stayed in that forever.  It was a little hot for the girls, though, and the springs were so nice.  There was a mountain stream that was dammed up to make a swimming pool, but believe me, mountain water this time of year is not exactly something you want to spend a lot of time in!  In fact, even the crazy teenagers that were there had a hard time getting in it :-).

Further on down the mountain, they had more pools, where more and more of the cold water fed into the hot springs water, so they were progressively cooler. The girls liked those much better, and we had a good time playing in the waterfalls there. We stayed until it started thundering, when we thought it best to get out of the water. It was a fun morning.

Here are a couple more pictures.  The drive at the top of the mountain was harrowing, to say the least.  Jeff was taking pictures while I was driving.  That’s Lindee & Jackson in front of us, and it looked like they were just going to drive off into the end of the earth.,  Crazy.

We came down the mountain, stopping at some beautiful overlooks on the way down, and it was a little clearer by the time we stopped for a picnic lunch. And just like the first time we were there earlier in the week, elk came out to join us.  Or, technically, I guess we were joining them.  This time, though, it was male elk, with those great antlers.  What cool lunchtime entertainment.

On the way back to the condo, we saw a beautiful rainbow. A rainbow in the Rockies.  What a great way to end just an awesome trip.