Colorado Days 1 and 2

Thursday we left for our family vacation to Colorado. Jonathan and I decided that for Christmases we would take the "gift" money and put it toward a vacation instead of buying toys. We were going to go to Sea World in San Antonio, but after a vote, decided to go to Colorado. Jonathan has a sister in Denver and a mission buddy in Colorado Springs. We will stop in a few towns on the way to Denver and see some neat sites.

We survived the first day (a 7 hour trip) without watching a movie. The kids asked a couple of times for one, but I didn't want to figure out how to used the DVD player or figure out where to put it. The kids played with toys and each other, read books, colored and listened to books on CD. We stayed our first night in Durango.

Thursday morning we headed to Silverton, a nearby mining town. The drive up was beautiful. We kept hearing comments from the kids like: "awesome!" and "I'm so glad we came to Colorado." We saw lots of snow on the ground, a big river, some waterfalls and a muskrat. We went on a tour at Old Hundred Gold Mine. The tour guide had us put on rain coats and hard hats.
Then we loaded a train and entered the mountain. It was cold and wet, but totally cool. Ephram was a little scared.
Here's Braedi holding a steel "nail" for the guide as he pretends to hammer it with a sledge. (sorry--it's kind of blurry)
Corbin got to yell "Fire in the hole!" and press on the detonator. (this one's blurry, too)
Faythe wanted to do it, too.
Here's some other cool pictures.



Then we got to pan for gold and silver. The water was freezing, but we found some small silver pellets. It started snowing as we were finishing.





We had lunch at an overpriced tourist stop restaurant then headed back to the hotel. We swam at the pool then got ready for bed. It's hard to sleep when everyone is in the same room, but we'll survive.