Castle Rock

My darling scuttlebutt, aka my sister, moved to Castle Rock, Colorado a year and a half ago. She's been down here to visit a few times, but this was our first trek up North.

 

It was a 14 hour drive, but we had to split it into 2 days. Nate wanted to stay and cook breakfast for all the Scout families Saturday morning for the Blue and Gold camp out, so we didn't get out of the driveway until 11 am. The kids were actually wonderful and we made it to Santa Fe, New Mexico that night. As we hurried our freezing butts into the hotel, we all had the realization that we were going to be cold for the next week and a half. And were we ready for that?

Sunday we made it by the early afternoon and promptly melted to death. I think it was in the high 70s that day?

 

The 12 of us quickly overwhelmed my sister's apartment, so we headed to the park. Luke and Nate made new friends and had a snowball fight with all the leftover snow on the ground. Which was better than when Luke was eating the old snow.

We spent a few days playing around Castle Rock before heading up to the mountain. I had a giant check list of things I wanted to do. Including eating the Luther at Crave Burger.

 

Yes, that is a burger, egg and bacon on glazed donuts. In my defense, I only ate a bite. I figured between 8 of us ordering different hamburgers, someone had to do it. I still can't decide if it was delicious or disgusting. I will say the donut bread pudding is delicious. And as I have now sampled most of the menu, I feel like I'm a crave expert. Get the truffle fries.

My sister once again claimed the Best Aunt in the World award in my girls' eyes when she had them stay over for a sleepover. The girls got to stay up late making bows.

Ellie had quite the Bow-Fro.

There was also a trip to the American Girl Doll store. I don't even like dolls and I got in that store and wanted to buy EVERYTHING. Sadie was so excited to finally get one. My favorite memory was actually from before our trip. She was agonizing on whether she should get a look alike doll or the girl of the year. In the end she came to me with this reasoning, "The girl of the year is special for just this year, but I'm special every year and so I'm going to get a look alike doll because I'm much more special than just a doll."

Our little personal shopper followed us around as we gave into every whim and fancy of the three girls. That's actually a lie. Nora did not get the double jogging doll stroller OR the VW bug she wanted so badly. Maybe that's why she was so indifferent to her bitty baby.

The girls ended up with a dress that came in every size so they could match. Did you know they even have a dressing room in that store?

We then took the girls out to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory where everyone oohed and ahhed over their adorableness. Sadie even got an entire plate full of extra pickles out of the deal. And somewhere in their Nora decided that she did in fact like her bitty baby, but only because she had a hat. And so now her name is Hat.

 The little boys, meanwhile, were hiking around the Garden of the Gods with my dad.

There was also a swimming party at the hotel. While my parents took the kids to the pool, I napped, Kyle and Dustin worked (after their man lunch-date), and Kathleen tried to decide between playing with the sand or American Girl dolls' hair.

Tuesday we had a girl-date before picking up Olivia from preschool and heading for Breckenridge. The wind started blowing and temperature started dropping. My mom, Kathleen and I browsed the Barn for over an hour. I wanted to buy everything in the store, but alas the two chairs would not fit in my car unless I ditched some kids.

After that we had macaroons, croissants, a lemon bar, a beignet, hot chocolate. . . basically one of everything at Dream Pastries while it started snowing. It felt all sorts of magical.

Until I realized we'd be driving into the mountains in the snow.