Climbing Mountains and other Labor Day activities!

Over Labor Day weekend we hiked our first 14er!! For those of you who may be asking, what is a 14er? it is one of the many mountains in Colorado that are above 14,000 feet in elevation. For comparison, Pikes Peak is one of the 14ers in Colorado. After a relaxing overnight stay in Breckenridge we took off with our friends Diana, Jordan and their one year old Seth to Mt Quandry.


Diana and Jordan have climbed many 14ers, but not with a one year old! They were very excited for the challenge and joy of sharing this with their baby.

We took many breaks including diaper change breaks! Changing diapers on the side of a mountain is a little more challenging, luckily we found an open area off the path.

Just as we are coming above tree line you can see the peak for the first time. It is the far shadded one in the picture above and it looked very far away...

Oh but the views were just tremendous and more rewarding when you are climbing them rather than driving. These views are some that you can't drive to though, only a few 14ers have access to the summit by road.After we came out of the tree line we were pretty much just hiking on rocks for 3 hours. Very tiresome on the poor ankles. Even more so on the hike down!

So after 4 hours of hiking we made it to the top. It was no easy feat, especially for Diana who carried Seth on her back pretty much the whole way! It was only 3.5 miles up, but with 3000 ft elevation gain and very little oxygen it took us a long time.

Diana, Seth and I summited the mountain first. We sort of caught a second wind and cheered one another onto the top. She was so proud of her accomplishment, everyone passing us on the trail was taking pictures and making comments about little Seth.

Seth was such a trooper he really likes riding in his pack, but by the time we reached the top he was getting very tired and hungry!

Not too long after we summited Jordan and Matt joined us. Matt was quite certain that he would never climb a 14er again at this point but at least he did one! He is much more sensitive to the altitude and does not tolerate being at 14,000 feet much less climbing rocks at this height! But we celebrated for a few moments, until we looked around at the storms that were coming in. 14,000 feet is not a good place to be when lightening strikes.

It started sleeting on us and we had to pull out our rain gear, but luckily there wasn't any lightening.

The hike down on the rocks was actually very difficult. Your legs are already so tired and the rocks are so uneven. We all rolled our ankles and fell here or there. Jordan had a hard time keeping balance with Seth on his back.

Seth in his rain gear! Still looking tired.

After about 30 minutes the storm had blown over and we were once again blessed by blue skies! And mountain goats!

It was such a relief to hit tree line again. Even ground with dirt trails was so much easier to walk on. With each step the air was getting thicker and the green cover of the trees was welcoming.

At the end of the hike we were all very tired but we accomplished our task. Now it was off to Beaujo's for some well deserved Colorado pizza!!The next exciting thing this weekend was that Matt bought his snowboard! He is SO very excited for ski season. Labor Day is when everything starts to go on sale for ski season. We opened a new bank account at Wells Fargo and recieved a buy one get one free voucher for season passes to three ski resorts. So we are ready for snow to come and Matt could not be more happy with his snowboard find!Trigger posing to give advice out to his fans on Facebook!

Daniel and Robyn were in town on Labor Day, it was so good to spend time with them. Robyn had never been to Colorado before, so we welcomed her to the mountains that we love.

The first night we had dinner at Aunt kay's, yum yum...

Then I took them to Mount Evan's the next day so Robyn could get a good view of the mountains.

We did our fair share of some bouldering and hiking.

Their last evening here we drove up to Greeley to see Aunt Zoe, Uncle Randy and Anna. It was a lot of fun. Good food and good times with lots of laughter.

Well that was our busy Labor Day! It was great to hang out and get our mind off work and house hunting. We definitely spent some good time in the hot tub this week as our muscles and joints are still healing from the hike. We may have some house news coming soon...

Other than that I hope everyone is doing well and happy September!! That means fall is coming soon, very soon. I Love the Fall it's my favorite!