Real Life Learning



Our official school year may be over, but the older my kids get the more I realize that major learning opportunities are happening all the time.  We wanted to go somewhere really different so instead of heading west like we do most days we headed east.  Several miles up the road from our RV park is an absolutely awesome mountain park.  It has been named favorite unanimously.

 

 The views at this park are spectacular.  The river flows right through the middle with several areas that are just perfect for wading in.  I am sure the fishing is great too, but we haven't tried that.

 The pavillions are in little cabin like structures.  They are really rustic, but so neat.  There was also a little "hut" that had all kinds of information on the types of nature and wildlife found in this particular area.  The kids loved reading about it all and were talking about it the whole next week.

 Perhaps the most interesting thing about the whole park was the history behind it.  This here is the remnants of the original power plant for the area that was wiped out in the Big Thompson River flood of 1976.  I wasn't even aware of this particular flood, but was surprised to learn it was/is the worst natural disaster in Colorado history.  There was a sign showing the water level at the time and I was shocked to see how fast the water got so high!  Fortunately the design of the area was revamped and something like that cannot happen again!

 After visiting the park we went to the gift shop and climbed this tower to see the dam from the top.  Again, the views were spectacular.  I am not a fan of heights, but it was worth it.

 I am hoping our summer is filled to the brim with experiences  like this!  This is one of the things that made me so excited about the opportunity to travel.  Seeing and being a part of things like this is a lot more fun than just reading about them.



Birthday at the Ball Park

This year the King chose to celebrate his birthday at the ball park and we were lucky enough to be able to take the kids along.  They were so excited!  Of course they had to have the full experience and enjoy ball park food!

 

 In celebration of Cinco De Mayo, everyone got a Vinny Castilla bobblehead, which made the kids pretty happy. 

 

It was a great game, even though our team lost.  The King had a wonderful birthday and it was so nice to all be together!

A Walk Around the Lake

As the weather warmed up and the rain stopped, or so we thought, we got a little bit more adventurous.  One Friday afternoon, after a full week of rainy days inside doing school, we headed out to find something interesting to do.  We finally settled on a walk around Lake Loveland.  As soon as got parked and made our way to the path it started raining.....hard.  Then the rain switched to hail and we couldn't help but laugh maniacally as we ran around the lake.  It stopped soon and our walk became a little more enjoyable.

 

 

 There are some really cool statues around the lake and we stopped to look at most of them.  The kids enjoyed posing and giving them names of their own.

Hopefully this picture of them with "The Statue of Liberty" isn't as close as we ever get!

May Showers?

The snow may have been over, but the moisture wasn't quite done with us!  Luck has it that most of love the rain (Midge isn't a fan) so we enjoyed the rainy days while they lasted.  It was amazing to watch how much things greened up and so fast too.  

 

Spring???

After the first of May, the weather finally turned and it really started feeling like spring.  To celebrate the kids and I went on a drive through town for no other purpose than to just explore.  We got lost a couple of times, but were quickly found thanks to GPS.  We were on the hunt for a new and exciting park, but initially our hunger got the best of us and we ended up stopping at a Mickey Dees first.

With full bellies, we were back out and even more determined to find a cool park.  It didn't take long and we hit the park jackpot.  We found what seriously was the coolest park we had (at that point) been to.  The whole thing was themed after the Wizard of Oz, complete with a tornado that functions as a sprinkler in the summer.

 

The kids played for a couple of hours and then we took a walk around the pond and checked out the skate park area. It felt so good just to be outside enjoying the fresh air!  This was our first of many adventures in the month of May.  Stay tuned if you want to see the park that topped even this one!

Catching Up (Again!)

Okay, so this time it is most definitely not my fault.  I am behind, yet again, but it has been out of  my control.  We are really happy with everything at the RV park we are staying at except the fact that we have no cell service and the internet is totally unreliable.  We are in the mountains so neither of these come as a huge shock, but still rather inconvenient for long time living.  When the computer is up, most of my time is spent updating family via e-mail and working on school.  Now that I have a few minutes though, I will be updating to reflect what we've been up to for the last several weeks!

Blackout

They are putting in a new electrical box in the RV park, so we have had no internet for the last two days.  We have been busy though.  Yesterday we put in a full day of school and then went to the rec center to swim.  It was really nice because there was hardly anybody there.  We all enjoyed the space and stayed for a few hours.  Soon we will be purchasing a summer pass and then we will be able to go whenever we want.  Today we have been putting in extra time for school.  We are still working on the Hobbit and enjoying it immensely.  Unfortunately we are expecting yet another spring snow storm with 6+ inches of snow.  I am not pleased, but this cannot go on forever!