Hot Springs

What do you do when its been snowing for 12 hours straight in April? Why go to the hot springs of course! Dont like naked hippies you say? No problem. Colorado decided they would put some of thiers indoors, and make them into squeeky clean swimming pools for families. (awesome! why hasn't Thatcher thought of that?) A couple saturdays ago we decided to drive about an hour up the road to Salida to one of the best indoor hot springs in the area. The lap pool is cooled down to 85 so you dont overheat while you exercise and the family pool is a PERFECT 100 degrees! The girls lasted probably twice as long as usual because it felt like this amazing bath that never got cold. It felt great on this tired pregnant body. The only downside is that we will now have to put Emma in swim lessons ASAP since she thinks shes a mermaid and can swim. Definitely cannot swim. Here are some pictures of the morning. 

The Gorge that is Royal

We have been super duper enjoying our time in Colorado and the girls are enjoying the nicer days when they like to take turns biting an apple in this chair in our backyard. 

But more importantly.....this girl turned 3 last month! We have already taken up refering to her as a three-nager, even though i'm sure we have no idea whats in our future. She tells us that when she is 6, thats when she can drive and get married. I'm afraid she is in for some dissapointment there.... She is spunky and energetic and so great at making new friends everywhere we take her!

She was SO EXCITED that we took her to a local bakery that lets kids decorate there own birthday cake for $15. 

I cant tell you how much she loved it, and how much we love this picture. They actually posted it on the company website! 

 We love her and to celebrate we spent her birthday at the Royal Gorge about 10mins from our house. Kallam is one of the Civil Engineers in charge of everything about the bridge/buildings/play stuff so he gets a family pass for free and we can take others in for chump change. :)

Emma and Jenny got special badges to wear, making them officially plastic park rangers. Emma was pretty much stoked as you can see by the look on her face!

This is all Jenny does no matter where we go just to paint the picture of our day clearly. 

They have a great "Gondola" as they call it that you can ride back and forth if you are brave enough to be hanging out over the biggest drop I've ever let my eyes see.  Its approx 1250ft deep. Eeek! Thats actually almost exactly the same as the empire state building look out, which is at floor #102. 

They have a killer play area for kids that includes huge three story rope playground, sandboxes to look for treasure and merry go rounds. 

Jenny finally let go of the bottle long enough to play

And of course the bridge you can walk across on. It was fun to see kayaks and rafters going down the Arkansas River as we crossed. What is it about states naming rivers after other states? I grew up next to the Colorado River, now the Arkansas river here. There are fifteen rivers named after states, some of them having nothing to do with the state.  Just a side thought...

All in all we were happily there for hours and had a blast!