The Baldwin Clan: Birthday Mania

Jeremy's 31st birthday came up next, so we had a family party for him.

Here is the table with his loot.

The kids wrote him letters and made him cards

to go with the photo book we made him:

31 Reasons You are the Best Dad in the World

The other presents were gift cards for dates (yay!) and a new board game that we fell in love with called SmallWorld. Nathan is actually really good at it and can play on his own!

Then we had cake, which Jamie cut up like a maniac!

It was a fun night with great food, and fun games with family- just what he wanted.

Then was my birthday...which he totally out did himself on!

First off, he took me out dancing earlier in the week. It was county night at the Denver Turnvrein, and we had a BLAST!

THEN- and he kept me totally in the dark on this one until the very last second-

I had told him since we moved back to Colorado last year that I wanted to hike Hanging Lake, one of the most well-known, beautiful, but slightly more challenging hikes in this lovely state. The hard part is, the trail is in Glenwood Spring, (about 3 hours away) and really should be done in the morning, so that means going overnight, and the kids wouldn't enjoy or make it, so that makes things even more challenging!

Well, at about 3pm on Friday night he told me to round up what I wanted for myself because we were leaving to go camping in Glenwood and hiking Hanging Lake on Sat morning!

At first I felt a surge of panic as he told me he had everything covered and the car all packed, all I needed was a backpack of what I wanted and to get in the car...but I am the one who usually packs for these things and makes sure we have everything we need!

But, he was a great sport about my panic and ran through everything with me to confirm he really had thought of everything! Sitter for the kids and all!

To boot, Jason and Rasy were going to be joining us :) Yay!

We arrived at the place he found to camp- which wasn't a traditional camp ground at all... but one of the more terrific places I've ever camped! We got there about an hour before sun set, so we set up camp and got the fire roaring just in time for Jason and Rasy to join us!

We were RIGHT next to Grizzly Creek, which was awesome.

Jeremy actually scared the wits out of a couple that was NOT Jason and Rasy (though he thought it was... timing was right and similar builds, couple walking the path after dark right past our campsite....) so he hid in the bushes and made some awful growling noises. The guy was carrying a real bow and arrow, so as soon as Jeremy jumped out with his flashlight and saw it was not people he knew he quickly explained himself :)

Dinner was one of my favorites: Costa Vida!

Just re-heated them in the fire, worked out perfectly!

Jason and Rasy had wings- also yummy.

Here we are chillin on the giant log between us and the river, just watching the stars and listening to the running water.

This log also made it so that we could talk to each other in camp and still hear each other if we were sitting below it, it would muffle the roaring sounds of the river.

Here are a few shots of our site the next morning, in the daylight!

Yes, Jason looks totally hung over! I think we woke this camper up a little early!

But before too long we had consumed a breakfast of eggs and coffee cake, packed up camp and left on our merry way to the trail head!

Love the lost look on Jeremy's face here.

"...uuuhhhh... there should be a sign or somethin', right guys?"

Party of 4, going up!

Look at those hot newly weds!

The entire hike was gorgeous, and was indeed a pretty steep climb in such a short period of time... but the top was well worth it!

My battery started to die on the way up, so I saved it for the top and caught more on the way back down.

May I present: Hanging Lake!

The water was so super clear and the cove of falls was just amazing.

And, the lake really was aqua like the water in Cancun!

Picture with sister Rasy!

Thanks for coming!

Terrible story about Jason here- it appears he is also cursed with the disease of saying horrible things out loud! He was taking this picture and said, "Fat faces!" so we all puffed up our cheeks... but just before snapping he stops, looks at Rasy and says, "No, hun... FAT faces... look at Candace!"

Yep, that just happened.

After the initial lake view you can continue hiking up to a waterfall that you can play in... so we did!

On the way we passed this pool of water with the greenest moss I've ever seen. Given a few figurines I could re-renact the Lord of the Rings scenes in the shire right here :)

So the second waterfall came right out of a small opening in a huge rock wall.

It was Jason's GQ debut ... or his before shots :) He's going in!

For the record... that water is COLD!

It could be deemed refreshing after the hike up there... but really what this came down to was a test of manhood between two silly brothers!

Just crossing here my feet went numb, so that was enough to cool me off!

We found a lovely rock overlooking the falls and had a nice lunch before heading down.

But before heading back, Rasy got her turn in the spotlight!

Jason saw this tall pole she wanted to sit on, and thought he'd assist her in getting on it... and after a couple of awkward tries, they did it!

Ta-Da!

Here you can get a better feel for size of the small cavern behind the waterfall and the size of the fall itself. Pretty cool.

There is this one overlook in the climb that gave Rasy some pretty serious verigo, as well it should! It was a pretty straight drop into the canyon from there... but the view was gorgeous and she braved it for her photo-loving hubba.

This picture doesn't even begin to do it justice, but these stairs were super steep!

And thanks to everyone's patience with me (after all it was my birthday, hehehe) I got to take a long exposure of a waterfall, which I have wanted to try for some time.

Not bad, eh?