Our Labor Day Weekend...

***Warning***

It's a long post! Sorry!

It started off with a trip to Chatfield Reservoir for some fishing Friday afternoon. We got there and tried to find a place to set up and for some reason we were having a hard time. The first area, the trail ended before getting to the lake. The second place, there were a bunch of people set up doing some fishing, no big deal, right!? Not the case for us, Josh started walking over to an area that had tall grass and then opened to a beachy area. When the girls and I started over there Josh comes walking back, he got attacked by mosquitoes and they followed because we started getting attacked. I HATE mosquitoes!!! I get welts. Apparently so does Ayva (see picture below). Poor thing! And she had more than just that one. 

Of course I didn't come prepared with bug spray, I'm such a well prepared mom, huh?!!! 

So we found another area, got set up and it didn't seem too bad with the bugs! Ha, yay right!! After awhile they came again, a little more manageable this time though. 

Of course, the little priss that I am couldn't take it anymore. So I got the girls and headed for the store to get some cream for the bites and bug spray for all of us. When I get bites, I itch and itch until they bleed. We also picked up dinner on the way back. Needless to say we didn't stay too much longer and Josh didn't have any luck with fish, we were too busy killing mosquitoes and spraying us down. 

I counted at least 25 bites all over me. I even got a couple in an area that my jeans were covering. We all got bites but Josh and Cheyenne just had the little red bumps and didn't really bother them but Ayva and I were going crazy with itching and welts for days after.

This is the only picture I got from that adventure.

I don't know if any of you have heard of the shows Survivorman and Man vs. Wild, my husband loves those shows. It gets him all pumped up. The guy that does Survivorman is Les and the guy that does Man vs. Wild is Bear. Josh has even got Ayva watching them, she'll say, "Watch Bear?" or "Watch Les?" It cracks us up! 

So anyways, Josh has really been wanting to go out and be like his heroes, so on Saturday he gets up at 4am, gets a pack all geared up with his stuff and takes off for an adventure. He had been researching and found a place he wanted to try. He said there was a lake he wanted to try but it was a hike through a canyon he said, "It's only a couple miles up this canyon." Famous last words! So he parked grabbed his gear and headed for the trail head only to find that it was a couple miles from the car to the actually beginning of the hike. Oh, something I should mention, it has been about a month and a half since his surgery and he hasn't been able to work out like he usually does so he's not in shape like he usually is.

So back to his adventure. He had his day pack very well prepared (a little too prepared, some heavy stuff) plus he had his new hiking boots on which are not broken in. He started through the canyon and maps on the computer don't really show detail, the canyon was very steep and filled with boulders and the actual canyon was about 4 miles. From the end of the canyon to the lake was another couple miles and pass tree line. My awesome husband kept on truckin', he has no fear and loves a challenge! He finally made it to the lake and was totally wiped out. He fished for a couple hours, caught about 25 fish and then headed back down. 

I don't know about any of you but if I had done that and knowing that I had to go back down the same way I went up I would have given up and had to be rescued. 

Not Josh. He had blisters on his feet, carrying a very heavy pack, plus his fishing gear, climbing over boulders and not to mention his throat was irritated (for those of you who don't know, he had his uvula removed) because of the cold dry air. He also took about 4 bottles of water and had those finished by the time he made it to the lake because his throat would get dry. So on the way back down his Survivorman skills kicked in. Instead of filling up his bottles at the lake (yuck!) he filled them up at the little waterfalls, he said the water tasted awesome.

At about 5:30pm I called him, I just wanted to make sure he was ok. He was in the car and on his way home. I've never heard him that worn out before. 

He did a total of about 15 miles.

This is the lake he made it to.

So on Monday we decided to make it easy on ourselves and just go for a drive. 

We drove to Mt. Evans that reaches over 14,000 ft. and you can drive all the way to the top. Towards the top the road gets a little scary!

We made it to the top.

Ayva had fun running around. You can't tell from the pictures but there were people everywhere.

This is the view from the top. It was so beautiful! We could even see Denver.

On the way back down there were a bunch of cars pulled off the side of this very narrow road. So I got out and this is what everyone was looking at.

Mountain Goats

Instead of going the same way we came (I-70) we went over another pass because I-70 was backed up and was not moving. And of course this gave Josh another opportunity to do some fly fishing, his favorite. So we pulled over to do some fly fishing.

We also came across these Big Horn Sheep off the side of the road. They were so close to our car.

This is Ayva at the end of the day. Didn't get much sleep for the day and she did pretty good.