colorado adventure

I took a purposeful hiatus from blogging this past month.I wanted to enjoy just being.seeing what there was to see, laughing without a deadline,spending concentrated time relaxing and BE-ing in the moment.it was good for me...good for my sanity, good for my creativity, good for my family, good for my soul...just good.me and the kids make "summer bucket lists" at the beginning of every summer...things we hope to read, places we hope to hike, movies we want to see, foods we want to try, places we want to go...and high on all our lists was spending time in Colorado with my sister's family.I had a few weddings to shoot with my sister the last week of June and the first week of Julyso me and the kids flew out there to spend a week with my sister's family!they spent the week hiking, creek walking, seeing nature, trying new foods and mostly spending time adventuring with kenz + hudson...it was a much needed escape from the AZ heat and the only sadness is that we don't get to week's like that with them more often!after shooting the Durango wedding the first week of July, (matt drove up to officiate that wedding)we took a mini-family-camping-adventure vacation through the san juan mountains in Colorado.I'm laughing now, because prior to leaving for vacation matt had asked me if I was up for anything before we left...at the time I was so tired from a heavy work schedule that I emphatically said, YES...ANYthing.I've come to learn that "anything" to me, is NOT "anything" in his mind...but now that I'm on the other side of anything, I'm glad that it's not. :)from Durango, we traveled through some of the most BEAUTIFUL county I have ever seen through Silverton, Ouray, Ridgeway + Telluride.the first night we drove down a four-wheel drive road called "Last Dollar Road" at dusk.I have no idea why it is called last dollar road other than I think it's because in the dark, the potential to wreck your car and lose every last dollar along the way?!!we were planning on camping along the way, but in the dark, on the 4th of July in the middle of literally nowhere was a bit much for us, so we ended up driving all the way to Telluride.it was kind-of a scary ride (okay, just for me.) going through stupid dark forests and driving on the edge of cliff's,but I had to smile at the end because we literally ended up in the heart of Telluride five minutes before the largest display of fireworks I have seen went off.it was one of my favorite family moments to date.sitting in the middle of the street in Telluride, listening to the crazy loud fireworks as they echoed off the mountains, right above the town lake, eating our camping dinner and being happy because it was just the four of us. :)after the fireworks, we realized that e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e. in a 50 mile radius were in town and finding a camping spot that was open was simply NOT in the cards.SO, we snuggled up in blankets and slept in the car.yup, SLEPT IN THE CAR in the middle of Telluride...again, I'm laughing...he DID ask "anything?!" ;)the kids loved it and it only added to our epic adventure.and to be honest, we weren't the only ones...there were car sleeper's everywhere...strange, but maybe normal in CO?we were ahead of our tenatative "schedule" for our camping trip, so we decided to drive back on "Last Dollar Road" for the morning.best. decision. ever.I'm struggling to put what we saw into words, but beautiful seems too small...fields of wild sunflowers with purple wildflowers that stretch all the way to a forest of aspen tree's that behind that snow-capped mountains reside with a clear blue sky filled with giant pure white puff clouds and oh yeah, there's a creek right next to you trickling down from the afore mentioned snow-capped mountain...and it's 70 degree's out.the four of us literally had the window's down and our mouth's agape the entire 20 mile drive of Last Dollar Road.once we traversed through more of Ridgeway and into Ouray, we decided to camp and off-road/hike a bit more.it was perfect being right next to a stream in a mini-forest of Aspen tree's eating s'mores and listening to the light rain over-night...seriously perfect.this led us to more adventure's up the side of mountain cliff's...over forgotten mining bridges,through tunnels directly through mountains to my favorite mountain town...Silverton.population 600. ;)best barbeque (Guy Fieri even thinks so!),the most PERFECT double rainbow framing a mountain I have ever seen,and oh yeah, we climbed a 11,500 mountain.*pause*yes, we climbed an 11,500 mountain.I still can't believe it.from the bottom, you think "sure, no big deal!" :)um, no.it's a mountain.in thin Colorado air.over rocks, streams, waterfall's, fields straight UP a mountain.I learned a little about myself that day...two things, really:1. endurance is a thing to be praised and not many people have it...including me.I'm not going to lie...about 2 hours into our hike, I wanted to quit. badly. I didn't think we were going to make it to the Lower Ice Lake...a storm was rolling in and I was literally looking at my legs in disbelief at their inability to work the way I wanted them to. they looked my legs, but they felt like there were caked in hot-concrete and moving in slow-motion...seriously strange out-of-body-experience. ;)BUT.my husband.he was determined and stayed 50 feet or so in front of me the entire last 1/2 mile encouraging me to keep at it...it will be worth it, he said. you can do this, he said. only a little further, he said.again with the honesty, part of me wanted to shout at him to shove it and ditch it...but I didn't think my 11 year old and 13 year old would think too highly of their mother at that point so I kept on.in the end, his encouragement and endurance got me up that mountain and into one of the single most beautiful places I have ever seen.we were literally next to a mountain cap with three freezing waterfall's flowing down, columbine flowers and mountain wildflowers filled the basin we stood in with pine tree's and mini-ponds reflecting the tall mountain caps.BEYOND. WORTH. IT.and 2. I'm tougher than I think I am.really. it sounds funny saying out loud...but I am. ;)I genuinely didn't think I was capable of getting up that last stretch of mountain to the top.but you know what?I did.stubborness, vanity at not wanting to be "that" mom in front of my kids and the encouragement from my man got me up that mountain...hard as it was.yes, it was worth it...and I am a tougher me because of it.and am capable of much more than my small mind thinks I am.