Breckenridge

For my entire childhood (and the forty years before I was born), my dad's family summer vacationed at Balboa Island (Newport Beach). I love that place--I've probably spent close to a year of my life there. But a couple years ago, we (my parents and their kids--not the whole extended Boyer family) decided that as much as we love Balboa, it was time to try seeing something new. So now we alternate Balboa and a new place every other year. This year it was Breckenridge, Colorado. It's a charming resort town (think Park City) that sits at 9600 feet in a gorgeous valley surrounded by 14,000 foot peaks. We absolutely fell in love!

We stayed in a house that was big enough for this many people to sleep comfortably.

We had a great week there with plenty of great adventures, including fishing (five minutes worth was plenty for me), roller-blading (we did it extreme style: in the rain pushing two kids in the jogging stroller), river rafting, hiking (Adam hiked Quandary--a 14,000+ peak), tennis, biking, swimming, and--my personal favorite--bear watching from our bedroom window. (story below pictures...)

the "triplets"

Mini and me with Lake Dylan behind

Adam on top of Quandary Peak

Emmy in the jogging stroller, where she spent a lot of the week

in the gondola up to Peak 8 where they had an alpine slide, bungee tramp, and other activities (notice Adam's beard--I am a big fan!)

Nope, your eyes did not deceive you. And it wasn't just a little lie to get you to look at our pictures. It really happened. And here's the story: Our bedroom (Adam's and mine) was right by the front porch. One morning at 4:45, I woke up to a loud bang. In my half-awake sleep state, I woke Adam up to look outside, telling him I thought someone was trying to steal our bikes off the front porch. (I'm always so brave in these situations.) He looked out the window, froze, and in his most serious-I-know-he's-not-joking-voice said, "It's a bear!" Suddenly that fog of sleep was gone. A bear was really outside our window. He was a big brown bear, about 4 or 5 feet away from where Adam was looking out the window. He had pulled down a gate that was closed in front of the garbage cans, and that's what woke me up. Looking back, I shouldn't have been scared, but I did get really scared. I don't know much about bears and it seems the only time they are on the news is when they eat someone, so I got a little shaky. We went upstairs and walked out on the balcony above him, which scared him away.

Well, he came back every night after that but we didn't see him. Finally, on our last night we were determined to see him. So Adam set up a trip-wire across the gate to the garbage cans (he'd go dig through the garbage every night--the bear that is, not Adam) so that we'd be woken up when he came. But he ended up coming just as we were going to bed, so we got a nice good look at him. It was so exciting!

Here are some of our other summer pictures:

These are from my Brighton Reunion. My sister Lindsay and aunt Reenie worked there also, so were at the reunion. I am so grateful for Brighton, my memories there (including getting engaged to Adam), and my friends from there.

2005-ers

So here I am wondering where summer went! I wish it weren't ending, but hooray for all the fun things we've done!