This year we did something different for the grandkids. We rented Blue Lake Retreat Center in Denver for 3 days and 2 nights. It has 14 bedrooms, huge kitchen and living room and other rooms as well as plenty of space outside for riding bike, roller blading or just playing in the big yard. There is also an outside fireplace for roasting hotdogs and smores and a grill as well. We made the cutoff 4 years old, so that meant the 10 oldest could join us and Kyle, Seth and Naomi will have to wait at least another year for their turn.
It really was the perfect place for us. The children did a lot of bike riding and roller blading. We played plenty of games with the favorites being Malarkey and SkyJo. The 4 oldest enjoyed 2 hours by themselves around the fire each night after the rest of us had gone to bed. Apparently, everything is really funny at that hour of the night, and it sounded like it was a highlight of their time together. On Wednesday evening we had the parents join us for a supper of hamburgers on the grill, corn on the cob and other goodies. The children were excited to show their parents around the house and property and the rooms they were sleeping in. It was a good time of family togetherness and was nice that the parents could see the place we were staying at.
We came home tired but happy that we could create memories with our grandchildren. Hopefully we can continue to go back to Blue Lake for many years to come. Here is some of our time in pictures and videos. Taking pictures is always tough because I prefer to just enjoy the time without constantly snapping photos, but I know that without pictures the memories are harder to keep.
