Girls Weekend in Durango

After Julia left for school, a few days later Luke left to Canada for a 10 day business trip. Over the weekend he was gone, I decided it would be a good time to go visit my friend Jenny who recently moved to Durango and my friend Nicole came for the ride too. Yay for a girls' trip!

Durango is supposed to be about a 6.5 hour drive, but it took us a little longer with the boys and stopping for dinner. It was a beautiful drive to make through the mountains though with all the trees starting to change color, though it was hard to capture through the car window. 

We finally made it to their house a little after 8 that Friday night, and stayed up late talking. My boys had a lot of fun playing with their kids but finally went to sleep after awhile, and were excited to play again the next morning.

Here is Jacob having a fun time with Collin and Natalie, and Blake and Beckett playing with trains together.

Here were the kids eating waffles at breakfast, and Blake and Beckett bonding while watching a Thomas show together, haha.

Finally, we got everyone ready and we went for an awesome bike ride along the river. I rode a bike trailing Blake and Beckett with me. Blake was not happy about the trailer at first (he's throwing a fit here) but once we got going they were ok. Beckett was a good sport putting up with Blake haha.

Natalie rode a tandem bike with Sam, poor Jenny who's pregnant got stuck pulling the heavier trailer with Jacob and Collin and Nicole was on a bike too.

We were ready to go!

Like I said, it was a beautiful ride with the river to our side the whole way, and the trees just starting to change. My boys loved seeing the railroad tracks too. It was perfect weather and such a fun thing to do together. Made me want to get bikes for our family!

After several miles, we finally saw a park and decided to stop and let the kids get out and play, and we got to relax!

Sam rode down the street and picked us all up some fish tacos which were really good!

Then we wandered down to the river for a minute and let the kids play and throw rocks.

Finally, we loaded up the kids again (poor Blake looked tired) and then we rode until we saw a Burger King and we decided to stop and get the kids ice cream. I treated myself to a frozen strawberry lemonade which I have been loving all summer- I'm addicted to these!

After the kids played for awhile, and we finished our bike ride back to the cars, we headed back to their house (this is the view from their front yard!) and the kids decided they wanted to swim in the hot tub first, and then they played together outside and around the house.

The kids were completely preoccupied so us girls worked on jewelry together. I bought some beads and chain to make necklaces and Nicole worked on some earrings too. I thought it was fun and kind of a nice relaxing thing to do together.

We even helped Natalie make a necklace, it was cute :)  The boys were actually jealous that they didn't get to make a necklace too haha.

Finally, we got a bonfire going in their front yard, and we had just enough time to cook hot dogs for the kids before it started raining.

So then we got the kids to play inside, and soon we saw the brightest double rainbow, it was really beautiful.

Haha, their house was at the end of the rainbow ;)

The kids stayed up late that night playing together. Blake even bonded with the dog who he'd been terrified of at first, but now she was practically afraid of him as Blake chased her, haha.

Anyway, once we got the kids to bed, us girls went into the hot tub and stayed up late talking again and eating snacks. Good times :)

One last picture of all the kids together on our last morning. They were having so much fun together, my boys didn't want to leave! But we got everyone ready for church- here are the boys with Natalie in their church clothes, ready to go.

We just went to the first hour of church with them and then we needed to take off. Jacob got a big hug goodbye from Collin and Natalie, it was cute. Poor Jacob has missed them a lot since we've left.

We had such a fun weekend, we didn't want to leave either! One last picture of me, Nicole, and Jenny! I miss seeing these girls all the time and I'm glad we got to spend such a fun weekend together! They were great hosts!

Then, the worst part of any road trip is the drive home, and this was no exception. I was so grateful for Nicole's company and helping with the boys on the long drive, but unfortunately the weather was not on our side either. Through all the mountain roads home we drove over slick hail, in rain, through rock slides, and thick fog, but after 9.5 hours we made it home safe! But despite the long, hard drive, it was still a great weekend and I'm glad we made the trip down, and maybe someday we'll get to do it again :)