This year for Mother's Day my mom, sister, dad, my kids, and me all went to Estes Park, CO. Why? Well every year, for the last 23 years, this small mountain town has held a fundraiser for local charities, the Estes Park Duck Race, and my sister is a duck freak :) So we drove 3 hours up to the mountains and stayed at a cabin in town, and had a blast! The kids loved it, mainly because they had a "new" house to play in and bunk beds to sleep in, not to mention spending the whole weekend with their Nana and Papa. We walked everywhere we went in town, walked down by the river and all got a little sun burnt :) Surprisingly there was no major injuries, just a few really bad tantrums. After we got all ready to head back home, we stopped at the famous Stanley Hotel. Since it was Mother's Day the place was crazy with families and their moms, all gathering to have a great breakfast. I took lots of pictures, but caught no ghosts on any ;) Such a beautiful hotel, one day I will get to stay there :) I had a fabulous time with my family and hope we can do it again next year.
My youngest kid's birthday was also this past Friday, he is now 2! And since he is completely into trains right now, I attempted the best train cake I could. It turned out pretty good :) And this time I was only half covered in frosting by the time it was done. And the best thing of all, he loved his cake! Now, we wanted to get him a play vacuum since he tries to play with my real one constantly. I have even caught him pulling out my dining table chairs to "vacuum" under them with his toy lawn mower :) However, a toy vacuum is not only expensive, but extremely hard to find! Weird, i know, so we instead bought a cute little REAL vacuum for him, which was also much cheaper than the toy. He hasn't put it down since he got it, I tempted to plug it in and let him really vacuum (but if he knew it plugged in, he would try to do that all the time). He of course got toy trains, and he plays with those sometimes :)(more photos of our trip are to the right in the slide show and d)
"Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven...And then, with a drop from a giant bucket, thousands of little yellow rubber ducks are ceremoniously dropped into Fall River at Nicky's Resort where they begin their journey to Riverside Plaza in downtown Estes Park. The ducks are scooped out of the water one-by-one by waiting volunteers.
It's all part of the benefit Estes Park Duck Race, a tradition started in 1989 to support local charities of Estes Park.
Hundreds of visitors have learned how simple the Duck Race is. You "adopt" little rubber duckies and select one of 69 different Estes Valley charities to benefit from your adoptions. These charities will receive 95% of the money collected from adoptions. The more ducks adopted for a particular charity, the more money that individual charity receives.
But that's not all! Due to the amazing generosity of major sponsors and local area merchants, there are prizes galore for hundreds of entries. If your little ducky is one of the lucky winners as it crosses the finish line, you might win a prize. It's a fun family outing with lots of music and entertainment as well.
Race festivities get underway at Nicky's Resort at11 a.m. on race day. Ducks go into the water at 1 p.m. and activities continue in Riverside Plaza until the last duck swims past the finish line.
As a bonus for the Duck Race weekend, merchants in downtown Estes Park set up tables outside their businesses for the annual spring sidewalk sale."
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| Estes Park 2011 |
