Horn Creek - Day 1

Our family just returned home from a week-long vacation in the mountains of Colorado. I am planning to chronicle our week there one day at a time since everyday held so many special moments... cramming them all into one post would make it TOO long for anyone to enjoy reading. I hope my blogging will help to cement this week into our family's memories for years to come and allow us to come back often and remember our first visit to Horn Creek as a family of 4.

We had the awesome opportunity to join Matt's parents and venture back in time to a Christian family camp that his family went to for over 15 years when Matt was growing up. The name of the camp is Horn Creek and it is located near Westcliffe, CO. It was such a fun family time for all of us and a neat opportunity for Matt to share this camp, that he SO enjoyed while he was growing up, with his kids! He always went at Spring Break though, so this was his first summer trip there.

Now... as you probably noticed, I mentioned that the camp we went to is located in Colorado. And it's location being in the southern part of the state makes driving to the camp the most efficient and cost effective way to travel there. The trip takes 14 hours. That number was a little daunting to me. Not for me personally as growing up our family routinely drove the 30 hour trip from Houston to northern Utah, but for me as a mother... with 2 small children... who have never traveled more than 5 hours straight on the road. I definitely covered the driving portion of the trip with lots of prayer. And I'm so thankful to God who answered those prayers and blessed us with a great driving trip. There were some testy moments of course, but on the whole the kids did amazingly well!

We carpooled with Matt's parents which was a wonderful addition to our trip. Having 2 more adults in the car was wonderful for so many reasons: extra kid entertainers, drivers, and conversationalists. So on Friday afternoon, they came to our house and we loaded up (and I mean LOADED up) our mini-van, swung by Matt's office to get him, and hit the road headed for Amarillo, TX where we were going to stay the night before continuing on to Horn Creek. We went through Denton, Decatur (and waved to our neighbor Heath's family), Wichita Falls, and finally into Amarillo. For those of you who are not Texans... the majority of our 14 hour trip was spent just getting out of Texas. It takes about 9 hours just to get out of the state!

Where are we going to put Oliver??

The kids slept for the last few hours of that trip and we rolled into our motel there around 11pm. Our kids LOVE being in motels - so many new things to explore. So we spent some time the next morning running around outside, in the lobby, and playing in our room. We didn't have to leave too early because we didn't need to arrive at camp until 4pm. We made a few stops along the way at various gas stations, rest stops, and eateries, and made it to the camp a little before 4pm!! We made great time - and it didn't hurt that we gained an hour because of the time zone change.

The weather felt amazing as we stepped out of the car into 65 degree weather after getting in the car in 95 degree weather in Dallas. I don't think we wore shorts once while we were there. And there was a lot more jacket wearing than I expected. We stayed at the Lodge facility at Horn Creek (click here to see some more pictures of the Lodge). The kids loved running around it's open meeting room, our fun room with a bunk bed for Oliver, the beautiful forests outside, the fun playground, and the toy-filled playroom/nursery for the kids to play in. Here are some pictures of the Lodge and the playground right outside of the front door.

The entrance to the Lodge

Our room is on the first floor... 4th from the left. Room #7!

One of the many fun playgrounds at Horn Creek! Oliver loved the merry-go-round and Gabby (of course) loved the swings

We had a buffet dinner in the dining room upstairs and then headed back to the main meeting room for the evening Round-Up which included some awesome worship and the first meeting with our speaker for the week Wille Bolen. The kids were completely worn out and went to bed right at 7pm. And since our room was just 3 doors down from the main meeting area, we were able to just put them to bed for the night and didn't have to miss any after bedtime activities the whole week! What an AMAZING blessing that was. They really set us up well there to be able to enjoy ourselves while taking care of our children as well. There was a nursery there that was staffed by one of the summer staffers - Tori - which we took advantage of during the Round-Up time for the rest of the week which was also a huge help to us!

We hit the sack early that night because of road trip exhaustion... but with excitement about our first full day at Horn Creek the following morning.