Lion's Den in September

Bryan had his first visit to one of my favorite places on earth: The Lion's Den.  This is my grandparents mountain house in Colorado that our extended family has that we have had so many wonderful memories in.  Bryan hadn't ever been there and that was unacceptable so we packed up our boys and headed to CO to meet my parents up there in the middle of September.

Whenever we go to CO we always go to Moab first.  It cuts up the drive and makes it a little shorter for the long haul and we get to see the other grandparents too. Riley loves playing in the red dirt in Moab and this time was especially fun because it was MUD!  He was covered!

 The next morning as we headed out we stopped by Grandma McKinnon's first grade classroom!  It was fun seeing her classroom and all her kids and she was so excited to show off her grandsons!

 And then we were off!  This picture is VERY deceiving....he was not happy 80% of the drive and the other 20% he was asleep.  But at least I caught a good moment on camera.  He was more happy if I was sitting next to him as well.

 We made a stop in Vail to get out and run around.  The mountains were breathtaking!  The colors were lovely and the aspens were bright yellow!  The weather was in the 70s and a cool breeze.  We stayed there an hour!  We all felt very refreshed by the time we left.

 And then we made it to the Lion's Den.  Bryan and Riley enjoyed exploring all that there was there and I was just soaking in the peaceful feeling I always have when I go there!  It was fun to have my little family in this place that I grew up in.

Little chairs on the balcony.  Riley didn't like that Bryan was on the big chair!

Reading night time stories before bed!  Do you think he's happy?

Daddy and his boys the next morning.  Lounging in my grandparents rockers!

 Our first day I wanted to show Bryan EVERYTHING! So we went up to Winter Park where I learned to ski and got to show him around there.  We drove through Fraser and it was so fun!  Then we went home for boys naps and then we headed up to Grand Lake.  I love Grand Lake but as we got there is started to rain.  It didn't dampen my spirits though.  We still walked up and down the street going in to the little shops and we walked down to the lake when there was a break in the clouds.  But it really dumped some rain on us while we were there.  Riley actually liked it quite a lot.

What is falling on my head?

 This is one of my favorite moments of the trip.  I was getting ready while Ty slept and Bryan took Riley out to the swing and they just swang (is that a word) and Bryan got him to repeat "I...Love..." and then went through anything he could get Riley to "parrot".  He said mama, daddy, baby, grandma, grandpa, all his aunts, uncles and cousins and then random things like bears, Shadow, bugs, etc!  Such a tender moment!

 Then my parents met up with us and we went to Grandby Ranch and rode the ski lift to the top!

Riley didn't like it and kept saying "down" and "all done". We thought he'd like it more than he did.

View at the top of the mountain!

Riley walked around with "papa".  His favorite thing to do was to "shake it".  They would shake the leaves off the trees.  And yes, my dad was camouflaged in the aspen trees.

Little Ty Ty snuggling grandma on his first hike.

 Another of my favorite things to do while at the Lion's Den is to go on a walk around the neighborhood.  It's so beautiful walking around that part of the mountain and the weather was incredibly nice.  We just put jackets on the babies and we were off!

 Sellers tradition:  Ebelskievers!  We have them at the Lion's Den often as well as always on Christmas morning. This was Riley's first time with them.  He loves pancakes so I just assumed he'd love these.  He liked them but wasn't so sure.  Even after calling them pancake balls (two things he loves) he still wasn't sure.

 Next Tradition: Ultimate Bocce Ball.  We go all over the meadows playing bocce ball.  Riley really wanted to play.  So we did all we could to let him play and not mess up our game.  Bryan was KILLING us and was ahead by like 5 points right away, but we all started catching up.

 Unfortunately the weekend went by too fast and we had to say goodbye.  It was incredibly hard to leave.  Especially because we were only with my parents for 25 hours and 8 of those we were sleeping.  We'll have to do it again soon.  Bryan loved it! And my heart was happy.

This is how we all felt leaving, and a more accurate depiction of how he felt being in the car.  Although he did sleep for a good portion of the way back to Moab.