Kentucky Lake with the Robertsons

We traveled with Jeff's parents to visit Kentucky Lake! We had a great week in a beautiful place!

Our view from the cabin!

Our cabin

Boone and Grandpa at the lake

He wasn't going to get wet, but that didn't last long!

Exploring Land Between the Lakes

Patti's 1880 Settlement 

Grandpa and Grandma

The next weekend, the Sutterfields came up also! Grace was dedicated at church on Sunday.

We took everyone to Boyce General Store! We love it there!

MOAB!

Our wonderful friends, Jaclyn and Matt Beaty planned to meet us in Moab in the middle of September! We were really excited about this since we had heard such great things about Arches National Park! Well... we almost didn't get to make this awesome trip because Jeff found out in August that he would be moving to Kansas City for work and then I had to have an emergency appendectomy at 14 weeks pregnant (YAY!) the week before our trip! So, needless to say, the odds were stacked against us, but thankfully, we were able to figure everything out and make the trip and we are so glad we did. The drive across Colorado was beautiful and the scenery in Moab is hard to beat. We had such a great, quick trip and it is ALWAYS fun to get together with the Beatys! They are the best travel buddies.

The first arch we went and saw the night we got there. 

Boone riding in the backpack. This may have been his last trip in the pack.

Such amazing creations. For a little perspective, you can see me sitting on the bottom left of the arch.

Our family of 3.5. You can just start to see a baby belly developing!

Love this girl! Jeff and I are so thankful for the Matt and Jaclyn's friendship!

I just love this picture of him. He has seen so many neat things in his two short years.

The delicate arch, way in the background.

Jaclyn being a haus, per usual.

On Saturday, we went to Dead Horse Canyon State Park. It was beautiful! That's sort of a theme around here.

It was a hot day there, and we didn't bring any sunscreen! We weren't expecting the super hot weather since it had been so mild in Denver around that time.

Boone makes a playground wherever he goes!

The Colorado River

Our (very) minimal cabin that we camped at in Moab.

Landscape arch on our last night there. Parts of this arch had already fallen down in the 90s.

After we got back from Moab, Jeff left the next day to fly to Kansas City and begin work there. Boone and I began a 5 month nomadic life also, but more on that later! 

Camping in Estes Park

Towards the end of July, we decided to head up to Estes Park and camp for a weekend. We had heard a lot about Estes Park and how much so many people enjoyed the area. We booked the last available site at the county campground, loaded up our car with gear and food and headed out.

Our campground bordered Rocky Mountain National Park. We spent Saturday driving the main road through the park. 

Boone loved the views. He definitely loves the outdoors and climbing on the rocks, so we had to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't get too far from us.

We stopped at one trail and Boone and Jeff hiked up to some snow that was still in the area. (I don't think you were technically supposed to hike up that far! But they had fun!)

It was starting to get a bit cool at this point. We heard that in the summer it is very typical to have beautiful mornings and then bad thunderstorms in the afternoon, so it was better to get out and explore in the mornings. A few people had actually been hit by lightening earlier in the summer, so we didn't want to take any chances.

My favorite picture from the weekend! So beautiful!

Our little campsite. It actually was a great campground and pretty cheap. We did get some heavy rains in the afternoons, but we still had a great time. We checked out the town of Estes Park on one of the afternoons, but we weren't super impressed. It seemed like a lot of tourist trap-type stores and it was SO crowded. We much preferred hanging out at our little piece of nature.

We are so glad we've taken Boone camping both summers so far. Although it is a lot of work, we really enjoy getting out and making some memories as a family!

Until next time (as we try to catch up),

Jeff, Emily + Boone

Vacation Post #4: Harbour Town, South Beach and Savannah

Okay, we are finally at the end of our vacation pictures. I promise this is the last post! First off, we were staying about a 5 minute walk from a really neat part of Sea Pines called Harbour Town. Harbour Town has the iconic lighthouse that you see on a lot of the Hilton Head merchandise. It is red and white striped and really neat. The area is full of restaurants and shops, a huge playground, nightly concerts and a beautiful harbor (imagine that?!) with huge boats.

A free trolley ran from the place we were staying, to the beach and then to Harbour Town. We decided to take Boone for a ride one evening after dinner and he loved it. It looks like the trolley was going 80 mph from this picture! :)

Riding by one of the golf courses we biked by each day on our way to the beach!

Beautiful lagoons and palmetto trees were all over!

A South Carolina State flag outside a shop in Harbour Town.

The lighthouse.

The pier.

Boone with Nana and Papa.

Hanging out in a few of the hundreds of red rocking chairs that were all over 

Harbour Town after an ice cream break.

There was also an AWESOME playground built around a huge tree. Boone had a blast!

Such a neat play area.

Checking out the boats with Dad.

One of our last afternoons in Hilton Head we decided to check out South Beach Marina. It is home to one of the two Salty Dog Cafes on the island. Since we had heard the food was nothing to write home about, we didn't eat lunch there, but we walked around the docks, checked out the stores and grabbed some refreshment before biking back to our condo.

Boats at the dock.

Parrots in the greenery area between the shops. Apparently, they aren't very nice because there was a big sign warning people not to touch them.

Chalkboards in the area near the shops for doodling.

On Friday, we decided to take a quick trip over to see Savannah. We figured since it was only 45 minutes away, we needed to check it out for a bit. We thought the best way to see as much of the city as we could in a short period of time (we had a toddler with us, remember?) was to do the touristy thing and take a trolley ride. It was great because it was nice and cool in the open air trolley and of course it was steamy and humid in Savannah, so walking around all day would have been pretty miserable. Here's some shots from the trolley ride.

The Boone Man.

Reaching the end of our rope. Love Boone's expression!

But we had a fun time in Savannah!

What a blessing this vacation was! We had so much fun, saw such a beautiful part of the country and had lots of time to relax and enjoy the ocean!

Thanks for bearing with me through all the pictures!