a Summers Update

Jared graduated from ASU in mid-May, and didn't start his new job until the beginning of June, so we took the opportunity of that rare free time and enjoyed some family vacationing!

It started off with a quick trip to the Wildlife Zoo as one of Kaleb's pre-birthday presents. Everytime he would see any type of animal on TV or dogs around town he would FREAK, so we thought he would just LOVE the zoo! It took him a while to realize what was going on, but once he did, he was in baby heaven :) He loved riding on Dad's shoulders and checking out all the animals, even the super boring birds! Mom's favorite part of the whole day-trip was the aquarium, and probably because it was all indoors and air conditoned :)We planned our vacation to go up to Colorado and visit with Jared's sister Julie and her super fun family. We never get to see them unless they come here because Loveland is pretty north in CO and made for a long drive. It was worth tho, not only did we have a blast visiting family, playing with crazy kiddos, going out to eat..alot, but the scenery was amazing!!

(Suprisingly enough when we got to the cabin it was cold AND rainy!)

Since the drive was pretty long, we decided to stop at the Tieman cabin in Parks, AZ and stay there a few nights first. We also went to Bearizona, again....we love going there! It's a pretty cool drive thru zoo in Williams. There is also a walkthrough area with smaller animals, once again, Kaleb thought the animals were pretty sweeet!(kaleb thought the rain was pretty cool too)

(super cute bear clubs climbing a tree)

When we finally left the cabin to head up to Julie's, we had a good 7+ hour drive ahead and we weren't too sure how the k-man would do, so just to be safe we booked a hotel in Telluride, which was close to halfway between the cabin and Julies house.

We also go to stop in Four Corners for a break, it was super windy though so we didn't stay long! Our drive through the mountains to Telluride was breathtaking! i couldn't stop taking silly pictures of mountains topped with snow and rivers, but seriously they were everywhere and so beautiful!! When we got to our super nice hotel, we were all starving, so we got a quick bite to eat. We hurried back to the hotel because it was FREEEZING! Literally! it snowed while we were there, which i did not expect at all, and since i was in flip flops i wasn't exactly prepared either!(one of MANY snowy mountain shots taken on the way up)

(see i told you, beautiful rivers, and snow everywhere!)

(snow starting to come down, on our hotel balcony)

We were sad to leave the beautiful little village of Telluride, but excited to finally get to our destination. Once again we drove through some amazing mountains, cool tunnels, and TONS of snow!! It got a little scary at some points, we couldn't see anything and were driving down some steep roads with big trucks whizzing by us! Luckily we made it in one piece! We seriously had so much fun in Colorado. The weather was amazing, we got to do some pretty cool touristy things, even took a day trip to Wyoming so Jared could get his precious fireworks :) Thanks again Krause family for letting us stay, we can't wait to come bug you guys again!(another georgeous mountain covered in snow!)

(jared and kaleb almost at the top of the Rockies, we couldn't drive all the way up because snow still covered the road, but it was freezing and clowdy up there!!)