Auntie Anne Comes to Colorado

With our crazy Ham Fam schedule this year, Anne and I weren't able to get together for a girls weekend.  So instead of going somewhere together, Auntie Anne came here.   With her, she brought the boys treats.  Since she works at the UNR Medical School, she thought that the boys would enjoy some organ stickers.  They LOVED them and were fascinated about all of the organs and where they went.

They boys quickly warmed up to Auntie Anne over an anatomy lesson.

She also brought some spark to their evening with a bit of electricity.  They were fascinated with this contraption and all of the ways that they could make it light up.

On Saturday morning, we rolled by the brewery so that Anne could do a bit of shopping at the gift shop.  A trip to the brewery wouldn't be complete without a photo in front of the copper kettle.

Part of coming to see us in the fall is that the boys are guaranteed to have a sporting event, or three.  Anne was a trooper and joined us for Kellan's soccer game.

Kellan may have been showing off his skills a bit with Auntie Anne on the sidelines.

Kellan has a great game and we were all excited to have watched him and his team.  As quickly as his game was done, we headed up into the mountains to enjoy Estes Park and all of it's fall glory.

The Ham Fam take on Estes Park

Carrie and Anne at the entrance to Estes Park.

A "must see" in Estes is the glorious Stanley Hotel.

This isn't creepy at all.  EEK!

The hotel was gorgeous, but our plans to have a cold beverage at the historic bar was foiled when we discovered that they were hosting an event and the bar was packed with people.  Oh well, we have more to discover around Estes Park.

We headed out in search of elk in rut and didn't have to look any further than the golf course to find the elk.  They weren't too excited about much, but they were still fun to see.

Determined to show Anne some fall colors and bugling elk, we ventured into Rocky Mountain National Park.  As always, the park did not disappoint.
(Even though there is a fence, this elk was wild and not fenced in)

As the sun started to go down, we rolled down this road to see what was amongst these trees.

Deep down the road, we found a few people parked along the side of the road.  Merely 20' from the road, they had spotted a moose that bedded down in the brush.  He was really tough to see and barely moved at inch, but if you look close, you can see him in this photo.  It was fun to see Mr Moose.  We waited quite some time to see if he might make an appearance, but he had called it a night in that brush.

As the sun set and darkness set in, we headed down the hill in hopes of treating Anne to a Lyons favorite, dinner at Oskar Blues Brewery.

What a fun day we all had.  Thanks to Anne for coming to see us to give us a great excuse to get up to the mountains and experience all of the glory and wonder that it provides.