Glacier National Park Archives

Not a bad way to spend the beginning of October <3

Another one bites the dust, my friends! So here we are, with 2023 in the rear view mirror, and what a year it was. Travelwise, it was simply stellar. Things in the world, of course, continue to throw me (and everyone paying attention) off kilter. With that always in my mind, I continue to be forever grateful for the opportunities I have with my family to explore and enjoy what’s beautiful about this great big earth we all live on.

So, without further adieu, here’s what we got up to in 2023!

January

Celebrating 10 years married (!) in New Zealand!

At the beginning of the year our family was still on the other side of the world. Chris and I rang in the New Year (ahead of everyone we know!) on our anniversary trip in New Zealand, then finished up our Australia visit with a trip to Chris’ families’ favorite beach, Forster. The girls got to check out the Sydney Harbor area for the first time, too!

The girls and dad at the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Forster with the fam. We love you Auntie Sare-Bear!

Once we were back in the states, Emilia and I packed our bags (again) and turned around fairly quickly for a trip back east to meet my new twin baby niece and nephew!

February

In February we had a visit from some of our New York besties, so we did our best to show them the Colorado sites!

We also checked out Meow Wolf, which was so trippy!

March

In March we celebrated “spring break” with SO MUCH SNOW at Grand Lake! We stayed in a tiny cabin, walked on a lake, rode sleds off our roof and traipsed through Rocky Mountain National Park up to our knees in fluffy powder. It was a delightful (if somewhat cold) time!

April

April was a big month, what with ME TURNING 40 AND ALL! We celebrated with a tick off my bucket list: A trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. She was all that I could have hoped for and more. So stinkin’ beautiful!

You can’t go wrong with a hot tub in nature!

Polebridge Mercantile was an extra-special treat, especially with the puppies we played with outside!

Thanks for making my bday extra special, Montana. She was one I’ll never forget <3

June

The Museum of Natural History was such a highlight on our kick-off-the-summer trip to NYC!

Right when the girls got out of school we hit the road! We headed back to one of our favorite spots — New York! — but this time with a twist. We stayed in one of my bestie’s Brooklyn brownstone basement apartments and let our family come to us! We traipsed around the city and took in so many sites (blogged about here, here and here). It was the trip of a lifetime, and so much stinkin’ fun!

Meeting up with the fam in Cold Spring was a big perk <3

We love the Museum of Natural History whale!

But really … it was about being with our loves <3

July & August

I blogged about making the most of summer here (because we really, really did!), and our three amazing press trips (to Grand Colorado on Peak 8, the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek and C Lazy U Ranch outside of Granby) all definitely helped!

Second baseball game for the girls! Seeing the Rockies play in Denver, this time.

Rode the gondola up to the mountain resort above our hotel.

August

Meeting up with my oldest friends from elementary school in Savannah Georgia!

To celebrate the big 4-0 for all of us, three of my besties from elementary school and I met up in Savannah, Georgia, for a weekend filled with fun and walks down memory lane! We had the best time catching up, checking out a new town, and just generally cheers-ing to life!

We took a historic tour and a nighttime haunted stories tour, both of which I would highly recommend!

September

For Labor Day weekend we headed back to New York (as I was fond of saying, New York was needy this year!). My little twinsies were baptized — and Chris & I were the godparents! — and we got to see all our fam again, which is always the best. I even went back to New York at the end of September — all my myself — for my cousin’s adorable and delightful wedding.

Always reminded of how very, incredibly blessed I am <3

Such a fun time watching my baby cousin get married in such a beautiful place!

October

Oh, October, how delightful were thee! I consider October to have been split into two EPIC events — the first was our trip to Disneyland with Grandpa! and the second was Chris’ 40th birthday adventures with ALL HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY IN TOWN FROM AUSTRALIA!

Look. The joy I felt in Disney — watching the absolute love on my kids’ faces — was very, very real.

Thanks, Grandpa, for joining in on the fun/mayhem!

We were home from Disney for two days before Chris left for a work trip to Disney World, and then his parents arrived two days after that! Little did Chris know, though, that the rest of his siblings — all four of ’em — were also Colorado bound. It was so. much. fun!

Happy birthday babe — thanks for giving us another reason to all be together <3

December

We started our holiday season with a quick trip back to New York (yup, again!) for Grandpa’s surprise 60th and a delightful visit with our besties in the city for some holiday shenanigans!

The girls saw their first Rockette show!

Bryant Park is a delight during the holidays, even in the rain 😉

To close out our holiday season — and the year! — we took an EPIC European holiday trip to Germany and France, Switzerland, and Iceland with Chris’ parents. We visited Christmas markets, ate delicious food, soaked in a geothermal hot tub and just generally had the time of our lives.

Phew … what a year! And now, blink, it’s 2024. We can’t wait to see what unfolds.

Bis bald, friends. Thanks for being here 😉

Hey friends,

On Saturday, Chris and I hopped in the car and drove out to Rocky Mountain National Park, a 415 square mile park that encompasses some of the most beautiful landscape I’ve seen yet in Colorado — and that’s really saying something.

So to start, we decided to bite the bullet and purchase an America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass for $80. An individual car entrance for just one visit to Rocky Mountain National Park is $20, and we’ve already been to Arches National Park and have plans to visit Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park (we plan to visit Mount Rushmore as well, but there’s no fee to get in to see the monument there, and the parking fee isn’t covered by the annual pass) — so we figured it will probably be worth the cost.

Now let’s talk a little bit about the Trail Ridge Road, which was the first thing we tackled on our visit … holy cow, friends, it’s insane! From the park site:

Covering the 48 miles between Estes Park on the park’s east side and Grand Lake on the west, Trail Ridge Road more than lives up to its advanced billing. Eleven miles of this high highway travel above treeline, the elevation near 11,500 feet where the park’s evergreen forests come to a halt. As it winds across the tundra’s vastness to its high point at 12,183 feet elevation, Trail Ridge Road (U.S. 34) offers visitors thrilling views, wildlife sightings and spectacular alpine wildflower exhibitions, all from the comfort of their car.

The drive up to the visitor’s center is absolutely stunning, with plenty of places to pull off along the side of the road and gawk. If you’re lucky — like we were — you might even see tons of animals, like deer, marmot, groundhogs, squirrels and chipmunks and, our all-time favorite, the bighorn sheep.

^^ Bighorn sheep! And if you look very closely, you can see a little groundhog trailing him …

While the views here are unlike any you’ll find anywhere else, you will need to pay attention to signs of altitude sickness. At over 12,000 feet in spots, I definitely wouldn’t recommend taking visitors here on their first day in Colorado. You’ll need to give yourself time to acclimate to the higher altitude, drink plenty of water and take things slowwwww. There’s no shame in taking your time on hikes around here — no one wants to have to deal with the effects of altitude sickness … blech!

Oh and one other word of wise — wear pants and bring a coat! Chris and I were total rookies and didn’t even think about the fact that high altitude brings chilly weather (we’re talking 50s and low 60s here, people), so we were forced to buy sweaters from the visitors center just to be able to make it through the rest of the day!

We took a couple of hours to see everything we wanted along the ride (I would recommend driving all the way up to the visitor’s center first, checking that out and doing the short little hike near the center, then driving back down to make your stops), and we even pulled over at one particularly gorgeous spot to stop and have some lunch we had packed. After we headed over to the super simple Bear Lake hike, which is only a .6 mile loops with no incline.

We were going to attempt the Alberta Falls 1.2 mile hike, as well, but at that point we were getting a bit tired and felt like we had jam packed a lot into our first ever trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.

But don’t worry, Alberta Falls — now that we’ve got our annual pass, we’ll be back for ya!

Bis bald, friends!