Grand Lake Archives - Weary Wanderer

2023: A Year in Review

Published on January 5, 2024January 5, 2024 by Cheryl LockLeave a comment

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 😉

A Wonderful Week in Winter Park With Our Aussie Family … and Then Some

Published on March 29, 2022March 29, 2022 by Cheryl Lock3 Comments

Our Aussie family has finally been able to visit!

But HOW is it the last week of March, I ask you?!

I know — we all end up saying the same thing every year. The time flies, and suddenly your kids are so old you can’t believe it. It always amazes me.

Anyway, I digress. The REAL news to report this week is that WE FINALLY GOT TO SEE OUR AUSSIE NAN AND POPPA! After far too many years of Covid-induced distance, Chris’ parents were at last able to hop on a plane and fly back to see us. Lotte & Grace had not seen their grandparents since October of 2019, and Emilia had never met them. So to say that this was a monumental event for everyone is an understatement.

The Connor’s trip coincided with the girls’ spring break, which was lovely because we were able to spend a week in Winter Park together, as well as have them experience taking the girls to and picking them up from school.

They’ve attended ballet class.
We’ve visited the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
We had a nostalgia-filled dinner at one of our favorite restaurants from when we first moved to Arvada.
We’ve played dress-up and walked to Majestic View Park and played games and watched movies.

In other words, we’ve simply had the most amazing time and I refuse to believe that it will be ending soon. Our plan is to head out to Australia for Christmas this year to catch up with all of our Connor family, so we’re all very busy keeping our fingers and toes crossed that that can still happen.

In the meantime, we have no less than 20,000 photos to keep on loop from our time over the past two weeks.

This little one has thoroughly fallen for her grandparents

Chris and his dad cooked a yummy traditional Australian bread for dinner one night

Nan & Poppa bought us ice creams in the park BEFORE dinner one night — doesn’t get better than that 😉

Lotte had two ski lessons while her grandparents were here, one of which they attended and cheered her on throughout

Pizza tasting at Crosscut in Nederland before skiing in Eldora was a highlight, as well

Besides having Nan & Poppa here to just live our lives with us for the past two weeks, the trip out to Winter Park was so much much. We stayed at this Airbnb, which was the perfect location for viewing the best times to visit the hot tub and swimming pool (a favorite activity amongst our group), and it was a short walk to the sweetest little sledding hill with community sleds to share. The girls also had an absolute blast hanging out in the bunk beds together.

Our itinerary included a visit to Grand Lake, as well, which was one of our stops on our first-ever vacation as a family of five last year. Chris cooked delicious food, we played games, explored a new-to-us ski town, and generally had a delightful little getaway.

Grand Lake is so much fun in the winter!

Chris and I snuck away for lunch and margaritas at The Ditch, which was SO TASTY

You might imagine that two visitors from Australia would be exhausted after all of the above, but that’s just not how my in-laws roll. They are up for absolutely any and everything, and they are happy to do as many activities as possible when visiting their grandkids. So, we thought taking them to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science would be a fun activity for the girls’ last day of spring break. This place is so fantastic for kids, since it’s created for them to be able to run around and touch whatever they’d like. We had the best day, followed by a lovely dinner at Jack’s, one of our favorite neighorhood joints.

Dinners out with three kids is SO MUCH BETTER with grandparents 😉

And now we’re staring down the final few days of our visit with these lovely people which, to be honest, we’re all a bit in denial about. Seeing family is always the best thing in the world. Saying goodbye … not so much. To have something to look forward to — like our trip in December — does help soften the blow, I’ve found.

I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your spring season. Until next time … bis bald!

Back in the (Travel) Saddle, Again

Published on April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Cheryl Lock4 Comments

Oh hi there, friends … remember me?! If you don’t, I am not offended. My last post on this website was September 1, 2020, but even then, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to report. Sure, the past year has been pretty busy — we had a baby, Chris started a new job and became a U.S. citizen (he has dual Australia/U.S. citizenship now … wahoo!), we both tried to hold on to some semblance of our careers while watching two children from home full-time. However, because of the pandemic, there was also a heck of a lot of nothing that happened. My trip back to New York with Lotte in February of 2020 was my last flight, and Chris’s trip back to Australia in February was his. Those were the last times that we saw our family, as well. If only we could have known what was coming … am I right?

Anyway, it’s been a rough 12+ months for everyone, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, my friends. Although Chris and I haven’t been able to get vaccinated yet, just knowing it’s right around the corner — and seeing the numbers drop from the people who have been vaccinated already — is such a joy. So, with all of that in mind, Chris and I decided to pack up the car with our brand new family of five, and to head out on a vacation that was as safe as it could possibly be. Rather than taking a super-long car ride, we opted to head into the mountains, to one of the spots that we’ve loved in the past: Granby Ranch. We stayed at a little Airbnb in the Blue Sky Trail area, which was the perfect location for skiing (the older two girls got their first lessons!), as well as quickly getting to a beautiful hike in Rocky Mountain National Park and checking out the most adorable Grand Lake area, which had the cutest little town and, as you might have guessed, a very grand lake 😉 The lake was frozen, so we were able to walk out on it, which I think the girls found to be pretty fun.

Grace is never happier than when she’s running into wide, open spaces!

Before I get into the fun parts of the trip, and the amazing pictures (because, Colorado), let me just say … Chris and I were pretty surprised at the level of difficulty this trip reached. We’ve traveled with a 3-year-old before, but every 3-year-old is different and, if I can just say, our current 3-year-old can be quite sassy, to put it delicately. When we were out and about exploring, everything was pretty great for the most part, but when we were back in the cabin, things tended to get a bit hairy. To be fair, thanks to the pandemic, Grace probably doesn’t even remember the trips that she has been on in the past, so she’s not used to being on an extended adventure. I was looking back at pictures of her last trip, and wow she was so little! Chris and I kept reminding ourselves that this, right now, with a 4.5 and 3-year-old and a six-month-old, will likely be the hardest it’ll be for us in terms of traveling. At the end of the day, the minute you get home, the stressful moments tend to either fade away or become funny memories, so it’s almost always worth it, or at least it has been so far, in our experience.

What about you guys? Any other readers out there traveling with littles? Care to share any tips and tricks to make it magically easier?!

While I wait for that advice to roll in, here’s a look at our trip in pictures ….

<img loading= — Lotte, Emilia and Grace, ready to hit the road!

Chris, Lotte and Grace, adventuring out on the lake.

Okay, so maybe we didn’t actually make this snowman – hah! But we did enjoy posing with him!

Just a couple of ladies on the ice … cue the *Frozen* soundtrack 😉

And that, my friends, was our little trip in a nutshell. We packed a lot in, while still trying to be as socially distanced and as safe as we could. I’m glad that we were able to get away, for however short of an amount of time. We were all so happy to be back home, even though we’ve spent pretty much every day here for the past year, which was a nice feeling. Now, with some more trips planned for the summer, it’s starting to feel like things are getting back to normal, and we are HERE. FOR. THAT. Hope you guys are all finding some moments of happiness amidst this craziness and, until next time … BIS BALD!