Happy holiday weekend Friday, friends! I hope everyone is either already enjoying the long weekend, or has super fun plans to start doing so immediately.

Over in our neck of the woods, Chris is starting a new job next week, so he has a couple of days off and we have lots of fun stuff planned, starting with the hike we took to St. Mary’s Glacier yesterday. Mind you, the trail is only 1.4 miles (that’s to the lake and back, but you can continue the hike past the lake, which we did for a bit), and it’s labeled as easy on All Trails … but I call shenanigans! Listen, I’m no ninny when it comes to hikes, and we’ve done our fair share since we’ve moved to Colorado, but this was not easy. The altitude (you’re at 10,848 feet at the base of the glacier) probably has something to do with it, but the steady incline and slippery rocks don’t help, either. Now is it worth it? Spectacularly yes! The views are amazing and if your breath isn’t already taken away by your hike to reach it (which it likely will be), the lake and glacier will certainly do the trick. We had thrown Lotte in the Ergo and brought her with us, of course, but there were definitely times, especially on the descent, when I questioned how safe the whole thing actually was with a baby.

Chris, of course, felt perfectly safe the entire time. What can I say, it’s my momness kicking in.

Anyway, if you can push on through the altitude and rocky climb (if I can, you can!), here’s some of what you’ll be blessed with:

^^ She looks so excited for another adventure, doesn’t she 😉

^^ I mean look at that sky?! Have you ever seen anything so blue and clear?

^^ After about 10 minutes of trying for a family photo with the self timer on my actual camera, we gave up and settled for this one with my iPhone. Not a bad runner up!

^^ Lotte’s hat in this picture … it makes me so happy!

^^ Dangerous indeed. In fact, the whole time we were taking a short rest and snack break at the lake before heading back, a team of about five or six rescue workers were trying to figure out how to get a snowboarder down who had injured himself up on the glacier. Yes, snowboarding is allowed on the glacier, but of course it’s entirely dangerous. Hence the injury.

^^ So excited to get out of the Ergo, onto the ground and into some snacks!

^^ See those two tiny little snowboarder flecks in the white snow and ice? Crazy!

^^ After the hike — which probably took us about two hours all told, including our break — we stopped off in Idaho Springs on the way back for lunch at Tommyknocker Brewery. By this time Lotte had only taken about 30 minutes of a nap all day, and she had barely had anything to eat (snack was much less exciting than staring at everything going on around her at the lake … between that and trying to eat dirt, who had time for snack?!). Still, you couldn’t tell from her sweet little ‘tude. She’s simply the best.

And that was our Thursday, friends. Our Fourth of July weekend is off to a smashing start. We’re off tomorrow to stay in Fairplay Colorado so we’ll be close to our hike at Twin Lakes on Saturday. I hope my legs feel rested by then!

Until then … bis bald, friends!