Steamboat cubed.

That’s how we woke up. That sound of the hot air balloon whooshing right out of our window. It’s kind of how we wake up at home sometimes, with all of the hot air balloon activity that happens almost daily, but somehow here it just seemed like magic.

We slipped into jeans and long sleeved shirts, threw on stocking caps without brushing our hair (except Hank, he totally fixed his first), and padded into the kitchen to fill our bellies with bacon and egg scrambles and fresh fruit. And coffee. Must have coffee.

It’s the only way to focus.

We decided on a Sunday morning hike and gathered up the necessary gear. Need I say that it was a gorgeous day? Just a whisper of crisp in the morning air that fall was coming, but not enough of a hint to keep us in our jeans all day. We quickly traded for shorts and t-shirts and off we went.

This is the spot we found.

We didn’t even get that far into our hike to find it. In fact, this part is the dog park. The park for dogs. Not even the more grandiose “dog guardian” part of the hike. And you know what? This was as far as we went.

We spent so much time here climbing fences, having snacks, and watching the baby trout dart about that nap time for the wee one came quite quickly.

So after trail blazing like airplanes, we decided to give E a break and let him have a nice long nap in the condo.

We wanted to be sure of a fantastical night and throw it all to the wind, drinking up as much of this weekend as we could. So during that nap of E’s (and my near one), Hank and Holden went on “The Best Bike Ride EVER” and we caught up with them here.

That is just about the coolest truck ever. And of course, I wanted to throw all three men down and snap a fun pumpkin picture, but oh they were so very tired of me doing that.

So Hank threatened them.

Thank you baby.

It’s a picture I’ll treasure forever.

But then came the best part of all. The search for Strawberry Park. We popped through the town area and over a hill and a dale, and we were in Heaven on Earth.

I could lose myself here. Really. Everywhere I looked was prettier than the spot before. Horses dotted the landscape, beautiful ranch homes spread out over fields, and the trees, oh my gosh.

Just Heaven.

And on we drove, up again, past where the pavement ended and the road narrowed and the bumps became bumpier until…

And we kind of had to hurry, because the old geezer man who let us in looked at our babies and said very clearly that we had to be outta there by 7:30 p.m. because people started getting naked.

Well, ok then, we said. Just point us in the right direction and we’ll show all of those still-clothed people who can have more fun with their suits on.

The boys played so well together.

No, really.

Just don’t look at the death grip that Holden has on Ewan’s arm.

Hank didn’t notice. Ha.

Daddy helped out with some pebble finding from the bottom of the pool.

He scored some pretty major points.

It started getting a little dusky, and a little darker still, so we decided to go the “changing tee-pee” (which, by the way, doesn’t have a door…moonie, moonies!) and warm up to hightail our boys out of there before we had some explaining to do.

But I did snap this first.

Yep. That’s the same smile I used in all of my school pictures from age 4 to … well sometimes I still use it. Mom always called it the poop face. On this boy, though, it’s the “I’m tired and have been floating around in a very warm bath for a while” face.

Sleep came fast and hard that night. Mountain air + tired, cozy boys = very good rest.

Ooooh. Me likey.

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