These guys have been friends since elementary school.
Gavin and Pranav were in 5th grade
Vik and Bennett were in 2nd.
It's been a joy to watch their friendships continue to grow and blossom even though we've moved twice. We've done vacations together, college visits, numerous trips back and forth to each other's houses. They are the kind of friends that even though you might not see each other or talk very often, you pick right up where you left off without missing a beat. It's the best gift. So you can imagine how excited we were to find out that they would be coming to hang out with us for a week in Colorado.
We did all the things! We started our exciting week off with visiting a local dairy farm. Not that we take all our visitors to dairy farms, but they just happened to be interested and it was low key.
The adults spent a day visiting Rocky Mountain National Park. (Pranav and Gavin hadn't yet arrived in town and Vik and Bennett would rather go fishing. There was no way Chloe wanted to spend the day with all the adults, so she hung out with her friend instead.)
We were treated to all kinds of wildlife. If you look really close, you can see a large herd of Elk grazing on the alpine hillside. We were at almost 12,000 feet here.
These adorable little creatures come out of hibernation for only 6 weeks a year and we were treated to seeing a whole colony of them. They were active, noisy, scampering, and fighting.
You never know what you're going to come across.
This bird was one of my favorites. It was as if he were posing. He kept standing on the branch patiently waiting for all of us passersby to snap his lovely profile.
Every night it seemed we were playing spikeball. And boy, did these guys get into it! It was some great competition.
We spent a huge swath of time sitting around visiting about all the subjects there are to talk about. And it was wonderful.
Lucky for us, our favorite hammocking spot is still a secret and we took them there. I'm shocked more people haven't found this little gem. We call it Hammock Valley. I think 5 of the 8 of us fell asleep. It was that peaceful.
We went to an escape room, but didn't escape. It was an incredible challenge though.
On this fine day we went white water rafting. This is the pre-rafting picture.
This is the, "Oh my goodness, I hope none of us fall out of the raft!" picture.
This is the, "WE'RE HAVING THE TIME OF OUR LIVES ADRENALINE RUSH!!" picture.
Of course we ate til our hearts and tummies were content. Priya makes THE BEST Indian food. I got to literally sit at her feet for one whole day learning All The Things. She lives to cook for people. It's her love language. What she is currently cooking in this picture is one of my all time favorite foods: Rice Balls or White Balls of Goodness, as I like to call them. Good food makes for a good vacation!
