Colorado Reunion

The Eland family had our 2nd family reunion July 13-16 in Breckenridge, Colorado. We decided to have them every 3 years in the summer since some of us have moved away, thereby making a reunion necessary (all the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins on my dad's side--except for one aunt & uncle--used to live in the Tulsa area). The 1st official reunion was in Woodland Park near Colorado Springs. Uncle Charlie is retired military so we were able to stay at a military recreational facility. We Elands looooove Colorado!



This year we stayed in a 4-story 12,000 sq ft lodge located on 10 acres on the mountain near the ski slopes. This lodge has 12 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, a large gameroom downstairs (with a pool table and large screen TV), guest kitchen with 2 refrigerators, sitting rooms on every floor and a hot tub on the deck. It was fabulous! Hot breakfast was cooked for us every morning by the property managers (a cute couple) on a come-and-go-as-you-please basis and it was soooo delicious.



During the day we broke into smaller groups and did activities like off-roading, soccer, sitting in the hot tub, the Super Slide (on the ski slopes), hiking and shopping.











The Eland boys (and a few of the girls) play soccer at nearly every family gathering. This time it started as a circle on the deck and later moved to a nearby field. It's nice to watch soccer with mountains in the background!







The kids loved getting in the hot tub!





This is the Super Slide (we used to ride it a lot when we were kids)....

Chair lift ride up, with your sleds attached:



Top of the tracks (there are slow track, intermediate and fast tracks):



At the end of the tracks:





You could buy some food at the grocery store for lunches or go out to eat...lunches were whenever and whatever each individual wanted. We all gathered for dinner which was prepared by a different family group each night. Dinner was always delicious...pizza one night, Mexican Chicken Casserole the next night and spaghetti with garlic bread the last night. My nephew Isaac's 4th birthday was on the 14th so we had cake and ice cream for dessert and he opened presents. Birthdays are great!



The hike I went on was absolutely gorgeous. I want to do it again and take pictures next time (Craig took our camera on the Jeep ride that day so I couldn't take it on the hike). The trail was mostly dirt and it was soft and narrow. It started in the field and then went through the trees, up steep slopes past some snow and ended up on a rocky cliff with a killer view of other mountains and fields.

My cousin Erin, sister Karen and my mom took these pictures of the hike:











Nearby rocky cliffs and large boulders could also be seen from the top and they were very cool looking.



The wildflowers in the fields up there were spectacular and so abundant!



There were even some snow patches along the way.



In the evenings, we'd gather again after dinner to play games, watch the DVD from the last reunion and discuss things. Greg and Chelsea taught us all a game that involved sneaking all around the house in small groups trying to determine who the killer was without getting "killed" first. It was scary and fun! John and Lindsay taught us a group pool game (kind of like Around-The-World Ping Pong only with pool). That one was a high energy game with lots of laughs.

One night we realized there were an awful lot of laptops in the house so we had everyone get theirs and sit on the couch with it so we could count them (12 total!) and take a picture. We predicted that at next reunion there will be even more laptops.



This rainbow hung around for awhile after dinner one evening: