Adventure Day!

(This was in October 2020...)

Last week Stockton requested a "stay-home day" from school, so I told him that we would plan for a specific day and write it on the calendar. Yesterday was the designated day, and I pulled the kids out of school to enjoy our first official ADVENTURE DAY! We loaded up the car with snacks, masks, water, and turned the music on loudly as we headed to Ft. Collins, Colorado, 45 minutes away. 

We picked the windiest day of the season so far, but that didn't dampen our spirits! We grabbed bagels on our way out of town and danced in the long drive-thru line.

On our way to Ft. Collins we passed the Terry Bison ranch and decided on a whim to check it out. The wind was brutal but the little shop was cute and it was fun to walk around the ranch to see the animals and random extras. 

Stockton was telling me "it's too windyyyyyy" haha

The place was a ghost town - we weren't really sure where we were supposed to go or what we were supposed to do so we kind of just roamed wherever. 

The ranch had horses, old train cars, multiple barns and paths and random animals everywhere. I love letting the kids run around everywhere, but I get stressed sometimes when they get separated because I can't be in 4 places at once! Luckily we were literally the only ones there so it was easy to spot each other.

This is Toby the Turkey. The person at the front desk told us to find him because he likes attention. Claire thought he was hilarious and we all laughed every time he gobbled because it was very aggressive. Toby followed us down the path and eventually I started getting nervous when he got too close to Claire, but she was thrilled. 

Stockton found this random yellow house with just one wall and a little mini porch behind it. He looooved opening and closing the doors (of course) and spent at least twenty minutes here. 

I finally pried Stockton away from the yellow house and we kept going for the next adventure day stop: Twin Silo Park in Ft. Collins, CO. I heard about this park from some friends at church, but I didn't know anything about it except for the name, so I didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be one of the best parks we've ever been to! Stockton especially was just completely thrilled and in his element. There are lots of things to play on, lots of different slides and games and ropes.

Claire LOVED this swing, as you can see! 

A side view of the zipline attached to the back of one of the silos ^^

Kind of back behind the park is this rock/river play area under the bridge. We thoroughly enjoyed splashing around! All of a sudden it looked like it was snowing, but we realized that the "snowflakes" were actually pieces of ash falling from the sky from a nearby mountain fire. If you noticed that these pictures looked like there was an orange-y filter on them, it's because the lighting was really that orange and dull because of the smoke blowing in from the fire. We eventually had to leave because the air quality was getting so bad. 

Natalie's wet footprints back up to the park

There's the sun, covered in gray smoke and making everything look apocalyptic!

(UGH blogger changed how it uploads pictures and the rest of this post is backwards but in the interest of just documenting the day and finishing this post finally, I'm not going to put them in order.)

We ended the day with some Coldstone ice cream. We were all so thirsty from the ice cream and had already drank all of our water in the car, so we had to stop at a McDonald's on the way home to get water. 

When I was looking up parks in Fort Collins, this "fossil park" came up and I thought it sounded really fun. It ended up being less of a park and more of a little monument next to a pond path, but we made the best of it and walked almost halfway around the pond. You can see in some of the pictures the smoke wall coming in from the mountains - weird to have completely blue sky right next to completely smoky clouds. 

See, check out the smoke in the picture below! Crazy! We all smelled like fire when we got home, and our car smelled like campfire for a few days after this. We climbed up this big hill and had fun rolling down...it was a workout to push the stroller up the hill and then control it on the way down. 

Climbing up up up to that burning sky!

^^This is a blurry picture but it's the only one I had from our trip to Target...each kid had a budget of $15 and they got to choose a toy. ADVENTURE DAY! Stockton got a pacman game, Claire got a shopping cart, and I honestly don't remember what Jack and Natalie chose. 

We had lunch at three places for several reasons: we all wanted different food and it was adventure day so we made it happen, we wanted to waste some time in the car to see if the smoke would clear, and Claire needed to nap in the car while we were eating so we didn't mind driving around. Stockton and Claire had Wendy's, Jack and Natalie had Taco Bell, and I had Chipotle. Stockton loved eating his lunch at the little van table between the front seats. 

Claire woke up! 

Silo Park is really close to the Fort Collins temple, so we drove by and waved. You can't tell how pretty it is from this quick pic, but it really is a beautiful temple. The blue pyramid roof really stands out. 

And that's the report from Adventure Day! We left before 9 and got home after 4. The only behavior issues happened because I said it was time to leave the park, but overall it was a really great fun day trying to say "yes" as many times as I could and just enjoy the silly, fun, special times with my great children. We look forward to our Spring Adventure Day!