Colorado

It's kind of sad going through my pictures of Colorado because they do absolutely no justice to the real thing!  It was AMAZINGLY beautiful.  And the smell!  Oh my goodness, the smell was incredible.  Fresh mountain air with a hint of pine, I know it sounds so cheesy but it's true that's what it smells like!  The snow had just melted only a couple of weeks ago so everything was fresh and green and the mountains still had snow on the top and we even got to play in some!

 You really think 1,200 miles would stop this man from doing what he LOVES?!

 We left Friday around 1p.m. and got there Saturday around 9a.m....yes it took us 20 hours to get there!  I was dreading the drive like you wouldn't believe just because I'm not a good car rider (I tend to get car sick pretty easily) but surprisingly it went by so much faster than I thought and it wasn't bad at all.  There was a group of about 20 of us that stuck together all week.  We all rode around on the rangers when we got there Saturday and ended up getting a ticket by the stupid forestry service for not having an OHV sticker on the ranger!  We would have gotten the $20 sticker had we known we needed it.  And he was a total jerk about it too.  The store where we had to get it was literally down the road and he knew none of us had been there before and had no idea that we needed it.  He COULD have just told us to turn around and go get one but he wrote us a ticket for not having one!  Even the locals at the store said that he's a butt head and we should call in and make a complaint.  But we didn't, it just stunk that we're already in trouble the first couple of hours that we're there. 

Sunday was the wedding.  The place where they got married was so pretty!  It was such a small and intimate wedding...so opposite of what ours was!

 The water was so clear in all of the streams!

 We constantly had a caravan of rangers along the trails!

Monday morning I woke up and was about to get on a plane and head home.  I had had fever and the chills all night (I had the chills so bad that I had to sleep on my hands just to stop from shaking) and just felt so unbelievably bad.  I've only been sick a few times as an adult and this was by FAR the worst I've ever felt.  I remember opening my eyes and squeaking to Colton "I think I have a fever" he felt my forehead and said I was burning up.  Not only did I feel bad from the fever and chills but it was like my body couldn't function right.  I would stand up and try to walk across the room and it would take me forever because the entire room was spinning and my legs felt like they were going to give out right from under me, it was awful!  Monday morning we check out of the hotel that we were staying in for the wedding and drive an hour to the cabins where we'll be staying for the rest of the week.  Before we left the hotel I went into the bathroom and just sat down on the toilet and started bawling!  I really didn't know how I was going to make it through the day nor the rest of the week!  I just remember being in the truck and not being able to hold my eyes open for anything.  On the way there we stopped and ate some lunch and I felt like I was getting a little better, my appetite was really puny and I didn't even eat half my lunch but it felt good to get something in my stomach.  When we get to the cabin of course everyone has to go the bathroom and I remember sitting on the bed (while everyone else was unloading everything!  Sorry!) and all of a sudden I yelled to Colton who was in the bathroom "are you done!?" because my lunch was about to come up.  No sooner had he opened the door I was on my knees hurling up my lunch and then that was followed by diarrhea...nice I know.  It was around 2 p.m. when we got there and I went straight to bed while everyone else went riding again and I didn't move until the next morning.

The next morning I woke up and I STILL felt bad!  This time the only symptom I had was dizziness.  I was perfectly fine laying down but as soon as I would even sit up in bed the room would spin.  We then assumed maybe it was altitude sickness!  So I took some dramamine and that saved me!  It helped me get out of bed and get around, I still felt awful but by the end of the day I was feeling like my old self.  So then that left Wednesday and then Thursday we went home!  But by then I was ready to come home.  I was missing Korbyn so bad by then it was physically painful.  And to make matters worse, she got sick the DAY that we left!  She had a little bug and thankfully she was well taken care of by the memaws but that made me want to hold her even more knowing that she wasn't feeling good and she was so far away :(

Friday when we got home around 6 a.m. I noticed I was starting to get a rash.  It was on my hands, legs, shoulders and stomach.  I called Loranne who still had Korbyn and asked if they could wait a few more hours before bringing her over (that was SO hard to do) so I could go to the dr. and see what the heck is going on with me.  The dr. said it sounds like I had a virus on Monday followed by altitude sickness and when my body was weak from all of that I picked up hand, foot, and mouth disease (just a virus) which is now what my rash was!  Talk about a rough vacation.  All I wanted to know is if I was contagious because I think I would have lost it it she would have said yes and I couldn't be around Korbyn!  When I saw her she looked like she was so much older it was ridiculous!  And just like I thought she is now crawling all over the place.  She is unstoppable!  She's even trying to pull up on things.  The first nap that I tried to put her down for was kind of rough, she hadn't been in her bed for a week so it was understandable.  But I was so shocked when I went back in to check on her and she's on her knees at the foot of her crib hanging on to the slats and just peering through them and smiling at me, I couldn't help but laugh!

This is a picture my mom sent me while we were gone.  She wanted to show me that she was in fact feeling much better :)  Overall it was a fun, much needed vacation for Colton and I.  But I don't think I'll EVER leave my baby for that long again!!!