July 4th Holiday

Yikes. Too long for a post on the blog. Anyway, I took a little time off from work to go up to Avon / Vail for a little vacation with the family. The really cool part is that a friend from Switzerland is visiting with his family. Beau and I haven't seen Oliver since High school. He decided to take his family out to CO to show them a good time. The nice thing is that his kids and my kids are the same age.

Ab, the boys and I headed up to Avon on Sunday July 1st. We had a nice time up in Beaver Creek eating pizza and watching Big Bad Voodoo Daddy on the Chop House Lawn. The boys had a good time groovin' to the music and rolling in the grass. Definitely a good start to the holiday.





The next day we rented a tow behind trailer for my bike and rode the Vail valley trail with the kids and had a great time. Oliver and family followed later in the day. I made an American meal (beercan chicken) to welcome them. The following day we went for a nice hike along Gore Creek to a "beach". It wasn't much of a beach but the kids had a good time wading in the water once we got there. I'm convinced that kids really don't like to hike! We headed back to the house after the hike to put the kids down for a nap.

shop nearI knew Oliver had been itching to go Mountain Biking when he got out here. So we decided to do a ride on Vail mountain in the afternoon. Oliver rented a bike from the Double Diamond the gondola in Lions Head. You could tell that the "mechanic"was tired of dealing with stupid tourists. He didn't treat Oliver very nicely. Luckily, he had a bike that would work and Oliver and I headed up. I didn't count on the altitude affecting Oliver like it did but he was a trooper and followed me anyway. We rod the Grand Traverse along the top of the mountain after we rode up the gondola. It was a nice long climb along the back bowls of Vail. It's amazing how different it looks in the summer. From there we rode down the front into MidVail and then down into Lions Head again just in time to ride the gondola one more time. We decided to only ride down this time. We actually rode part of the double diamond down hill only course. It wasn't too technical, we probably should have done more down hill!! All in all it was a good ride.

Beau and Meggan came up in the evening to watch the fireworks in Avon (biggest in CO!!!) that evening. We had to dodge some sprinklers on the golf course but found a nice place to lay the blankets out and watch the show. Arjen was very excited to see fireworks and be out late at night.

On the 4th of July we wanted to give Oliver and family a taste of what the holiday was all about. We took them to the parade in Vail in the morning. It was a great time!! Everyone was given American flags to wave in the air and there must have been over 40 entries in the parade. Candy was flying everywhere and all of our kids had a good time. The best part was when a steam powered train car came through. Arjen was in complete Awe. We had pizza for lunch and all took a siesta because of the late night before. That night, Beau and I prepare mini-burgers for dinner. Another American classic! It was a great holiday weekend and this blog entry definitely isn't doing it justice.