garden of the gods, round two.

before we left colorado springs last week, we made another trip out to garden of the gods park. we wanted to check out a little trail that lead to the siamese twins rock formation, which forms a perfect little window to view pike’s peak through. so, after derek got off work one day, we rolled on over…

this time we stopped at the visitor’s center for a bit. they have this great deck, with a view of pike’s peak between some of the bigger rock formations in the park.

inside, there was a lot of information about animals in and around the area. there was also some cool info about the history and geology of the park.

millions of years ago, this area was inhabited by dinosaurs.

finally, we hit the trails. on the way up, we found this spot for anna to practice her rock conquering.

after a quick walk, we arrived at our destination. the siamese twins.

while we waited for some other families to finish up their photo shoot, we climbed around less cool and unnamed rock formations.

anna is not happy until she’s as high as she can possibly get.

finally, the window was ours. the sun was on the same side as pike’s peak, so the lighting was hard to work with.

if you want to see the kids faces, the background was washed out.

anna took this pic for me of me.

from the other side, the lighting was perfect. but no pike’s peak behind us.

until this point, derek had been tending to hazel, who had a little cut from a fall on some sharp gravel. when he arrived, we took a bunch more pics.

some folks brought a kite, which was brilliant, because it’s super windy. i snapped this shot of the kite through the window.

more scrambling and exploring.

hazel finally recovered from her near death knee scrape and allowed me to take a picture with all the kiddos.

she recovered. but she still wasn’t pleased.

some more scenery.

amd one last photo of the siamese twins.

garden of the gods is a pretty sweet place. the kids loved it. we were slightly disappointed in the junior ranger program. anna completed the book (which we paid for) and we ended up spending $10 to watch a movie in the visitor center as one of her requirements, and when we went to get the badge, we were a bit disappointed to be handed a measly sticker. oh well. lesson learned. next time, ask what the badge looks like before deciding whether to do it or not. but still. garden of the gods gets two thumbs up from our crew.