Our 1st Summer Vacation with Kayden!

Presents with cousins

Carrie working her magic getting Kayden to sleep

Keeping up with the big kids!

Being a boy with his cousin Zion

Kayden & Shekinah

Paige & Kayden waiting to take a bath together

Eating outside with the fresh mountain air

Kayden with Gabe, Corban & Israel

The Hingst Bunch

The Paplow Clan

Vacation has always been a fun, special time for me, in my memories of growing up our family vacations have always been things that have stuck out in my memorybank. And of course family get togethers are the other special times I remember so well......so when you combine vacation with a family get together you have one amazing time to be had!! Growing up my family always went on family vacations every summer sometimes just our family, sometimes we combined with the rest of the Paplow clan, no matter what it was a great time. As Kyle and I started making our family of 2 we kept summer (and random times) vacations apart of our must dos and I'm so happy we have because some of our happiest memories are on those trips. So now to have Kayden with us on our summer vacations and start the tradition all over again with our little family is so exciting.....and then we get to top it off with the whole Paplow gang and the Hingst family too!!! What a great time! So here is our trip chronicle so that Kayden will be able to read all about his first family vacation...what a special one it was!

On Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early to head to the airport, we had an early flight so that meant an even earlier morning. Kayden slept while daddy and I did the final packing and preparing Fifi for our time away (she now doesn't always fly with us like she used to...poor doggy!). When Kayden woke up we got him ready for his 4th flight so far! Yes, my 1 year old has flown 4 times! I don't think I flew that much until I was done with high school.......I bet he won't have the same fear of flying as his mommy did. As usual, I was sure we were going to get to the airport too late for our flight (daddy made us miss a flight before so now I'm paranoid, I like being punctual!), but we made it in time, barely! Traveling with a baby is so much more time consuming than 2 adults! Hopefully we learn soon how to manage our time. Kayden was a little trooper on the flight and ate breakfast, nursed, and read stories. He didn't sleep really on this flight though so that was a bit of a change from our previous flights when he usually had slept most of the way. Carly picked us up from the airport in Denver, CO around 11:30 and we headed back to her place for lunch and playtime for Kayden & Paige. They hadn't seen e/o since Christmas but they hit it off right away and loved playing together. It is so fun being with Carly and having our babies play together. We went to college together and always talked about being mommies, and our future babies, and imagined life as a mom, we are now at that point in life and it is so fun being there together and sharing the experience with someone I love so much! The babies went down for afternoon naps and then we went to the park and out for dinner at a place that serves buffalo burgers-so Kayden had some buffalo for the first time, and he seemed to like it! He also had to show off to all the fellow diners his new moves and walked around smiling and greeting everyone. He has become such a little ham! Then the daddies took the babies home and Carly and I ran to Target....yes, we ran to Target. In our former life we would have went to have a glass of wine together but now that we are busy mommies we took our time alone to run errands. Regardless of what we did it was fun having some time with just the 2 of us to catch up. (And thanks Auntie Carly for the Haba blocks, Kayden loves playing with them!) The next morning the babies played for awhile and then grammie & grampie W came to pick us up to head to Costco and Sam's club for our big shopping trip before we headed up to our vacation home in the mountains.
So on we go! At Costco I was very surprised that my whole family from TX and NE had beat us there! They had a 5+ hour drive but yet they still managed to get to Costco by 10am! Wow, Uncle Mark....you must be old too b/c you'd normally never get up at 5am to meet me at Costco in Denver. We did some rearranging of luggage-put most of it in Little Ray's truck and the boys all headed up to the Mountain rental while us girls (plus daddy and Grampie) shopped for the weekend. We did a big shop at Costco and a big shop at Sam's club....getting food for around 35 or so people for 5 days is alot of shopping! Kayden took his morning nap while we were doing our big shopping trip...what a life he has;-) On we went to the mountains, aside from getting stuck in the huge traffic jam of all the Denverites trying to escape to the great outdoors. Kayden had a few breakdowns but mostly danced and sang along to his new tunes Great Auntie Martha got him for the ride. We didn't get into Grand Lake until sometime after 5pm and had lasagna that night, we played cards, walked around and mostly just enjoyed being surrounded by so much family! The Hingst clan was in a house a few houses up the hill and so we stopped over there to say hello to all the aunties, uncles and cousins & of course G&G Hingst too.
Friday was the 4th of July and we started the day with a hike around Grand Lake (our whole gang went for the hike), it was alot of fun showing Kayden all the pretty things on the hike and he loved seeing the water and birds, ducks, etc. Some of the hikers turned around after awhile but a couple of us headed on for a bit. When we got home we arrived to Grammie and Grampie preparing Kayden's 4th of July bbq lunch. Soon after the Hingst clan arrived and even Grandpa & Grandma Cunningham from Steamboat, CO drove up to help us celebrate little man turning 1! 40 family members were at Kayden's 1st birthday party in the mountains! What a loved little boy we have. He is so blessed to have so much family and friends surrounding him, thinking of him and praying for him all the time. He gets to have so many people bring different things to his life and teach him things that daddy and I can't. He is so lucky! I am so thankful that even though we live far away he gets to have them all be apart of his life! Many of them he had seen 3 or more times already! What a lucky baby to get to share such special events with such special people! He had lunch, enjoyed smashing another cake (this time he got into it a bit more!), took some photos with his cousins sporting their birthday hats, and then opened presents. He was spoiled again by his family and loved having all the fun new stuff to play with at his mountain retreat! As soon as the party was over he wanted some alone snuggles with his mommy so we snuck away to the bedroom to nurse and he fell asleep right away, his party definetely wore him out. That night we went and walked around downtown in Grand Lake-it was PACKED with people for the holiday, we had some homemade ice cream from a cute little shop (I was going to share mine but he ended up talking Grammie into getting him his very own kiddie cone, I guess it is okay to have a special treat on vacations...that is part of the fun, right;-) and then watched the fireworks. Kayden LOVED the fireworks! Once they started he couldn't take his eyes off of them! He didn't even get scared by the loud booms like I thought he would.
Saturday we had a boat rental and so the boys all went to the boat bright and early while us girls hung out at home and chatted and played with Kayden. Carrie even got Kayden down for his nap, she must work magic because I'm usually the only one that can get little man to sleep. Once afternoon arrived we took Kayden for his first boat ride, he loved seeing the water and going fast in the boat but wasn't much of a fan of his life jacket or sitting idle while the fishermen fished. That night was a Mexican Fiesta with yummy mexican food and then we celebrated Kayden's Godmother's 20th birthday (what a party vacation we had!). Kayden's cousins from MN and NE were there to play with him and it was so cute watching him try to keep up with the "big kids". Gabriel kept calling him "baby Kayden".......so funny hearing Gabe say that, he used to be the baby of the family and I spoiled him rotten, held him all the time! And now he is 6 years old and I have my own baby to hold, time does fly by! Then outside to the deck we all went to play games and chat, while Uncle Brian kept yelling at us to be quiet so he could sleep......
Sunday some of our party left to drive back to AZ or NE and so it was a bit quieter. Daddy, Grampie W and Grandpa H and I went for a hike while Kayden stayed home with the rest of the crew. That afternoon we went on the boat again and the fishermen fished and the rest of us enjoyed the scenery and the ride. It started to rain while we were on the boat and even HAILED! Yes, my baby saw hail for the first time while taking cover under the small cover of the pontoon boat. We had some die hard fishermen though that stayed out under the hail to fish! Kayden LOVED helping daddy fish and would get pretty upset if we took him away from his fishing pole! (Jaclyn, tell Josh he has a new fishing buddy!). After our boating adventure we headed to downtown for some more yummy ice cream (Kayden took to signing more when we walked by others w/ cones....he knows how to get what he wants from his grammie!) and to shop a bit. Grandpa H grilled filet mignon that night and Kayden thought it was really yummy! That night we played our family game of PIT. It isn't a family get together with our clan unless we play our "yelling" game of PIT. Kayden slept while the yelling went on on the porch, mommy was the big looser and Amber was the winner this time...we'll see during the holidays who wins then missy!
Monday was leaving day for everyone still left, since our flight didn't leave until around 6pm we drove up to the Alpine Visitor center above the Continental Divide (we got up above 12,000 feet!) and looked at Elk and other wildlife and the beautiful Mountain views. We ate lunch with Uncle Mark, Uncle Kurt and Carrie and then headed to Denver to shop a bit at Flat Iron mall and then headed to the airport to depart.

It was such a wonderful time with our big, loving, amazing family. We have so much fun when we all get together and are already planning our next family vacation (Amber thinks we need to do a beach house next year.....get on that girl!) I'm so glad Kayden got to celebrate his 1st birthday with his big, wonderful family in such a fun, relaxing atmosphere! What a special way to culminate a year of wonder with our beautiful baby boy! Thanks family for making his 1st birthday and first summer vacation such a special, memorable time! We love you all so much and are so thankful to have you each apart of our lives!!