Colorado Springs

We left Mesa Verde the next day and then went to Great Sand Dunes National Park.  I have no pictures from there (I learned that I don't take my nice camera to somewhere where there is a lot of sand).  We had a great time there.  The kids didn't play on the sand dunes that much (not like when my kids were tiny) but instead they played in the stream.  They would run down the stream and come back when they knew they had gotten too far away from me.  They got to work trying to make a dam across the stream.  They somewhat succeeded.  We had a great time there!

We then drove to Colorado Springs and stayed at the same hotel as Marcie's family.  The next morning Noah wasn't feeling well so I stayed with him at the hotel while Natalie and Brian joined Marcie's family hiking to a waterfall (or something like that).  Noah ended up throwing up at the hotel but then felt much better by the afternoon.

Since Noah was feeling better we decided to take him to the Olympic training center.  We had a tour with an athlete who was hoping to get to the Olympics in skeleton (he actually has changed sports a couple times).  It was interesting to see his perspective.  We did see a few athletes that may have been in Rio (none of the major players were there).

 We had to take twenty million versions of the pictures below so that every possible combination of people together could be on the gold medal platform together and on the other stands together.  It got a little ridiculous :)  I think I finally just started to pretend to take the pictures.

 I wanted to get the kids to jump like the athletes were doing in the statue.  This is what I got.

We ended up going to a microbrewery for dinner and on the way there Noah said he wasn't feeling well so Brian ended up returning back to the hotel with him.  At the end of our meal, Natalie threw up at the restaurant (luckily in the bathroom).  Sigh.  Must have had a little bit of a bug. Not the most memorable time in Colorado Springs.