Cowboy, Take Me Away

First of all I want to say thank you to all who’ve reached out to us after I blogged about Titus’s passing. One thing I’m really terrible at is getting back to people. I’ll see a sweet message and think ‘I’ll respond when I really have the time to send a heart-filled response’, and well, as most moms of small children can relate- that time never really materializes. So though I still have intentions of getting back with everyone who has contacted me with their condolences, I figured I’d just say one big THANK YOU here. When friends of mine have had tragedy befall them before, I always thought my prayers and condolences were such an inconsequential way to show them that I cared. But now going through it I know how powerful and comforting it is to know that people recognize your grief and they are rallying behind you. 

Though it still feels off to blog about other happenings in our lives, I did want to share a bit about our recent travels while they are still fresh on my mind. When Jonathan first started working 28/28 we sat down and discussed the places we most wanted to go with all of his time off. We definitely wanted to do Mexico with my family (happening in September), a big ski trip to somewhere new (Utah last February), and an all-inclusive ranch vacation. We had kind of decided to put the ranch vacation off until next summer since most of the kid programs don’t start until age 4, but when we saw that C Lazy U had a kid camp starting at age 3 and that the week of June 11 kids were free, we called to see if they still had any openings. Spoiler alert: they did! Three weeks later we were boarding a plane to Colorado for the best vacation ever! 

A lot of people asked how we found out about this place so I’ll explain a bit here. One of my besties from California told me about a resort in Montana called Paws Up which was her absolute dream vacation. After looking into it, it quickly became our dream vacation too! Unfortunately, it was all booked up for the week we wanted so we started looking into other similar resorts and found a whole world out there of luxury family ranch vacations. C Lazy U in Granby, Colorado really stuck out to us as exactly what we were looking for so we set our sights on it. 

Their summer programs are pretty much like summer camp for families. Y’all know I thrive with a schedule and routine so I loved feeling like I was at camp again! And the best part was that Forest was in Cowpoke camp for most of the day, freeing us up to do grown up things together for a change. All three of us had a blast! 

It was awesome to know that Forest was having the time of his life so that we could fully enjoy everything that the ranch had to offer. If I could choose two things that I most love to do when traveling, it would be getting to see beautiful scenery and wildlife via hiking or horseback riding. C lazy U was certainly the right place to be for that! 

During the summer season, there is a 7 night minimum at the ranch. Everyone checks in and out on Sunday, so you are together with the same group for the whole week. All meals are family style seating so you really get to know people pretty well during meal times and horseback rides.  

The first night, the ranch’s own resident horse whisperer interviews each guest and based on experience and personality, assigns them their horse for the week. 

Perhaps I'm biased, but I truly feel like Luke was the best horse in the herd!

Everyday there are two riding times at 9 and 2 and wranglers take groups out based on difficulty level. You could choose a slow scenic ride, a medium ride with some loping, or a hard ride with more cantering and tougher terrain. They also had instructional rides each morning for those looking to advance in their level. Throughout the week they also had special opportunities like horsemanship classes and cattle round ups. I mostly chose to do one medium ride a day and then a hike/walk most days as well. 

The ranch also has zip-lining, archery, fly fishing, mountain biking, swimming, and trap shooting in the summer months. Jonathan did archery and trap shooting in the afternoons while Forest and I napped. 

As for Forest, he went to ‘cowboy camp’ from about 9-4 every day. He happened to be the only kid in his age group that week. At first we were really bummed that he wouldn’t have any little ones to socialize with (especially since this is a concern of ours lately), but it turned out to be so awesome for him. He had the one on one attention of his counselor so came out of his shell pretty immediately. 

By the end of the week he was basically running the place. Ha! But seriously, because he was the only one there (the kids 6+ were riding most of the day), they didn’t have to follow a curriculum and could really customize the day to what he wanted to do. This meant a lot of swimming, pony riding, playground playing, rock collecting, and watching movies in the playroom. Pretty much heaven for our little guy. One day we were coming in from our afternoon horse ride and we spotted him in the pool with not one, but two counselors. Once we got our horses back to the barn he was on a beach chair getting toweled off by both girls while drinking a lemonade. 

Once he was dry, one of them went and placed his order at the ice cream bar and hand delivered his ‘chocolate with sprinkles’ to him at our picnic tables. 

Such service (and I don’t really have the heart to tell him that his life may have already peaked at age 3).  I was a little afraid of taking him home after he essentially didn’t hear the word ‘no’ for a week, but he was so exhausted that he really didn’t fight being in mommy bootcamp once we were back in Texas. 

Forest had a break from 4:30-6 everyday at which point I would put him down for his nap. 

I know that’s late for a nap but he was staying up until at least 8:30/9 every night so he had to have some sort of rest to bridge the long fun-filled days. At 6 we’d drop him off for dinner with the rest of the kids while we headed for cocktails and dinner with the grownups. After dinner there was usually some sort of family entertainment going on. The had a kid’s carnival one night. The kids hosted it and Forest was in charge of the fishing booth. It was the cutest thing ever. 

One night they had a talent show and the counselors made a skit with the youngest kids that basically centered on Forest, but apparently when it came to show time he got a little stage fright and refused to perform. I was pretty bummed but not at all surprised. 

One night they had smores and acoustic songs by the campfire and another night they had square dancing in the barn. 

They also had an artist come for a few days and he did a family paint night. We mostly just scurried Forest off the bed since he’s normally a 7/7:30 bedtime kinda guy but we’d try to stick around for a little bit each night. I could see this being an even better vacation when the kids are in late elementary school because they could take advantage of the riding and all of the summer camp activities. They had some pretty great activities for the teenagers too such as a camp out, white water rafting, etc.

Jonathan and I joked that we feel like we got jipped that our parents never took us here when we were growing up! It just seemed like all the kids were having an amazing time.

But to be fair, all the grown-ups were having a pretty great time too! 

We certainly plan to go back again (and again and again). There were so many multi-generational groups there with the parents/children/grandchildren and it seemed like such a fun time for a family reunion. I was sure wishing Forest had all his cousins there with him. 

That’s the gist of the week but there were also a few highlights I wanted to mention: 

*Getting a private ride with just Jonathan and I and our favorite wrangler for ‘family ride’ day. She took us on a great scenic ride up Mt. Baldy and we had perfect weather. 

*Taking a guided hike with one of the Rangers to Dawn’s Point. It was awesome because as soon as we were done walking, the ranch came and picked us up and brought us back. Again, such service! 

*Having Cowboy Coffee by the fire every morning. I swear, the best part of these all-inclusive vacations is someone else making me coffee.  Forest really enjoyed his Cowboy Hot Chocolate in the mornings too. 

*Not really a highlight but on our last day, Jonathan and I decided to just do a ‘Slow-scenic’ ride rather than a medium/hard ride. We started as a group of 4 but another 4 plus a wrangler joined us midway through, making our group 10 total. We got up on a ridge and suddenly it got super windy. Our wranglers decided it wasn’t safe and worried a horse may spook up there, so we had to all turn around on a narrow ridge and headed straight down the mountain through an aspen grove. Alls well that ends well, but we thought it was ironic that our ‘easy’ ride ended up being the most challenging of our trip. 

I was glad it happened the last ride because I felt pretty confident in my horse (Luke) after having all week with him. Luke was seriously the best. It was like driving an automatic. He just knew what to do and needed very little guidance from me. Jonathan actually had to switch horses halfway through the week because his original horse was such a stinker, they demoted him from a guest horse to a wrangler horse. ‘Wrangler’ horses are the horses that aren’t quite ready to be ridden by guests and still need some training. 

*Watching Forest ride his pony, Katy, in the ‘shodeo’. He opened up the end of the week show and everyone agreed he was the cutest thing EVER. He was super proud of the blue ribbon he won for trotting his pony. So stinkin adorable. 

*The twice daily ice cream bar. I definitely gained at least 5 lbs during this vacation. Five pounds is being conservative.

* Having pre-dinner cocktails at the Owners' house. Talk about backporch view goals. 

* Seeing a red fox. All through the week I heard rumors of red fox sightings but I wasn't lucky enough to spot it. On our final night we decided just to walk a bit and try to see if we could find it, and sure enough, we did! I didn't get a great photo but it was still a super special moment for us. 

* Watching the Jingle, which is what they call it when the wranglers bring the herd of horses in and out of the barn everyday. It's such a magical sight and never got old. 

Those are just a few of the many highlights. This was truly a dream vacation and we feel so blessed to have gotten to experience it.