Let's go to Florida!

So yeah..... in case you haven't heard, and can't tell by the blog update, the Hasting family is back on the Gulf Coast :-)   For the short 15 months that we spent in Colorado, we've got a lot of great memories.  From camping up in Golden Gate Canyon to Cora & Nick's first experience with the snow, it was a blast.

That said, it took a lot to get us to leave the beach to begin with.  Between the whole Chinese drywall mess and the BP oil spill and cleanup process, is just seemed like the time was right to try something new.  I even remember the idea that it wasn't really much more work to move across the country than it is to move up the block.  HA HA HA!  Not so much....

Me & B have learned a lot about what we want for our family and there is no doubt that we're back where we should be.  And as you'll see in the first new beach pics of the kids, they're pretty happy to be back too.  It's kind of funny, you don't even have to get them to say cheese to get some of the biggest smiles that I've seen in a while :-)

Oh, and the beach is beautiful.  Come see us soon!

1,640 Miles, three days, eight states, four kids, one dog, one flat tire...... definitely worth it.

The route.

Good-bye's are never fun, but we hope to see you all soon at the beach.

Plenty of room.

I was more impressed with Kansas than B was, but to be out of the city and away from all that traffic was beautiful to me.

It's no Wrigley Field.

Nice shot B!

Yeah, we probably should have stopped for a family pic here, but we were SOOOO close.

A good picture is never hard to get at Johnson Beach.

More pics to come real soon.

Easter morning pics

Maybe a bit chilly first thing in the morning for sandals.... But it warms up real quick out here. We got out early Easter morning and found a nice spot with a view to have our bagel breakfast and snap some pics.





































It's been a beautiful spring out here, we'll have to get more pics up soon.

Winter Mountain Weekend

 We spent the weekend at a cabin in Golden Gate Canyon State Park.  It was cold, beautiful, and lots of fun. We couldn't resist the fresh powder, so we hit the slopes(on sleds of course) for most of the weekend.  When everyone got too cold, we relaxed and played games in the toasty, warm cabin.  We then headed back home to sixty degrees and sunny.  It was a great time!

--B

Ketner Lake

Each day on lunch we take a walk while the kids bike.  We take the trail system from our house up to Ketner Lake and then ride/walk around the lake.  When we come around the lake, we get a nice mountain view.  This is what a cloudy day looks like in Colorado!  So with all of the clouds, it is a bit hard to see the snow capped mountains in the distance.

--B

Reverend's Ridge

The park rangers mentioned that there has been a bear wandering around at the more remote campsite that we first camped at, so we decided we should stick to the more populated campground.  These are pics from our trip last weekend at Reverend's Ridge, the campground with more people, cars, etc.  We felt a bit more safe at least.  

The leaves are turning in the mountains, yay! It's been four years since we've seen any fall colors.

A good ole' fashion game of stack the logs.  Dale accomplished that one. Then the kids threw rocks to knock it down.

Here's where we took a break in the middle of our hike to refuel and rehydrate.  Everyone made the entire 4.5 mile hike with 1,000 ft in elevation change.  Pretty impressive...especially for Nick who hiked more miles than his age.

--B