Labor Day in Winter Park

Mid-October has brought beautiful fall weather to Colorado; however, the weather was still warm in these pictures at Winter Park from Labor Day (Monday, September 5th). We brought light jackets for our morning hike along the top of the mountain, but quickly shed them as the sun came out.

The girls were very excited to ride a chair lift up the mountain! I was happy to give them some experience with the chair lift before we begin ski lessons this winter.

Even Kati enjoyed the view from the chair lift (although it was difficult to take a picture while sitting right next to her).

Gabi and Bella tried out the zip line, which they enjoyed enough to repeat several times.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip was the Alpine Slide! Katarina wasn't big enough to ride this year, so Michael and I took turns staying at the base with her and riding with the bigger girls.

We also tried the bungee jump trampoline. Michael and I did flips, and we were very glad we jumped before lunch.

Another favorite activity was the human maze, where we searched for the letters M, A, Z, and E and raced the clock back to the finish. The kids got to select a small prize based on how quickly they completed the maze. On our second or third trip through the maze, we helped another little girl whose father was attempting to guide her from the watch tower -- but she was too short for him to see behind the walls (and, really, you couldn't see the entire maze from the watch tower, anyway).

Bella took this picture of our family (minus her, of course) by the little creek:

Kati-Lily spent most of the day playing on a little playground at the bottom of the main slope, as she wasn't old enough for the more structured activities. She did attempt putting for one hole of minigolf, and she enjoyed watching her big sisters jump in the bouncy castle. She found some musical bells to play, too. Mostly, she loved individual attention from each parent in turn.

Just before we left, we stopped at this playground near the entrance to Winter Park resort.

We arrived at Winter Park about half an hour after the resort opened and stayed all day. Once the grounds closed, we drove into the village of Winter Park to eat dinner before heading home. The girls loved this exhausting day trip and have been asking to return. I wonder if they'd recognize it if I took them now to see all the snow in the mountains?