In a land far, far away...

This week we are on vacation, and unlike most of our previous summers we are not at the beach. This time around we decided to come back to Vail to check it out during the summer, since Lionel's parents have been wanting for us to come here for quite a while. I love going to the beach, and giving it up is not an easy thing to do, but trying something new is also a good thing. Besides, we are so lucky to be able to afford a vacation and freely decide where we want to go and what we want to do. Lionel's parents have always talked about how beautiful Vail is during the summer, with all the ski runs covered in a beautiful green and flowers everywhere... But not this year. This year everything is a bit dry, which unfortunately has caused wild fires in other parts of the state. Don't get me wrong, the place is still very nice, but apparently we are just not getting to see it in all its splendor. Regardless, I am glad we are here. Lionel and I needed a break from work, and spending vacation away from home is key, especially for me. Otherwise I would just spend my entire time off doing chores around the house, stressing myself over a bunch of stuff, and not giving myself a moment of peace. On Saturday we arrived in the afternoon, so we didn't do a lot more other than unpack, take a small walk, have dinner, and go to bed. But yesterday we took a long walk in the morning and visited a large beautiful park that has the mountains as a backdrop. It also has a huge playground, which the girls enjoyed very much. On our way back we walked around the farmer's market and had couple smoothies and crepes for lunch. The girls also enjoyed a bounce house even though Lionel and I didn't enjoy that much paying 5 dollars each for just 5 minutes in there. It is not that we can't afford it, it is just that it seemed like a giant rip-off. Then, in the afternoon we went to the pool, took showers, went out for dinner, took a walk, and came back to the hotel. Come to think of it, our days are turning out to be pretty similar to what we do when we go to the beach. Today we took a gondola to the top of the mountain, where I took a short walk with Sofia and Lionel's parents while he sat with Bella waiting for us because she was whining about everything and didn't want to walk. But she did get a lot happier when we took them to a mini bungee jumping, which would have scared the you know what out of me, but she and Sofia enjoyed very much. Not surprisingly, Bella wanted to go as high as she could go. They also rode on a horse and Sofia went on a climbing wall a few times. We then had lunch and took the gondola back down. After that Sofia wanted to go biking, so we rented bikes from the hotel. Unfortunately Sofia was not doing very well with her rental bike and even fell once and hurt herself, so we ended up returning it and she had to sit next to Bella in the trailer we had rented since she is still too small to ride her own bike. Poor Lionel was the one who had to pull them behind him, which was no easy task considering that the roads went up and down. After our bike ride we stopped for ice cream, and eventually made it back to the hotel. A quick visit to the pool, and then it was time to shower and go grab dinner all over again. We had dinner with an acquaintance of Lionel's parents who lives in Vail year round, and then again it was time to come back to the hotel and get ready for bed. The girls were very tired, and Sofia was still hurting from her fall earlier in the day, so luckily they fell asleep somewhat quickly - especially for Bella's standards - and that gave me time to finally sit down and write about our last few days. As for tomorrow, I have no idea what we have in store. For this vacation I am not the one planning anything, so I am just going with the flow...