July 13th--Arriving in Manitou Springs, CO

Just a short hour and a half after leaving Aurora, we finally arrived in manitou Springs, Co.--the city that had been chosen for this year's Stephens family reunion. Everyone was able to be here this year except for my older brother Blake. Luckily his wife, Ashley, and their children were able to come. Sure wish you could have been there, Blake!

We got to El Colorado Lodge earlier than we had planned. We chatted for a bit with my parents and sister Sheri who had come up a day earlier to get everything arranged for the week. Since we weren't yet able to check in, we went and had lunch and made a trip to Walmart to get what we needed for the week.

We then returned and got into our "cabin". All I have to say about El Colorado Lodge, is DO NOT ever stay at this place. It was awful! My parents and Sheri had gone to a lot of work reserving this place for us. The website for it looks great. Well, we all soon found out that pictures and words can lie and in this case did! Anyway, it all worked out and we had a great week, despite the issues with the place we were staying. What was really nice was that my parents had gotten individual cabins for each family. So we were all close and yet still had our own space which was great.

After a quick dip in the pool, we met in the Pavilion for dinner. The place did have a nice pavilion where we were able to get together most nights for meals. Since the "kitchens" weren't quite what we had planned for, we had to get creative on a few nights. The first night we had Arby's sandwiches. Thanks Mom and Sheri for planning all the food for the week. It was all wonderful!




After dinner, my Mom had all of the kids go back to her cabin and choose a box of cereal from a bunch that she had. The kids loved getting to choose their own box of cereal. They then got to take it back to their individual cabin to share with their family for breakfasts throughout the week. Luckily she also had a few adult type cereals that she split between the families.


The older boys wanted to go back to the pool so while John took them to the pool, I went back to our cabin to put the little ones to bed and get ready for the next day. Here they are sleeping. Isn't this just the cutest picture ever?! I love it!