As backpackers, my husband Jamie and I are minimalists. We pack the bare essentials because we know we will be the ones hauling them into the backcountry.

We had also taken the same approach with car camping…until we saw the light during last weekend’s camping trip to Eleven Mile State Park, a venue that came highly recommended in Family Fun magazine and a rocky, barren venue that I would never recommend in a thousand years. Or in the eleven hundred miles it seemed to take to get us there.

Our friends Tina and Mark are Pack Everything Including the Kitchen Sink kind of campers. There is nothing wrong with this unless you are camping with them and your rations suddenly seem woefully inadequate and you find yourselves begging them to please share just a bite of their pancake, sausage and bacon breakfast to spare you the trauma of your Frosted Flakes without milk.

In addition to having a tent trailer that was stocked to the hilt, they also brought their canoe, a ton of toys, games, bubble whistles, glow-in-the-dark necklaces and a visit from the bead fairy who helped them make bracelets.

My contribution? Paper plates. A lot of them.

Oh, and both of my boys brought diarrhea. A lot of it. Read on …

Our wish for you this 4th of July:

May you have stars in your eyes and the wind at your back.

Enjoy your holiday!

XOXOXO

The Mamas

Fact: The San Luis Valley is the largest alpine valley in the world, surrounded by mountains in all directions.
Fact: Our average growing season is a whopping 90 days.
Fact: July and August are generally the only frost-free months out of the entire year.

In case I’m being vague here, this place is in a perpetual state of COLD, as I’ve mentioned before.

That is, until now. My favorite time of the year used to be fall with its turkeys and piles of yellow leaves and Labor Day sales. That was when I was a southern New Mexican, back when fall was a tall glass of ice-cold beer after weathering the climactic equivalent of scalding-hot lemonade for five solid months.

But now that I’m living in a satellite of the Arctic Circle, SUMMER is my new season of choice. The heck with soaring gas prices ’cause this is the time of year when I am totally committed to NOT travelling. I’m telling you, come July, THE SLV is the place to be.

So in an effort to maximize our short stint with Mr. Sun, my children and I are ignoring our allergies and electronic addictions to go HIKING. We are reading trashy novels under shade trees. Read on …

A week ago, we attended Granby Ranch’s Summer Solstice. The resort went all out for this celebration that included fireworks, BBQs, chairlift rides, face painting, golf, crafts, a climbing wall, trampoline, massages, pony rides and mountain bike demos. To name a few.

We reallllly wanted to go on this trip because:

1) It sounded fun. Duh.

2) The following weekend would be our dreaded camping trip with the children and we wanted them to have at least one positive experience with the great outdoors. Even if it meant enjoying it from the great indoors of our slope-side condo.

If you’ve never been to Granby Ranch, you must not be a hip, nature-loving family with young children because that is 90 percent of their audience. The other 9 percent consists of suicidal mountain bikers who barrel down the resort’s new mountain bike park. The remaining 1 percent? Toileting-papering, hike-traumatizing city folk like us. Read on …

Last winter, I deemed SolVista at Granby Ranch as the ultimate family vacation and vowed to return in the summer. Guess what: I’m [going] baaaaaack!

On June 21 and 22, Granby Ranch will celebrate Summer Solstice by hosting an adventurous weekend packed with activities for the entire family. You can kick back and listen to Boulder-based country rockers, the Unknown Americans; take in a fireworks display after indulging in delicious BBQ; unwind with a chair massage by the Fraser River; join in activities from face painting, to fly-fishing the Fraser River, to hiking amid gorgeous peaks and wildflower meadows, to teeing off at the neighborhood’s 18-hole Headwaters Golf Course and biking the new SolVista Bike Park.

The Summer Solstice Celebration’s Stay & Play package is just $125 and covers all the weekend activities for the family, including Saturday night accommodations at a scenic mountain-side location, Sunday brunch and an exclusive mountain bike demo with national pro riders. For families who choose to come up just for the day, $20 covers the cost for the entire family to participate in an array of activities, complete with chairlift passes. And as always, parking is free.

For additional details, visit PlayGranbyRanch.com.

Weekends at Mile High Mamas are often dedicated to freebies and we have the ultimate giveaway: a free weekend at play for everyone!

Jungle Quest is opening a new 12,000-square-foot facility in Thornton and their Grand Opening Discovery Weekend (Saturday, May 31 – Sunday, June 1 from 9 am – 6 pm.) is free to the public!

Jungle Quest is an indoor adventure center, featuring ziplines, rock climbing and giant rope swings. Explorers, ages 2 to 12, are invited to join the Jungle Quest Safari Guides for zipline zooming, gravity fighting, carabineer clicking, safari swing riding and rock wall climbing. Toddlers (aged 2-5) may enjoy traipsing through the Mayan temple. Read on …

Every once and a while, I come across an organization whose mission really hits home. That is what Judi’s House did for me.

This non-profit caters to the often-overlooked children in society: those who are grieving. When my best friend was 13 years old, her mother died. There were no resources to help her cope and today, she still struggles with her loss.

There are currently 1.5 million kids under the age of 18 who are coping with the death of a parent and that doesn’t include siblings, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. That is why I applaud Judi’s House and particularly their Outward Bound program, which brings these children together to heal. I recently had a Q&A with Judi’s House Director of Development, Anthony Hodes, and Outreach and Education Manager Jason Stout who shared some incredible experiences.

Tell us about Judi’s House and how it was conceived.

While still Quarterback for the Denver Broncos, Brian Griese began to explore ways that he could help grieving children. His interest in this issue grew out of his own experiences growing up as his mother, Judith Ann Griese, died when he was 12 year old. While he had support from others in his family during this time, he still felt alone and as if other kids did not or could not understand what it was like for him. He made a commitment that if he had the means some day that he would do something to help other grieving kids.

In 2001 he began to explore what services there were for grieving children in the Denver metro area and this exploration revealed that while there were more than 40,000 children that would lose a parent, sibling or other loved one in the area, there was no program specifically for these bereaved children. Read on …