Pagosa Springs, Co: day trip to Durango

We drove 1 hour west to the city of Durango. We heard there was a train museum there so we took our train loving kids to go explore. The Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad departs from here and we were told it was a "must do" while on our vacation, but the high cost prevented us from going.

There were retired, non-working locomotives to go inside, so now Joshua knowswhat Thomas the Train looks like on the inside!

Jacob inside the caboose

these trains are huge!

Train Conductor Joshua at the firebox

One of Jacob's favorite songs is "Absolutely Nothin'" by Jana Alayra. We have the DVD and when Jacob was sick a few weeks ago watching it was the only thing that would calm him down. The DVD has hand motions for the songs and one of the hand motions for his favorite song is waving your pointer finger back and forth which he always imitates. When ever we "no, no, no" to him, we always wave our pointer finger for extra emphasis too. He saw this sign and started waving his finger back and forth!

inside the museum was also a model railroad display which Joshua LOVED!

Check out this next sequence of pictures.

Think Joshua has to pee?

Pagosa Springs, Co: hiking Reservoir Hill

Emma being such a good helper with Jakey-boy

the stragglers

Joshua and Zachary kept picking up sticks on our walk. When I put Jacob down to walk, he immediately picked up his own sticks.

rounding the corner

along one of the trails was a tree stump with 2 owls carved into it.

Here's Jacob on the tree.

A few months ago, Joshua was obsessed with The Lorax by Dr Seuss. When Joshua stepped up on this stump, I tried convincing him to give the Lorax's speech.

For the road trip, my Mom bought the boys a Bible story lift-the-flap book. One of the stories was Joshua and the battle of Jericho. While we were on our hike, Joshua found this huge stick and began blowing his "trumpet" just like in the story.

A pretty flower along the way.

My Dad and I tried convincing Joshua not to pick it,

but he was set on picking it so he "could just enjoy it."

The End!

(of the hike.....not the vacation posts)

Pagosa Springs, Co: hiking Treasure Falls

Once we arrived, it seemed that most activities in Pagosa Springs cost a lot of money. We were creative and did free things around the area that everyone could enjoy. One day, we hiked Treasure Falls. It was perfect for the kids; even the babies!

Pagosa Springs, Co: mini-golf

We have been actively potting training Joshua for about 7 months now (to visit our journey along the way click here , here and here ). Right now we're working on pooping in the potty. He is extremely resistant. The 2 times he has pooped in the potty I made him sit on the toilet until he gave us his "present": the first time he sat for 2 hours, the second time he sat for 1 hour and 50 minutes. Well, the second time he pooped was when we were in Colorado and he chose as his reward to go miniature golfing! Thank goodness for us, mini-golf was included at the time share!