Vail Village, Flowers, and Birthday

My husband and I spent part of a week in Vail in August visiting my parents. The past couple years we have visited in September so it was a treat to come in the summer and see the flowers at their peak. The flowers in Vail Village are splendid and overflow their baskets and pots. My camera battery ran down early on so I only got a few pictures though. At the height of the summer tourist season we saw many families with young kids sometimes all of them on bicycles since cars are not allowed. We enjoyed the restaurants with open air patios and the water features and fountains and also the beautiful river that flows right through town and often has tubers and kayakers on it to watch.

In my own yard I finally have mature hollyhocks that have the deep wine and hot pink colors that I love. For so long I only had white and light pink. I planted some richer hues from seed a couple years ago and they are finally noticeable this year. I have loved hollyhocks ever since I was about five and I remember helping Mom plant some hollyhock seeds in our backyard in Missouri and my extreme disappointment when they never came up. I always coveted the “hollyhocks by the fence look” that one sees in artwork. I finally have them too.

My birthday was on a rainy day in the middle of the week this year so we didn’t do much except go out for a nice steak dinner that day. I did get two deliveries of beautiful flowers from my kids that truly brightened my day though. I so appreciated the lovely bouquets and they are still going!

On Monday of the Labor Day weekend the skies had cleared and we were able to get in a nice little hike (Round Mountain nature trail.) It follows a narrow dirt road about a mile up to an overlook of the Big Thompson River west of Loveland, Colorado. There were five of us including our three year old grandson. We saw lots of cool stuff from his perspective, a green praying manthis, cactus, trees that cracked and fell down, piles of stacked rocks and other groups of hikers and various dogs. Maverick made it to the top with only a couple stints of piggy back and did the steeper climbing toward the top near the overlook without help. We enjoyed our sandwiches and grapes in the rock shelter which was nice and cool.

Later, we all had a grilled chicken dinner at our daughter’s house. After dinner I got to blow out candles on my custom blue birthday cake with green frosting and lots of sprinkles and purple lines thanks to my grandson’s artistry. It told him it was the most beautiful cake I’d ever had!