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Aug 2, 2015

It's been a while...

Happy August!!! I am back again blogging :-) I took the month of July off from blogging and card making to spend some time with family. 

First up is my card for this month's Penny Black and More challenge, with the theme of 
Summer Blooms.


I used the cute set Happy Days and sentiment set Sprinkles and Smiles, both from Penny Black. A pretty simple card, which I had actually finished before my little break. Colored copics and mounted onto designer paper and then some yellow card stock. Glitter and a butterfly was added for embellishments.

As always you can use any brand of rubber or clear stamps. And we have several wonderful prizes to give away. Simply click the link above to enter your card.

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If you'd like to read about how I spent part of last month, keep on reading, lots of photos are following :-)

We took a trip to Colorado, which I've been wanting to do ever since I read about Amy's travel adventures to Colorado. What a beautiful state! People living close to it are so lucky!
I don't do travel posts, but wanted to share a few photos with you :-) 

 Doesn't this photo look like a painting? It was just taken with my Panasonic Lumix camera, but I love how it turned out.

 This was taken somewhere on the trail to Alberta Falls. 

This is me trying to reach my crazy family, that decided to climb all the way up to the falls. 
Can you tell I had to use my whole body to get up there?

I made it :-)
   
 By no means a big water fall, but very pretty and gorgeous views all around. Perfect spot for a picnic.

From here we walked back down and took the trail to Bear Lake.

We also visited 3 other lakes, but the next day.
This is Nymph Lake, which was filled with water lilies.

Our view hiking up to Dream Lake.

 Dream Lake as seen walking down from Emerald Lake.
 

We continued up to Emerald Lake, this was the spot where it started to rain, but only for a few minutes, and luckily the thunder was only heard in the distance. 


Emerald Lake...the two people you see far in the distance on the rocks are my husband and daughter.

 We also decided to take Trail Ridge Road down to Grand Lake - I was scared to death as it started to snow while we were on it. This road is over 12000 ft above sea level, and completely open only for a few months a year. I can see why...it even snowed up here in July.


We had planned on driving to the Glenwood Springs/Aspen area the next day, but after reading that these lake trails were all considered easy, and the trail I wanted to do in Glenwood Springs was considered strenuous, I changed my mind about hiking up to Hanging Lake, which was my main reason for driving further west. The trails up to the lakes above were not very hard, but there were some steep drop offs on some parts, and being afraid of heights when looking down, especially when I see the kids walking in front of me, I did get scared on some parts. 
So instead we decided to head to the Colorado Springs area which was originally planned for later on our trip. 

We visited the Garden of the Gods here, 

and also drove further south to The Great Sand Dunes National Park.
I only walked up to one sand hill, but there were people walking all over the hills you see in the back. I wanted to hike further too, but we were surrounded by clouds and thunder in the distance, and it started to get windy. I read that it's pretty painful when a sand storm hits. Above is my husband running to get my daughter and brother to come back as they just kept walking.
 
 Just as we were leaving the Dunes we saw this beautiful rainbow. 
What an amazing time we spent in that beautiful state!! 
Huge thanks to Amy for all the informative travel posts she shared!!

If you are ever in this area, be sure to visit these places. The  Rocky Mountain National Park fee is only $20 per car, and good for a whole week, and you get to use their shuttle buses for free (which come in very handy because parking fills up quickly, even before 9am in Summer). Sand Dunes was $3 for each adult, free for kids, and the Garden of the Gods was completely free. 
Next time I hope to go back to Rocky Mountain National Park in Fall, wish it was this Fall, but it takes over 12 hours for us to get there. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! 
Enjoy your Sunday!!


11 comments:

Mervi said...

Oh so cute card, welcome back!
Gorgeous photos from your trip;-))m

Shirley said...

Gorgeous card Ellie. Lovely Mimi image. I have several Mimis and they make such cute cards for all occasions.

Shirley

Julie Tucker-Wolek said...

Gorgeous card and gorgeous vacay photos! LOVING that rainbow!!!!!!

Tracy said...

Hi Ellie
Fabulous creation, adorable image and design. Wonderful photos, beautiful scenery.
Happy crafting
Tracy x

Amy Johnson said...

First of all, I'm so happy your back! I've really missed you in blogland. Secondly, thanks for mentioning my blog. That's so sweet of you! It looks like you had a great time, and everything you saw looked very familiar to me except for the sand dunes. We didn't do that. It's neat to see the same areas I went, but minus the snow. I too would love to visit Colorado in the fall. It's such a beautiful state, and there is so much to see and do there. Now that your back, I will be leaving. I'm leaving Wednesday to drive my kids to Florida. They are all moving there. I will do a post about it soon explaining it all. I'm gonna try to keep posting while I'm gone, but if it gets too busy I may not. So if you don't hear much from me, you'll know why. Cute card too!

Anonymous said...

such a sweet card ellie and nice to see some very scenic photos of your trip!

Linby said...

What a beautiful card, so sweet and perfectly executed.
Love your holiday photos, looks stunning, we are doing the Canadian Rockies soon.
Lynn x

kiwimeskreations said...

What a cute card - love the yellow you have used on it!
Thank you for sharing your photos - I love seeing photos of other country's beautiful spots like these.
Blessings
Maxine

Davi said...

A darling card! I really like the way you used the yellow dp to frame the sweet image. Beautiful country, looks like a fun vacation!

Whisper said...

Oooo what a lovely image and a great layout too.

Oooo looks like you had a great hols too, such lovely photos, Luv Sam x

brenda said...

Morning Ellie,

I am so pleased you told me about your holiday photos, it looks amazing, it certainly is a huge country with such diverse weather and scenery, here in Europe you have to visit other countries to see so much.

Thank you for sharing.

B x