Last weekend our family went with Mick's family on vacation down to Mesa Verde. Mick and I and our kids had never been there before. I just loved seeing it all. I wish we would have had more time to hike and see more of the things there.
Mick took his camera too, so I actually exist on this vacation!
"Photo Phylis" doing what she loves to do - take pictures.
This was taken at the Spruce Tree House. This one was fun because there were a lot more places you could actually hike around and look in
Emma swiped Ginger's sunglasses. She is always telling me, "take my picture" mom! She poses everywhere.
This was taken at Balcony house. They were built in the cliffs. You hike down from the top and then have to climb a 32 ft ladder to get up to them. The kids did great.
Balcony House behind us.
Balcony House - There was a tunnel 12" by 18" to crawl through.
This was the last ladder to come up and out. There were a bunch of stairs chipped away out of the side of the cliff with only poles and chains between those and a huge drop off. (Sometimes there was a weak little fence there). I was so scared that one of my kids were going to fall. I was right behind Emma and had a tight grip on the hood of her sweatshirt.
Bet in front of the Spruce Tree House
Spruce Tree House - You could actually climb down in a Kiva at this place.
The girls did an amazing job hiking everywhere. Ty was a mountain goat and was long gone by this point.
This was taken at Hovenweep which is a different location than Mesa Verde. Tyler had gotten sick the night before this and threw up all night. Poor little man. Mick and I took turns sitting in the car with him. So it was just the girls on this hike along with Dave and Ginger and their family.
Bethany, cousin Spencer and Emma hiking at Hovenweep.
Over the weekend we went out in the jeeps with our friends Joel and Nicole. Went through a couple of Ghost towns. It was so cool to look at all the old stuff lying around.
The wall that we were sitting on was built to contain water behind it.
Someone had staked this claim 
This is the jeep that we got to drive. I think I'm already addicted to playing in the jeep
This building was in the ghost town of Frisco. A lot of interesting history here that we read about in a book. This town was a mining town for silver. It said their open pit was 900' by 400' and 900' deep. There were 21 saloons in this town. The pit eventually caved in putting an end to the town. All in all $60,000,000 was made in the mine. It was amazing. I want to take the kids back to see it. 
Mick hiked back into a cave a little ways and took a picture of us all watching him.
You know, I just couldn't help myself. I had to go check it out.
There is a huge shaft in front of me. The ladder that is right in front of me goes way down and then there is another one off to the side that keeps going. We shined the flashlight down and couldn't see the bottom. Dropped rocks and they just got hung up on the wooden beams in there.
There were also tunnels that went off to our right and to the left. We took a flashlight and followed the one tunnel that had rails going back into it. We got back a ways and it forked 3 different ways. I wanted to keep exploring so bad.
