Snow Day

We decided to take the kids up to the snow to go sledding on MLK Day. We have been having really foggy weather lately so I hoped that we wouldn’t freeze up there. But once we got up the hill far enough, the fog disappeared and we got to enjoy some sunny, warm weather! We had planned to do some sledding, but we soon found that the kids much preferred making snowballs with our snowball maker and having snowball fights. We probably spent most of our time doing just that! I think we only ended up doing 3 or 4 sled runs each. It was still a really fun day spent in the snow! Can’t wait to go up again!


Drew making a snowball

Abandoned sleds in the background

Finally Ava agrees to sled with me

Drew takes a run by himself

Ava and Daddy go down the hill

Action shot!

 

Drew and Daddy

  

Woah! That was a steep one!

 

Dan lobs a snowball at me

Drew defends his mom and throws a counter attack!



Eating snow (ew)



Me and Dan

 

Drew's mini snowman

New Year's Eve in Denver

It finally snowed the day before New Year's Eve and we were all so excited! While the boys were out bowling, Ava went outside to play in the snow with Aunt Jennifer and Grandma Kathy. Mommy was too cold to go outside (it was only 3 degrees!) so she stayed inside and drank hot chocolate instead. Ava helped to shovel snow to make a snowman and made beautiful snow angels. I ran outside just to snap a few pictures, and then we all came inside to warm up before our NYE dinner at Three Margaritas.



Ava's such a good helper!



Snow Angel!



Aunt Jennifer's snow angel

Aunt Jennifer and Grandma Kathy with their snow ball gown

Isn't she lovely?

Once again, I was amazed at how well behaved all the kids were and how well they all got along. They all got to sit together at the restaurant, which allowed the adults to have some adult conversation as well. We all enjoyed a delicious meal and endeavored to live up to the name of the restaurant. Even if that meant taking some margarita to go! Once we got home we had a dance party with the kids until about 9. Unfortunately that seemed to take all of our energy because once they were in bed, we were all kind of tired. We tried to rally and popped some champagne and played some games. But we were unsuccessful. By 11:30 we gave up and went to bed!

Happy New Year!

Dan and Uncle Scott



The kids table



Me and Laura with our margarita to go



Aunt Jennifer and Grandma Kathy celebrating 2011

Dance Party!

Everyone dancing

The men take a break for some poker

Rob and Laura, our gracious hosts

We're starting to lose steam...

We tried to stay awake by playing Hedbanz

Laura and I getting sleepy

We went to bed before midnight, and it was -3 degrees outside!

Red Rocks and Dinosaur Ridge

On Wednesday we went to visit Red Rocks Amphitheater and Dinosaur Ridge. The amphitheater is gorgeous and has great natural acoustics—they have concerts there. We walked all the way down to the bottom to the stage and the view from there is pretty cool too. Of course, Drew had no trouble getting down to the bottom, but needed a little help on the way back up. We took lots of neat pictures—I’m still having fun with my camera.

View from the top

View from the bottom

Ava and Drew

Drew gets a little help from Dad

Uncle Scott and Daddy

Dandrea

Ron and Kelley

Drew with a T-rex jaw

Drew and Ava

Ava with Uncle Scott

After the amphitheater we headed over to Dinosaur Ridge to check out real fossils. It was pretty cool, although I couldn’t tell you exactly what we were looking at. Thank goodness for the signs with arrows pointing out all the important things!

A fossil at Dinosaur Ridge

Dino Footprint

Ava and Drew with a stegosaurus

Denver

We flew out to Denver, CO to be with Dan’s side of the family the week after Christmas. We had such a great time there! Rob & Laura had enough space for all of us to stay with them—there were 18 of us total! They had an awesome finished basement too, with two extra bedrooms and a bathroom. I have basement envy now.

The first full day in Denver, we went up to the mountains to go skiing/snowboarding. It was a good effort, but just not our day. Drew had a hard time adjusting to the altitude and when we got to the resort he was too exhausted to even walk from the car to the lodge. :( He wasn’t able to snowboard at all. He ended up staying with Aunt Connie, Uncle Bill and cousin Daniel in the lodge. The rest of us rented equipment and bought half day tickets. We took Ava up on the easiest lift—she loved riding the chairlift, she didn’t love trying to ski back down. It was the longest run of my life! She cried, pouted, whined, etc. It probably reminded Dan a lot of how I acted when he was teaching me how to snowboard. After about thirty minutes of that he just took her skis off and handed them to me, then she stood on his board and they both rode down the rest of the way together. We dropped her off at the lodge too. That left us with enough time to do 3-4 runs on our own. Not our best day on the slopes, but we were just excited to get a couple of runs in.

Daniel, Drew and Ava ready for the snow

Mountain View

Kids enjoying the snow

That night after our family dinner, all the kids were begging to open presents. We agreed to open some that night, and the rest in the morning. The five kids got along so well, it was wonderful to see them playing and having a great time together. They had a lot of fun opening their presents and then much more fun playing with everything together over the next few days.