We spent 8 days in Colorado with Jason’s mom for Christmas this year. Here’s a glimpse of the week in pictures…
Within two hours of arriving in Denver Jason decided that this needed to happen.We spent 3 days up in the mountains outside of Denver at the Devil’s Thumb Ranch. It was glorious. Here’s Isaiah on the sledding hill. He went down once with me and then declared that he would do it by himself.Jason’s mom – almost 70 but she’s still rocking it!Me and Gryff taking a runA sequence of Gryffin getting “super speed” from Jason. Ready!Set!Go!Doh!It had taken him awhile to warm up to sledding. He must have gone down with me about 20 times before he was ready to venture out on his own. So we thought the crash landing might be the end of his sledding for the day but he liked the wipeout at the end! And he lasted an hour longer than his brother on the hill that day.Family shot.The view looking out from the sledding hill–––My most favorite part of our time at the ranch was the sleigh ride we took last Friday morning. It was beautiful riding through the woods in the snow with jingle bells jingling on the horses. I would definitely like to do something like that again someday.We went out on one of the “feed” rides so our sleigh had a huge amount of hay that we dropped off the side throughout the horses’ pasture.It was cold! We all sat pretty close together trying to stay warm.Some of the horses were H U G E. And they certainly weren’t shy!–We were able to meet up with our friends, the Hickorys, while we were in Colorado. We went swimming and sledding and enjoyed a few meals together while we were up at the ranch.This was supposed to be a shot of me, Nicole, Gryffin and Stella but Stella was not cooperating! This was a sled hill in Winter Park.Four of us with Meema.We made it back to Denver on Saturday night and the boys got to spend some time with Grandpa Ken. They took to him immediately.Isaiah was (embarrassingly enough) fascinated by Ken’s belly. He touched and rubbed it like Ken was a genie the entire week but Ken didn’t mind a bit!On Christmas Eve the four of us went out for breakfast and we decided to take a walk afterwards and this ended up being the highlight of our time in Denver for me. A couple blocks away there was a group of citizens out on the sidewalk in front of one of the shops who burst into Joy To The World on a whole range of instruments. It was like some sort of motley marching band but they sounded great. We followed them around for 5 songs– into the hardware store and around the various shops. The boys tired of it but I think Jason and I would have followed them all morning.This guy was awesome! Playing his trumpet with his baby!Making cookies for Santa on Christmas EveJason’s dad died when he was 8 and Ken has been his surrogate dad ever since. We haven’t seen him for about 4 years. It was great to see him with the boys – he’s as goofy as ever.The note for Santa. Gryffin dictated his portion and Isaiah “do my OWN.”We arrived home exhausted around 430pm on Christmas Day and planned to just eat some frozen pizzas that I bought for the occasion before leaving for Denver. But Kelly, Shane and Juliette saved the day! They showed up at 5 with a hot meal to share. It was so good to be home and great to share the evening with our friends.Jason bought me a new lens for the camera so I was practicing with it for the first time that night. I still need some work to hone my skills but I like how much better my indoors/nighttime shots turned out with the new lens, even on my first attempts.I love this kid. Her hair, her sweet smiles, her goofy looks. Isn’t she great?Speaking of goofy looks.The boys wouldn’t touch a single bite of the amazing dinner the Schnell’s brought over. Go figure. Well, I take that back. They DEFINITELY touched the apple pie!We’re dog sitting for a few days (started as soon as we got home) and Isaiah was thrilled to have Dexter back with us. He’s the most sweet, mellow dog a boy could ask for. It was almost as good as getting a puppy for Christmas!Like I said, my skills with the new lens need some work but cheers to a good Christmas.
