Rocky Mountain High - Part 2

The first week in Colorado was fun but a bit rough.  Between the jet lag and getting sick on Christmas Day I was home bound for a few days. The upside was that when I finally felt better I just wanted to ski and snowshoe and be out playing with the girls. So week two was even better than the first...See for yourself.

I might have been feeling better and the sunshine was amazing but it didn't mean everything was right with the world - the zipper on my jacket finally gave up (it is many years old so I guess it was about time).  It meant either going in, getting back to the house, picking up another jacket, coming back and putting my ski stuff back on and then hitting the slopes or jerry-rigging the coat.  I went with option 2 by snapping the inside flaps together at the bottom and rolling a balaclava down around the outside of the neck.  Thankfully it was a pretty warm day and there was no wind because as you can see in the photo above it really didn't do much except keep my jacket from flapping behind me as I skied. 

The girls took us to their favorite run - through a castle grounds with winding obstacles.

We ran some errands in town with a stop at our favorite candy store and we played some board games.

We celebrated the New Year with friends.

And we met up with Munich friends for a day of skiing (again)

We did some snowshoeing (and I got to play around with my new camera!)

We jumped in the snow...

And made snow...angels?

Even Lucy got in on the fun...

We watched a movie (or six) downstairs when we needed to warm up.

And once again, Lucy joined in...

We warmed by the fire after soaking in the hot tub...

And we celebrated MadHatter a bit early with a movie (Moana) and some Mexican food.

Until once again, it was time to head home.  Of course, we had to drive to the airport through a snowstorm.  A gorgeous snowstorm but a snowstorm nonetheless.

And we were welcomed home to Munich with a snowstorm...It all came full circle.  Now, if we could only kick the horrible jetlag...

Rocky Mountain High - Part 1

Jet lag has turned my brain to mush and zapped all of my motivation.  It's the only excuse I can come up with for not having the pictures and posts from our trip to Colorado up yet as we have been home in Germany for the past 4 days.  But the fog is starting to clear and I have finally gotten around to the first post (which covers our first week at Nana and Grampa's house in Colorado) with pictures, a few video's and hopefully some words that make sense...Sleep deprivation does crazy things to your ability to speak even your native tongue.  Enjoy.

We spent the first day acclimating to the altitude and fighting off the jet lag but by day two the girls were ready for some ski school...

And I took a solo snowshoe around the neighborhood to clear our the cobwebs.

Crazy enough, A and his brother D, who are in Stinkerbell and MadHatter's classes respectively back here in Munich, were in the exact same ski class as they were!  So we met them and their parents for drinks after class...

These two!  They swear they aren't getting married until they are older (and they have discussed it and decided not to have kids - they are too much work they say)

All four!

The next day was a family ski day so that the girls could show us what they learned in ski school.

Pretty good...

And then they took Grampa out to show him how they do it...

We stayed in for Christmas and the 26th (I was sick for a few days and couldn't ski) and did this puzzle with Uncle Spike and S.  Darn that one missing piece keeping us from finishing!

And we all hot tubbed - as much as we could - especially when the wind picked up and we couldn't sled or ski.  

We made it to the sled park one morning and had a blast running up and sliding down...

Even Mama.

We snowshoed.  And generally just had a great time for our first week.  Even if I was sick for most of it.

A White Christmas

 Christmas Eve arrived bringing with it warm temperatures and almost empty slopes so first thing in the morning we hit the mountains and skied until we couldn't ski anymore.  It was such a lovely morning we didn't want it to end but we had cookies to decorate and stockings to open and stories to read before Santa arrived in the morning so we completed a final run and hit the showers - literally.

The first thing we did was hold our 2nd annual Ugly Sweater decorating contest - this year with Uncle Spike joining in.  Which made the competition a bit stiffer as he is known to make ugly cookies even when there is no contest going on.  We frosted and swirled and then added details...and then added some more frosting and even more details.  I'm not sure we ever figured out who won (they were all pretty ugly) but we sure had fun...

It would not be a family event without a bit of liquor...

At that point it was time for dinner and the turkey was nearing perfection -

 As was the table...

 Stuffed with stuffing (and turkey and cranberries and green beans...does it sound like Thanksgiving dinner?  It was actually as we all missed it this year), we opened our stockings.  Which held these pj's for the girls...

And then read our traditional story with Nana and Grampa...

And left our cookies for Santa and the reindeer...

Before heading up to bed with visions of American Girl dolls being left under the tree.

Christmas morning dawned bright and early for us here in the U.S.  The excitement surely plays a part but so does the crazy jet lag.  The girls were incredibly patient, as usual, as we made them wait for everyone to wake up and get coffee/mimosas/kringle and get settled before we allowed them to pass out presents.  But the moment everyone's tush touched a chair we couldn't hold them back any longer.  Our own personal Santa and Rudolph (with some help from B) quickly distributed the gifts and got right down to business...

The girls got to opened all of their gifts first and we just let them tear into them this year.  It takes a lot less time.  Their excitement was at an all time high and it was so much fun to watch their expressions as the discovered what was in each package...especially when it had an AG logo (American Girl for the uninitiated).  And when they got to the big AG gift from Santa they could hardly contain themselves...

Buford even gave out kisses as presents...

Two of their favorite things - a sloth and a gift card from Amazon.

We had some crazy faces and some happy faces...

And we had some shocked and happy girls when they got their new dolls!  It was the only thing they really wanted from Santa they said.

We lost the girls in play shortly after they opened their new dolls and we didn't really see much of them while the adults opened their presents.  But we could hear them - laughing and giggling and playing.  Best sound ever.