Props

Julian had a good time playing at our neighbors house, probably because they have so many awesome "boy" toys, like this light saber.







Audrey feel asleep this way with fairy wings and rock star glasses in place.

Beautiful weekend for skiing

Even though we are on track for the lowest January snowfall on record, there is still enough snow for skiing, especially the type we are doing. Audrey is getting quite bold doing laps on the magic carpet, skiing down all by herself and heading right back up again. H, sJulian loves the magic carpet too although he has no need for those slippy slidy skis.
We spent Saturday at Howelsen and Sunday on rabbit ears for a long xc tour.

















The view from Howelsen nordic trails



Snack break on rabbit ears west summit trail

Hut trip

Should my New Years resolution be to do more timely blog posts, hmmm, well first I have to catch up. Here are some pictures we took on a hut trip in mid December (next post will be Christmas). This trip was a family trip, four families with kids ranging in age from 3 1/2 to almost 1 1/2, two nights in a hut one mile from the trailhead. It was the longest mile I have ever hiked and the general consensus was that part of the trip sucked, one friend said she is not going on another family hut trip until her kids can ski in themselves. Julian was on my back and all the other kids were in ski-mounted drag-a-long devices, what made this hard was the two feet on freshly fallen snow, the steep route and losing the trail for awhile. Once we were all there together things got better and when the snowy clouds lifted we had some beautiful views, so overall the trip was pretty good.

Christmas & New Years

We put up the Christmas tree right after thanksgiving so that we had plenty of time for Julian to investigate which ornaments were fragile, so that we could then glue some back together and place them higher on the tree.








We went to one of the community holiday celebrations, the one where they shut down the main street/US highway for several hours, this one might not last much longer. But for this year we were lucky enough to again have the presence of the fire breathing dragon (see Halloween) this time playing carols. Audrey was ready and so excited to meet Santa, then fell asleep within minutes of leaving the house, so we hung around downtown, got a beer, eventually she woke up and we went to meet the man. In the (very short by that time) line Chris explained the process of asking Santa to bring you some specific Christmas present, so she came up with "a stuffed animal Santa".



























Santa delivered his stuffed likeness, among other things and there were other deliverers too...Thanks Everyone!


























The wrapping paper was really fun for a while too.









And then came New Years Eve, which in our gang of friends doubles as a birthday, so we celebrated James's 40th with pointy hats and noise makers.

Thanksgiving in Durango

I was a little worried when, twenty minutes into a drive that lasted another 7 1/2 hours, Audrey started asking "are we there yet?" But the worry was for naught as we had a smooth trip there and back to visit Dan in Durango.

Here's the gang outside the Durango train station:



Welcoming Santa to town:


Playing in the Animas River:








Sliding at one of the parks we visited:



Heading home:

When the leaves fall off the trees

Early in the summer Audrey had a lot of questions about her birthday, most importantly, When?  So I told her that her birthday was when the leaves fall off the trees, she was content and the questions ended...until the leaves started changing colors.



We kicked off the autumnal changes with the Annual Seedhouse Hullabaloo, where we camped in some chilly weather, played by the river, rode bikes, played cornhole, and sat around the campfire, among other things.

As September turned to October, the leaves that had changed colors began to fall, and the intensity of questions grew, "now it is my birthday right?", "is it my birthday yet?".  So we switched the description of When?! to October Sixteenth, Audrey practiced saying those big words and we continued to enjoy the beautiful colors and beautiful weather.

Then October 16th finally arrived and we celebrated at home with a family dinner, menu chosen by Audrey: chicken nuggets, broccoli, craisins, cheerios, and snake soup.  What is snake soup you ask?  Me too, but Audrey couldn't provide an answer so I made something up "out of my head".

Trying out new birthday bike

Then we had another celebration with friends at a park on yet another glorious fall day.










The final hallmark of the fall season is, of course, Halloween.  I was Daenarys Targaryen and the rest of the gang were my dragons.










Halloween also brought houseguests; Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Dan of Durango came.



Now the snow is here and it feels like winter, even though the solstice is still a month away.





We are ready to ski