Restless Heart

A country Christmas concert - how perfect!!  Not only was Restless Heart playing but it was to be held in a new venue in Co Springs!  I called our neighbors who are country fans and they wanted to go also so bought the tickets quite a while back (which meant excellent seats)!!

Jim and Kathy and Glenn and I headed down to the Boot Barn Hall (easy to find as it's right beside Bass Pro) and loved the new place!  Mainly because you sit 8 people at high top tables!!  And there's a dance floor!!  WOW!!!

We went early enough to eat dinner - it's mainly BBQ and some appetizers along with drinks and we all agreed the food was great!!  Two other couples joined us at the table and we enjoyed visiting with them before the concert started!!

The concert was excellent!!  We had never seen Restless Heart in person - but have always loved their songs from the 80's and their harmonies are so good!!

They played lots of Christmas songs which we all really enjoyed, along with their hits back in the day!!  Truly a wonderful evening and we will definitely go to that venue again!!

Ft Collins Fun

It was a short 2 nights stay at home catching up on mail and laundry before I packed us up again and we left early Saturday morning for Ft. Collins!  The great advantage to leaving at 5:30am is the traffic -  there's not a lot!!  It was an easy drive with enough time to spare to grab coffee before getting to Jill and Robby's place!

We immediately headed over to Parker's final basketball game - these little ones had improved a lot and it was fun to see Parker play!

We stopped after the game at Robby's favorite donut place and got yummy donuts to eat back at the house with coffee!!

Aleah and Parker put together their gingerbread houses that afternoon - I'm not sure I've ever watched any of the grand kids doing this so it was fun to see the different decorations and how they each did their house - cute as can be!!

We ate an early dinner and then Jill, the kids and I headed out to The Gardens of Spring Creek to see their lights!  I've always wanted to go there and THIS WAS THE YEAR!!  It was super icy out so we all had to be careful walking!  Jill was surprised when we arrived to see that they had expanded all of the lights to a lot more sections to walk through!!

It was COLD!!  But the lights were amazing and I LOVED walking around seeing them!

Santa was there and because we were one of the first ones through the door, there was hardly any line to see him -hooray!!

I LOVE this huge watering can that was all lit up!!  The entire place was really well done!

After our light seeing adventure, we went to Starbucks for hot chocolate and apple cider - yum!!  What a fun day we had!!

Sunday was the kids' Christmas program at church!  We enjoyed watching Aleah who had a speaking part and Parker who portrayed Joseph!  Well done kids!!

Our original plans were to head on home Sunday afternoon but with the Broncos game playing AND a pretty big storm coming through,  we knew it was best to just wait till Monday morning to head home!  The guys watched the game, Jill had her book club party to go to and the kids and I played cards and games!!  It was a fun afternoon!!

The roads weren't too bad getting home on Monday and it was full speed ahead to more Christmas activities!!

Kids Activities

More activities after Estes Park?  Absolutely!!  We headed back to Denver and Kenzie and I immediately changed clothes and headed to The Nutcracker!  It was being put on by the place where she goes to dance class so I ordered tickets for her birthday!

Hooray for GPS!!  All who know me KNOW I have absolutely no sense of direction and can't read a map!!  I was a little hesitant to head out in Denver to an unknown place but it was easy to get to!  It was at a huge high school and when we arrived the parking lot was FULL - I believe I got the LAST parking spot which yes, was a LONG ways away from the door but that was OK!!

The Nutcracker was excellent!!  Kenzie recognized a few of the girls that were in it and we both thoroughly enjoyed it!!  It was almost dark when we got out of there and I was taking Kenzie to Red Robin for dinner, a ways away!!  Even though I had the GPS, it was still daunting to drive at night in Denver as the headlights really bother me, especially when I don't know where I'm going - HA!!  Except for a car almost hitting us as he swerved in front of us, I made the drive in one piece!!

Red Robin was great and we shared a hamburger, fries, drink AND dessert!!

Since the kids were in school on Monday with Gary and Jessi working, Glenn and I decided to go to The Museum of Natural History!  We always enjoy going to this museum and looking around - we also took in the IMAX !  I liked this statue made out of Lego's!

Monday night was Evan's band concert - he plays the saxophone in the regular 7th grade band and also in the wind ensemble - it was excellent!!

Jessi had Tuesday off so we headed out for coffee and to run a couple of errands!  Always fun to just hang out!!  Evan had his middle school basketball game that night (pictures are mixed up!!) so we enjoyed watching him play!

And Wednesday Glenn and I visited friends that live in Hudson, CO, Larry and Joyce.  It was a nice drive there and only about 45 minutes away!  We enjoyed lunch with them and catching up before it was time to get home for Kenzie's choir concert!!

The concert was a "winter" theme and was cute as can be!  Kenzie also had a speaking part about her directors' ugly sweater!!

How fun to be able to get to 3 of the kids' activities!!  But this Nana and Papa were ready for their own bed so headed home early Thursday morning after being gone a week!!

Estes Park #3

After lunch Saturday, most of us walked over to Sweet Memorial to do the craft on making bouncy balls!  I was the official photographer so didn't make one but the kids and adults had a blast mixing the stuff together - but then you had to form the mixture into a ball and roll and roll and roll!!  WOW - it seemed to take FOREVER and since the kids had other plans, we ended up rolling their balls in front of the fire at the lodge!!  Fun times!

The kids enjoyed a fun afternoon while some of the adults relaxed and read.  After a taco bar dinner, we headed over for Bingo Night and took our annual picture!

And this was taken right before we started playing bingo!

Some of the kids hanging out together!

Practicing our YMCA logo!

Like my antlers?

There were some amazing clouds during our stay!  Matias took this picture and tagged it!

Goofing off!!

After bingo and roller skating and basketball (we closed the places down) we all headed back to the cabin so the adults could do their grab bags with the dice game!  It was great fun as usual!  Prediction time was next and I couldn't believe how BAD Glenn and I did on the answers - of course WE didn't win the money but were glad Jill and Robby did after a tie with the Smiths!  Tie breaker is the current temp at Estes Park!

Sunday it was time to pack up and leave - but not until after coffee and cinnamon rolls again!!  What an awesome Christmas we all had together!  We are all so blessed!

Estes Park Christmas - #2

Friday evening is always a celebration for Kenzie's birthday!  This girl turned 11 - can you believe it?  All my grand kids are GROWING UP WAY TOO FAST!!  She opened her gifts and then we celebrated with ice cream sundaes!

That evening we all headed over to the gym - most played basketball and some skated after a while - I was a spectator (of course!!).  It was a fun night and all the kids enjoyed it!

And before we knew it, it was Saturday morning and time to open presents!!  Gwyn was all smiles as she opened her gifts!

I ordered the girls these signs for their walls and even got to customize them - they loved them!

I love the expression on Parkers' and Kylans' face!!  I had ordered playing cards for each of the kids with either their name or initials on all of the cards!

Ornaments were part of Rayna and Matias' gifts!

And once again, I made them all photo books!  Rayna and Matias got large ones since they're both seniors!

Check out the cute decorations I got the girls - one side is Christmas and the other side is fall!

Calendar time - these seem to take me SO LONG to make but they're so worth it!

We had all the grand kids get in a line according to age and they all sang us a Christmas song - cute as can be!!

Glenn made snowmen and reindeer for the girls (and me!!).  Jaime and I were shopping at Home Depot a while back and they had them - although they weren't made very good at all!  I took pictures and showed them to Glenn - he said of COURSE he could make them - and a WHOLE LOT better than the $30 ones at Home Depot!!  They turned out super cute!!  Mine looks great on the front porch!

The other extra thing I did this year was to make an extra batch of my "cracker mix" and give a container to EACH one of the grand kids and to the kids - usually I just give one to the kids and the grand kids have it eaten by the first night!  Evan absolutely LOVES it so thought this would be a great gift and they all thought so too - in fact Evan's was gone the first night!!  Oh my!!

In the middle of all of the opening, Jessi served her famous cinnamon rolls - they are SO GOOD with a cup of coffee - yum!!  We sure appreciate her making them every year!

After the regular opening, the grand kids did their "roll the dice" grab bag gifts which were all candy and either a Snoopy or Grinch Christmas glass - they sure were cute and all the kids were happy because the SAME candy was in each glass!!

And the day continued......

An Estes Park Christmas

An early Christmas celebration!!  Lots of packing to do and meals to get ready!  But I had it all ready in plenty of time and we headed to Denver on a Thursday morning - repacked things into Jessi's car and then Glenn, Jessi, Kenzie, Gwyn and I headed to Estes Park.  (Gary and Evan came later!)

It snowed most of the way there which made for some interesting driving!!  But it was beautiful in Estes Park as they'd had over 2 feet of snow the week before!

We had 2 different cabins this year - a 3 bedroom and a 4 bedroom!  Jessi and I got the key to the 4 bedroom so we could check it out and let the girls know if they needed to bring extra chairs or whatever!  The 4 bedroom was huge - nice big kitchen (with a dishwasher) and a large dining room table!  It would be perfect for having meals and Christmas!  The cabin Jessi's and Glenn and I shared was very nice - beautiful views and a fireplace that didn't smoke!!  Nothing like relaxing in front of a cozy fire!

Jessi and I got all unpacked and plugged the crock pot in for dinner!  We took a long walk - in fact several walks that day and it was so pretty out!!

It was a nice relaxing evening!  A few of them roller skated and Evan enjoyed shooting baskets at the gym. I got some reading in and Glenn started on a jigsaw puzzle!

The Keppys each did a craft the next morning - I took a long walk (and yes, it was cold and windy out!!) and just enjoyed the morning!

I watched the kids do a craft project at another building making some type of a slime like substance!  It turned out pretty cool and they had fun making it!

Check out those WHITE mountains!

Early afternoon the Savages arrived so we helped them unload and by late afternoon, the Smiths had arrived - our family was now complete!!  Lasagna and million dollar spaghetti were on the menu for the first night together and it worked out great in the big cabin!  It was a little walk on an icy path to get to their cabin but no big deal!  Let Christmas commence!!!

Thanksgiving Part 2

The cousins had a great time playing Foosball, air hockey and playing games on their computers!  Of course the girls and I spent most of our morning in the kitchen but that's typical - it's a LOT of work to put together a Thanksgiving meal!!

Brad smoked one turkey and Jaime did one in the oven!  They both were delicious along with the spiral ham I brought!

 

Punch is ALWAYS on the menu and this year I did a quadruple batch!  No, there wasn't any left at the end of the day!!

It's hard to get these boys off of their computers but we managed at times!!

This MUST be after the meal was eaten and the dishes were done!

More games being played!

Eating pie - apple and pumpkin - I think my mouth must have been full when this picture was taken!

Don't we have cute grand girls?

Papa made each of the kids a turkey out of pine cones, kind of like the ones you used to make in school!  They thought that was pretty cool!  And for Gwyn he made an elephant out of wood and for Parker, a penguin out of wood!

It was an awesome day spending it together!

Friday Jill and I went shopping - I had nothing to buy (but of course ended up buying stuff at Kohl's because it was SUCH a good deal!!!) since my presents were all bought and wrapped but we had a fun time together and enjoyed lunch before heading back up the mountain!

That evening Rayna and Matias stopped and picked up pizza for all of us since they had been shopping too.  We had a mini snowstorm come through right about the time we were driving over to Jaime's - wow, was it slick and messy and hard to see!!

All in all, one fantastic Thanksgiving!!