Christmas at Snow Mountain Ranch - Granby

 It wasn't our first choice!  Estes Park holds a special place in our hearts and that's where we wanted to go this year for Christmas, knowing that once again, it could be our last time!  With 4 kids in high school next year, it's pretty tough to NOT hit the weekend before finals AND Jaime's work schedule (which is every other weekend).

But the dates happened to work for us this year so I called Estes Park YMCA to make the reservations as for some reason, I couldn't make them online.  I almost cried when she told me the reason why - once again they were closing the entire place down so the employees could have a week of vacation!  Why or why did it have to be when we wanted to be there.....

So of course we decided to do the next best thing - go to the Granby YMCA!  And that's just what I booked!  One of the reasons we like Estes Park is that you can walk to just about any activity that you want to.  At Granby, you have to get in the car and drive to everything as it's just too far to walk.

As any mom knows, it's a LOT of work to get ready for Christmas!  I feel like I start in September (which I do) because I make the Snapfish photo books for the grand kids - and that takes many, many hours of computer time, along with finding the photos I want to use.  The girls are very helpful in letting me search through their camera photos and pick out ones I need, along with all the ones I take during the year.  But it's very time consuming!

Along with the books, I also made the 3 girls a large Snapfish book of our family reunion this last summer and it turned out so nice!  And then there are the yearly photo calendars that I do - more computer time!  SO I start early - very early!

And then with the 8 grand kids, there is the present buying - I like to be as creative as I can be when I buy them but they're all getting to that age which makes it a little more difficult!  For the last few years I have bought 1 item that either has their initial or name on, and they all open it at the same time!  This year I did coffee mugs or should I say cocoa mugs, and I got to design them with their initial.(and of course you saw the cute picture of the sacks of goodies to go with those mugs in the blog at the end of Nov)  

Enough about that!  I enjoy it all and know that the grand kids appreciate the gifts, along with the awesome time we all have together in the cabins!

Glenn and I always go up a night early and Jessi and Gwyn join us - it's nice to get all settled in and organized and have some down time before everyone else arrives the next day!  We headed out Thursday morning to some slick, snowy roads but the drive was beautiful!

We always stop in Fairplay for coffee and this year I snapped a piceture of the moose! The Java Moose never disappoints!

Jessi and Gwyn were waiting for us when we pulled into the registration lodge at Granby!  We got all checked in, unpacked and started enjoying the rest of the day!

I always give Gwyn extra little gifts to open in the afternoon and evening - she's very good at entertaining herself and loves to draw and color!

I bought a new Christmas puzzle and we started on it that afternoon!

Also, we brought our new game I had bought - everyone loved it and took a turn!

We love the gas fireplace and putting the tree and light up ornaments on the mantle!

Glenn doing dishes?????  Jessi texted it to the other 2 girls with the caption - "Did hell freeze over?"  HA!  We all got a laugh out of that!

And a cute picture of Papa and Gwyn when we were checking in at the lodge!

We had a great afternoon and evening together - sitting by the fireplace reading is always enjoyable!  And I even remembered to bring the microwave heating pad that we could stick in the bed before we got in - their sheets are DARN cold when you're used to an electric blanket!