Denver and Concerts

 Since Evan had a couple of band concerts, I decided to head up and go to them - after all, he's a senior and there's only SO many times I will get to hear him play!

I left early and got up there in time to head out for coffee with Jessi at our favorite place!

Then it was back to her place to have a quick bite to eat before we headed out again to see the movie "Wicked" - I didn't know much about the movie at that time but just knew it was good and LONG - yes to the tune of 2 hours and 40 minutes!!!  Add onto that 1/2 hour of previews (are you kidding me?????) and it sure made for a long movie - but it was great and I sure enjoyed all the singing in it!

Back at home, a quick picture of the kids - I had brought cake pops for the girls and some cracker mix for Evan (who absolutely LOVES the cracker mix I make each Christmas)

And then it was time to get dressed for the concert band performance!  Yes, Evan is tall - yes, I am short!

The concert was amazing - there are 3 levels of concert band and Evan is in the most advanced one - they played excellent - you would have thought it was a professional orchestra when they played "Sleigh Ride"!!!  SO GOOD!

The next morning the sunrise was beautiful!  Gary, Jessi and I took Kona for a walk before they all headed off to work!

I headed to Costco (a complete fiasco there!!) and a couple of other stores before I'd had enough - Denver traffic and people is just TOO much for me!!  But I got what I needed and that's all that counted!

Jessi had put a roast on to cook and it was excellent!!!  And Evan's girlfriend Reese came down to attend the concert also so Evan had a great group to support him during the Jazz Concert - again, excellent!  He had a solo and I'm always amazed at how well he plays!

This picture is from the FIRST concert as he wears a black shirt for the jazz concert but it's still a great picture of him and his saxaphone!

Reese had brought down gifts for everyone - even me!!  Sweet girl!

And after the jazz concert, we all went out for ice cream!

I headed back home early the next morning as we were to have company for dinner that night - which got cancelled because Glenn was sick - poor guy!

Making Jam with Jaime

 If it's December, then it's also time to make jam with Jaime!  She came over early one morning and we set to work making it!  This year it was 2 batches of peach, 1 batch of strawberry and 1 batch of triple berry!

By this time, Jaime and I have it down well as to who does what!!  She usually does the stirring and I do the prep work and then put it into the jars!

It's always a fun time together and here's all of the finished product!

Home Holiday Tour

 It's December - time for the Home Holiday Tour!  And this year Jaime and I were planning on going and we were glad when Rayna and Irene decided to come along too!

This year there were 6 homes:  2 in Divide, 2 in Woodland Park, 1 in Grn Mtn Falls and 1 in Cascade!

I met Jaime and the girls in Divide and we headed to the 2 homes there - both were newer homes and were absolutely gorgeous!  It's always fun to see the Christmas decorations that they have up and both homes had beautiful views of Pikes Peak!

Then it was off to Woodland Park - one house was really quite strange and had been added onto so many times that you would get lost - definitely not our favorite!  But our trip to Grn Mtn Falls was SO worth it to see the house there - it was set on a stream and was an old cabin!  It used to be a lodge and there was a beam down the center of the large living room - 1/2 of the room was in Teller County and 1/2 of the room was in El Paso County!!!  When it was built, Teller County was a "wet" county and El Paso was a "dry" county so the bar was on the Teller side and the little restaurant was on the El Paso side - such history!  We all enjoyed seeing this place!  Here's the entrance by the stream!

Then we were off to our last house in Cascade and then back to W. Pk for lunch!

It was a wonderful day to spend together!

Black Friday

 Black Fridays sure aren't what they used to be!!  Back in the day, we all reminisce about getting a couple of newspapers, scouring the ads, and making our lists and plans for the day!  AND getting up at the crack of dawn to stand in line to get in the stores - oh what great memories we have of those times!

But these days, it's no newspapers, no looking at ads (only online) and NOT getting up very early at all!  Yes, we still shop a little - but basically most of my shopping was done with a click of the button on Amazon - and then it's delivered a week or so later.......just not the same!

Regardless, 3 of us headed out Friday morning - Jaime had to work this year so Jill, Jessi and I headed out - Aleah, Kenzie and Gwyn were holding the fort down and of course the guys were all fishing!

We sure didn't go to many stores - Kohl's, Target and Hobby Lobby - I think that was it!!  We found a chicken place to eat at and it was great!

The girls with their cake pops - which should have posted at the end, oh well!

Once we got home, we fixed nachos with all the trimmings for everyone - it was a hit and everybody ate their fill!  Jaime joined us when she got off work!

I brought out this game and we all took turns beating each other!

Robby and I even had a turn!

We had plenty of pumpkin and apple pie left this year so that was our dessert Friday night!

And I forgot to note that Gary had to work on Friday so he got up super early on Friday morning and headed back to Denver (they had driven 2 cars down).  SO unfortunately he missed ice fishing !

Saturday morning we cooked breakfast and the gang started packing up to go home!  I fixed special coffee for Aleah and Kenzie - and then Kenzie opened her birthday gifts from the Savages and us!

We can hardly believe she'll be 16 on Monday!!

And then they left - and the house was quiet again - but we all had our wonderful memories of Thanksgiving!

Ice Fishing

 Glenn decided he wanted to go ice fishing on Friday (since the girls always go shopping) so he alerted all the guys and they were game to go!

They packed sandwiches and Glenn made a pot of chile and they headed in 2 trucks to Antero Reservoir for the day - and it was a cold one - 22 below when they reached the lake - certainly not appealing to the rest of us!!

I do believe Hezekiah was the designated photographer of the day (Rayna's boyfriend)!

He's smiling at least!!  They had 2 ice huts so plenty of room!

This is Evan, sitting in the sun!  Still it looks darn cold to me!

This must have been early in the day as Robby is smiling - ha!!  Not sure I would be as they caught NO FISH and only had a couple of bites!

They all came home about 5:00 that evening and were pretty darn tired!!  But we had a nice meal waiting for them - next blog for that!

Family Thanksgiving Pictures

 We always take "family" pictures on Thanksgiving day but unfortunately we forgot to take a large group picture - no worries - our Christmas together is right around the corner!

Matias was missing on Thanksgiving Day as he was at his girlfriends' house!

And I love this picture of Glenn and I with our grandkids! They're certainly all growing up!

Thanksgiving 2024

 And another Thanksgiving has rolled around.....  A time to reflect on all of the blessings we have and to come together as a family and celebrate those blessings!

It was a cold but beautiful day here - the Keppys and the Savages both drove down that morning to Jaime's and we headed over as soon as the ham was done!  It's always so fun to ALL be together!

What a cute picture of Gwyn and Papa!

Check out how TALL this girl is getting!!  It won't be long till she's as tall as I am!!  She always helps me make the punch each year!

Jessi didn't get the memo that we were wearing our Thanksgiving shirts that Jill made us - oh well, she definitely looked cute though and matched Gwyn!

Rayna working on ham and turkey roll-ups - they don't last long!!

Quite the crew working on the relish tray!

Last year these two made a turkey veggie tray - this year it was fruit!

Parker is ALWAYS the first one up when I yell downstairs that the punch is ready - he loves it!

We actually ate on time this year since Brad had smoked 2 delicious turkeys that didn't take as long as he thought they would - they were excellent!

And the crew at the bar!

 Finally the adults at the big table!  The meal was fantastic! 

The boys did most of the clean up this year since the girls had helped with the meal prep!  I had brought over my cute apron (from my dear friend Jo) and I didn't even have to put it on to do dishes this year - wow!!

We played games in the afternoon while the guys watched football - ate delicious pumpkin and apple pie - watched 5 dogs play together nicely (most of the time!) and just enjoyed our time together!  Planning out our Estes Park menu and plans took a while too!

We are SO BLESSED to have a wonderful family!

Evan and Parker stayed at the Smiths' while the rest of the Keppys' and the Savages stayed at our house!  I had bought a nice blow up mattress for the office that Jessi and Gary slept on and they said it was comfortable so that's good!!  We were all pretty tired at the end of this awesome day!

Shooting Sports Competition

 We were thrilled when we heard that Kylan was joining the Shooting Sports program at his school!  And were hoping that he had a competition nearby that we could attend - Jaime called one day and said he had a meet at the Olympic Training Center in Co. Springs - perfect!!

Glenn and I arrived and found the building where the competition was - neither one of us had ever been to something like this so it was quite interesting to watch and learn!

Each individual had 60 shots to make over a one hour period - some kids finished quickly - Kylan took almost the entire hour to do his shots!

He took a couple of breaks during his shooting!

Scores were shown on an overhead screen and it was interesting to watch where the shots occurred on the target!

Great job Kylan!!

It was so fun to watch him shoot and I hope we have another opportunity to watch him!  Points will be accumulated over the season for each shooter.

A Free Day in Athens/Headed Home

 It was luxury to sleep in, even though we didn't sleep in much!  But just the THOUGHT of it made it special!

Our last breakfast was eaten as tomorrow morning would be VERY early and the hotel was giving us sack lunches for breakfast to eat on the bus on the way to the airport!

These were the back stairs that you could climb to get up to the 7th floor to eat!

After breakfast we headed to the Parliament Building to watch the changing of the guard - we arrived at the perfect time so had a front view of it!

The guards would do a procedure with their legs and arms - very interesting to watch!

Check out those shoes!!

It was a really cool ceremony and I'm so glad we got to see it!  It is done every hour on the hour day and night!

We walked to the shopping area and first on the list was coffee and pastry at a sidewalk cafe - LOVED IT!

We shopped in a few of the little shops and found EVERYTHING we had wanted to purchase!  Lunch was again at an outdoor cafe - we loved our glasses of sangria and shared a gyro with fries!

We went to our hotel room for a while in the afternoon and then ventured back out late afternoon - stopped at a crepe place and had a banana crepe with chocolate and whip cream - delicious!

And then it was pack up the suitcase again for our long journey home!  The next morning was an early one and I snapped this photo as we got to the airport in Athens!

Patty took this picture since I was on the opposite side of the bus - it's called "The Runner" and is made out of glass sheets!!  Beautiful!

We travelled from Athens to Zurich, Switzerland - from Zurich to Chicago - and Chicago to Minneapolis!  WHAT A LONG LONG DAY IT WAS!  But the plane rides were fine except for the fact that I couldn't sleep!  We arrived in Minneapolis at 9:30 at night - said goodbye to all the friends we had made and had our hotel pick us up!

Unfortunately, I woke up about 2:15am, very sick!  Vomiting and diarrhea every 15 minutes till dawn was absolutely miserable!!  Patty packed up and went downstairs to wait for her shuttle since she left a couple hours before I did - I felt so bad that I didn't know if I could make my plane or not!  But I decided I needed to get home so slowly got packed up, on the shuttle and to the airport - only got sick once more there and althought I felt horrible, didn't get sick on the plane to Denver!

Jessi and Gary were out of town so Evan picked me up and took me to my car at their house and I drove home - how I don't know as I felt pretty tough!!  But I just wanted to be home in my bed!!

Besides getting sick at the very end, it was one fantastic trip of a lifetime!!  I'm so glad I joined Patty on this trip and we both have so many great memories!

I had to take a picture of the cute sacks you get which you purchase an item - no cost either - just cute bags to remind you of Greece!!

My 4 new Greece ornaments are now hanging on my "Travel Tree Christmas Tree" and I'll be reminded of this trip every year when I hang them!