Christmas Vacation

Let me just start by staying that our Christmas vacation was BOMB!!! I didn't realize how much I needed a vacation until I was on it, and I enjoyed every second of it.

We flew out to Colorado to visit my family for the 3 weeks of break Tyler had from school. Unfortunately I couldn't take quite that long off from work, but since I work from home now I can pretty much work anywhere so I packed up my computer and my phone and set up shop at my parents house.

Sadly, one of the first activities we did while we were there was attend a funeral for my Grandpa. It was a really nice service and at the luncheon afterward it was fun to hear all the funny stories about my Grandpa from his brothers and sisters and his childhood friend.

Dennis A. Chandler
Oct 3, 1942 - Dec 12, 2011

The next day we left to go up to mountains and ski. We stayed at a condo for a week and went skiing every day except for Christmas Day. I love skiing! We didn't have a ton of snow, but there were still plenty of great runs and we had a fun time. It was only Tyler's third time ever on skis and I loved seeing him get better and better every day. By the time we left, he was keeping up as well as anybody. Apparently his improved skiing skills had nothing to do with me. He tells me I'm a terrible ski instructor.

Here's us!

Dad, Mom, Cody, Chandra, Tyler

Bryce, Mom, Cody, Chandra, Tyler

Every day we would get up and go ski for the day, then come home and hit the hot tub first thing. Whenever I started feeling chilly, I would think of that toasty, warm hot tub waiting for us when we got back to the condo. It was almost worth feeling cold just to feel so good in that hot tub. After the hot tub we pretty much just did a bunch of this.....

And this....

Bryce and Tyler even convinced me and my mom to play football with them on Cody's new PS3 he got for Christmas. We didn't do TOO bad. Look how hard we are concentrating! ha!

Speaking of Christmas... we had a fun time opening presents while we were up at the condo. The kids all pitched in and got my mom a Kindle. We think she liked it!

Me and Tyler got a bunch of Polish Pottery - direct from Poland! We LOVE it! (Thanks Mom and Dad!) We managed to get it back to Galveston unbroken and I am really excited to use it all the time! We also got some clothes, shoes, gift cards, and oh yeah... a ski trip!!!! It was a super good Christmas.

We also got to talk to my little brother, Kent, on his mission in the Czech Republic. He sounded so good and was really excited to talk to us. So proud of my missionary!

We had to come down from the mountains eventually. But when we got back to good ol' Broomfield we  had plenty of fun things planned.

Temple trip to the Denver Temple with some of the cousins.

Playing Settler of Catan with our friends the Deuschles. 

We liked our caramel apples that we made for Halloween so much that we wanted to make them again with my family. Yes, they were as delicious as they look.

Zoo lights with the Kaisers and Grandma.

Settlers with the cousins. We were at the kid table.

Tea Party! 

 We had my aunt, cousin, and grandma over to drink tea, eat cookies, and work on our teacup puzzle.

It took us a week to actually finished the puzzle, but here is the finished product. Cute!

Cookie Party! 

My friend Sami is really good about getting old friends from high school together every year. She hosts a cookie party so we can make tasty treats and catch up. Thanks Sam!

Ice skating with the Kaisers.

My funny family!

Me and Tyler racing.... sort of.

 Chain!

We also went shopping, out to eat at some of my parent's favorite restaurants, watched a TON of football and ate, ate, ate, ate!!! I had way too much food and treats while we were there, but I had to cram in all my favorite treats while I could. My mom was awesome at keeping the house stocked.

We had such a fun vacation and we're grateful to my parents for loving us enough to fly us out to spend some time with them. Thanks for an awesome Christmas! We had a blast!