If You Build It, They Will Come

I went to the grocery store yesterday due to the fact our food supply was extremely depleted due to the mass clean out before we left for Breckenridge. It was a poignant moment as I drove up to the door. The bell ringers are gone (I'll have quarters in my purse again!) all of the spruce tips and wreaths have been either sold or just gotten rid of since the holidays are over (I believe we a day or so of Hanukkah left, but the Jew in me doesn't know.) Everything just looks so...empty. It's the annual coming down of the holiday season. Sigh.
Now, we had a great Christmas, don't get me wrong. The kids got tons of stuff; they were very happy with their haul this year. Todd bought me more appliances I really don't need, but he wants to see me use the huge deep fryer a couple times a year and laugh as I try to store it the other 363 days. That, along with a new pressure cooker, is DIGITAL and therefore WAY BETTER than my old one which took forever to get up to speed. So, if anyone wants a baby fryer or an older pressure cooker, let me know, they will be going to the Shelter if left unclaimed.

So, here is a rundown of our week away...

We left on Christmas Day and headed out West. We were planning on stopping in Des Moines for the night, but since we made such good time, we kept going until we were just outside of Omaha. We realized this: Motel 6 is icky. They have no lids on their toilets, which is so wrong and the beds are doubles. They had no extra bedding and one extra pillow in the whole place which I begged off the Front Desk person. It was Christmas Day, so all the restaurants were closed and we ate at this truck stop where the food was greasy and underdone. Not exactly the perfect start to our trip. The kids did get to swim in the pool, which made them happy, but Todd and I decided we'll spend the extra money and find a nicer place from here on out. I did discover that they are one of the only chains that take pets, which is why we heard barking all night from the room down the hall.

On Monday, we arrived at Walt and Myrna's. YEA!
Here's a pretty picture of the group:
It was about 60 degrees when we arrived, so we spent some time looking around their house and property. This is their backyard:
Nice, huh? Very little mowing required, too.
Molly, Pete, Jesse, and Julianna and Jake came to have dinner with us, which was very nice since I haven't seen Molly and Peter for about 7 years and I hadn't met their children, which are both adorable, of course. Jake is about 9 months old and reminds me SO much of Jack when he was a baby...chubby, cute as a bugs ear, and loves everyone who feeds him. Besides the chubby part, Jack hasn't really changed.
We left the next morning for Breckenridge. We got checked into our condo, bought food, and Todd and Ross planned out their conquest of the mountain for the next day. Todd took our picture of the momentous occasion of checking in:
Um, no, those aren't OUR condos, they just looked a lot nicer than ours, so they were included in the back drop instead. Don't get me wrong, ours was fine, just small and without an attached garage...or more than one bedroom...or room to breathe....we had a hard time finding a place that would take us for only two nights, so I'm really not complaining. After the Motel 6, it was heaven.

Todd took Ross to 20 stores so he could find JUST the right goggles to complete his ensemble:
Just leaves you speechless, doesn't it?
Jack and I went poking around the town of Breckenridge while the boys were skiing/snowboarding and we built a snow fort outside in the 59" base of snow:
I think it was bigger than our condo.

The next day, our family ski instructor, Todd, gave Jack a ski lesson and Ross went back to the mountain. He was able to get quite a few runs in since he was going solo...they let him jump in front AND it was snowing, so every time down was fresh powder. It was great for him, even though there wasn't someone there to see his awesome moves on the slopes.

What did I do, you ask? I read about 5 books while we were gone. Nothing too noteworthy, just filling time and using parts of my brain that have been tending to rot lately.

On the way down the mountain, we stopped at South Park:
And Ross had his picture taken with Mr. Hanky:
For those of you who don't know about South Park and Mr. Hanky...don't worry, you aren't missing much...he's the Christmas Poo..and it's a sick, sick cartoon, don't watch it.

Here's us, right before we got back in the truck to head home:
I don't know what Jack was looking at, but it was WAY more interesting than posing for ANOTHER photo. I think it was the dogs, or the cat, or maybe it was a beaver. Who knows.

So, all in all, it was a great vacation, we ended up hauling booty back home and we got back on Friday night/Saturday morning at 1:00am. We were going to stop for the night, but everyone wanted to get home and sleep in their own beds, so Todd was the trooper and just barreled us back to Minneapolis. We made it home in 13.5 hours.

Let's not talk about fracturing the occasional speed limit, ok?