Winter Park Colorado!

Over MLK weekend in January, we had the blessing of going out to Winter Park Colorado to visit a long-time friend and colleague of Amy's - Dan.  She used to work for him at the Corporate office for 3 years and they have interacted over the years as Dan comes to Corporate for meetings.  Dan owns a ski home near Winter Park and graciously invited the Zs to come, so we took him up on the offer this year!

We flew out at 8:30P on Thursday night on Frontier - reminder never to do that again!  We didn't get into bed until 1A Denver time which was 3A our time.  And never having flown Frontier, we didn't realize that they don't pay attention to the fact that children need to be put together with parents (you have to pay for seat assignments, so usually we just let the airlines chose our seats, but every other airline has always picked the seats to be together for the kids with at least one parent.....not sure with Frontier).  Anyway, Amy had to finagle a seat change by asking passengers on the plane to at least get Addison to be with her (who would want a 7 year old by themselves for a four hour flight that is late at night?).  Anyway, it all worked out in the end thankfully.

We headed out on Friday morning so that we could ski Friday afternoon and it was great!  Winter Park is a very family friendly mountain (And Amy friendly as she doesn't ski super hard stuff!) and we all enjoyed it very much.  Dan's wife didn't come for a few reasons, including family obligations and feeling a bit under the weather, so he headed out on Saturday leaving us with the keys for the house and directions to "Enjoy!"  We rarely go on vacation just by ourselves, so it was a new experience for us! :)  

Dan is in the black beside Amy - although who can tell with our goggles and neck gators on --- it was COLD!

The whole family skied together a lot, with Amy and Kaleb being most of the time on runs together even if Karis and Zachary veered off to a parallel run for a black diamond - so it was nice to be together the whole time and skiing!

There is a mountain behind our heads that is known for the fact that it looks like a bear dragged its claws down the face, leaving perfect parallel claw marks!

Addison took lessons a few days and she was granted poles officially, and told to start getting experience on black diamond runs and moguls - to which she dove in with gusto!  She is such a go-getter with skiing and was super excited to be following her brothers everywhere!

Other random ski pictures:

Unfortunately, the last run of the last day, Addison fell really hard and sprained her MCL.  Thankfully she is fine now after a few weeks of rest (the no recess though as a bummer for her!).  The last run was called Mary Jane - which was a very fun run, and she had done it every day so it wasn't new or too hard - just a fluke fall.  Karis ended up picking her up and skiing her down until it was a lot flatter before letting her finish up the ski vacation with going the rest of the way down (bless her heart, she pizza-ed the way down going slowly compared to her usual gusto).  We obviously didn't take a picture of her in her distress, but as we all made our way down the hill slowly Amy managed to bite it as well - although nothing hurt - so as it was not a fall with an injury, the male Zs had a great time laughing and taking a picture!

Why isn't the snow softer to fall on? :)

In other January news, we celebrated Mom's birthday by going out to Cheesecake factory, which was delicious of course!

Happy Birthday!

The boys went to play paintball early on (fun, but a little painful at times!)

And Mom and Lyle have been watching the newest Litzenberger, baby G, and Addison has been over the moon excited to be able to hold a baby!

Lastly, we finished the gallery wall in our living room!  We are super excited about it - it is places that we have travelled to (we didn't take these pictures though!).  We love it - and it really finishes the room off nicely!  Now we are off to work on the half bath, guest room, kitchen bar stools, kitchen niches, and foyer!

River Ranch

After getting home from Canada on Monday evening (one day late thanks to Delta), we packed ourselves up on Thursday and headed out for an RV camping weekend -- it seemed like such a good idea when we came up with it months ago but it is true, we reconsidered our sanity when the reality of it all came to be!  But, it was a fun time for sure.

On our way - karis came down Friday after work!

We had some new folks join us this time, which was a lot of fun plus our normal crowd.  It was the Acostas (new), Hilliards (new), and then Johnsons, Cochrans (plus Emily from New Zealand - such a cool accent!), Reiners and of course the Zs.  The weather was perfect for camping that weekend, we were really fortunate!

Such an awesome picture of the little kids!  These were the smallest of the group!

We had two group suppers - one on Friday and one on Saturday - and it was fun to hang out (we chose Hilliard's campsite as they had a great little campfire / sitting area!) and chat.

Hilliards brought stuff for s'mores - needless to say that was a big hit!

River Ranch has tons of fun stuff to do, so we availed ourselves of the pool, petting zoo, pony rides, rodeo, adventure part, golfing range, archery and more.  We wanted to have the boys go to the clay shooting range, but that just couldn't be fit in alas!

The first afternoon that we went to the petting zoo, the kids were having lots of fun picking up straw out of the black bucket (below) and feeding it to the horse/goats until one of the workers came by and said "that is the straw that they have pooped in."  Ha ha ha, the poor animals and the poor kids who were then horrified!  The expression on Nash's face is just priceless below!

shocked, laughing, all a little amazed - but cute as can be!

They were making a ponytail unicorn! :)

Such a pretty little goat with its special coloring!

This deer would no joke lick you - and licked Addison's hair and leg!

Licking her pants!

She held the bunny several times

This would make her daddy's heart proud!

The one thing about camping is that there is lots of time for hanging out with friends, playing games, fishing, riding bikes etc.  Always fun to see what interests the kids each time!  This time it was fishing as the big hit - the kids were always at our campsite fishing (and releasing them back in) -- good thing we brought a lot of bread!

Playing Rubiks cube race - game from Christmas in Canada!

First morning Kaleb even went outside by the canal and was reading!

Archery on Sunday morning!

Early morning fishing - peaceful!

As the fishing was at our site, the sheer number of bikes at our place was always a lot - it was really fun!

One of the nice things to do there on Sabbath is to go for an air boat ride - you can see so much wildlife from the birds to the alligators, turtles etc and the water is always so relaxing -- it can lull you to sleep!

Ready to go with his life jacket and sunglasses!

Boat #1 ready to go!

While Addi, Amy and the Acostas were on the boat #2!

And sure enough, she was sleeping before long!

The men are of course always happy to be active, so they spent a lot of time playing spike ball, tennis, riding bikes etc.

karis and cole against zach and aiden

Saturday night is the rodeo, which is usually fun to go and see.  They had some new trick roping this year, which was fun.  They always have a calf scramble where little kids can go in and chase the calves and one little girl from our group caught the calf!  Go Shelby!

Hanging out with Dad

After the rodeo, Addison and Kaleb tried their hand at the jumping "thingy" (who knows what the name is) and Addison did the rock climbing wall

The one sad event of the weekend was that Saturday night as we sat eating supper, the kids played a game of tag and one little girl (below) ran into the end of a trailer and split her forehead open - resulting in a need for stitches.  Poor kid - it was not fun and we are sad for her - it was their first time coming so we better make it up to them next time!

Enjoying a candy treat....before the accident.  Thankfully she is healed now

Holidays in Canada!

The day after Christmas this year we headed up to Karis' farm.  Karis' brother Korey and family couldn't come until after Christmas and we wanted to coordinate as much as possible, which is why we didn't up up until afterward.   Karis worked that Thursday morning, so we didn't fly out until that afternoon -- it was a long, late night.  For the record, Amy thinks next time just wait until Friday morning and fly out, as we got to the farm about the same time after staying in a hotel that night and sleeping in/dawdling around the next morning!

Always happy to have her big brother carry her!

One advantage though is that Karis was able to enjoy a slow morning on Friday with friends Eldon and Rod chatting after breakfast, while we waited for Dennis to come give us a ride (we told him not to worry about coming early as we knew we'd need to sleep in!)

One odd thing that happened is that Friday morning when we got up, Zachary said his head was itchy and sure enough, it was quite red and kept itching.  As the morning wore on, he started to get hives. That started a 3 day journey of hives - we now travel with Benadryl, Zantac, allergy medication and an epipen after our Germany experience with him, so we were drugging him up with everything except for the epipen -- we managed to keep it under control but whenever the medication would wear off, the hives would come back (picture of his back along his spine below).  The hives were all over his neck, back, arms, and one night on his face (lip-- it reminded us of Germany but not nearly as bad!).  Amy was texting with medical colleagues/friends trying to figure out what to do from a medical perspective while we scratched our heads trying to figure out what was causing it.  While we aren't 100% sure, we've come to the conclusion that it was the new "knock-off" ski coat that Amy bought from China.  We didn't wash it when we got it, and the Thursday night when we landed was the first time that Zachary had ever worn it -- and when Karis suggested that maybe it was the jacket, we immediately told Zachary to only wear his Dad's coat (yes, he is that big now!!) and we washed Zachary's coat twice and then only Karis wore Zachary's coat the rest of the trip.....and with that, Zachary's hives went away and didn't come back (hence why we THINK that it was the jacket!).  Crazy stuff. Poor kid - kind of wrecked his first three days of the vacation!

Korey, Rachel, Gianna and Nik arrived Saturday and the fun began!  We truly are blessed as all of the kids have someone that is their same age with the exception of Emily (oldest) and Nik (youngest).  For the most part, all of the kids have gotten along amazingly well, and Emily is tremendous with the little kids - keeping them entertained!  Bless you Emily!

Gianna, Emily and Addison

We had a very active vacation while we were there, although sadly we didn't make it to the sledding hill!  There just always were too many people there!  But a few highlights of our time:

Creative play:

Making games on the beds

Lots of snuggling time:

Kaleb and Nik are sweet together and have formed a nice little relationship

Opening Christmas Presents:

Kaleb received a cooking book from Amy's mom for Christmas, and we took it up there.  He made macaroons (SO GOOD!) and lemon bars (twice!) - super good, they disappeared very quickly!

No Canadian visit is complete without puzzles....lots and lots of puzzles.  This year was the same, with three puzzles being completed over our time.  Always a good opportunity for people to get together and visit.

We also like to play games while we're there - lots of farming, stock ticker, monopoly and Uno for the younger kids!

Monopoly

Stock ticker

Farming Game

More farming game

Monopoly Canada

And of course Legos!

On Tuesday, we packed in lots of fun, and took the kids to age-appropriate movies and then the highlight of the week......Auntie Lorie's special mystery gift game.  This year it was colors of candy - and you had to roll the dice and depending on what number you got, decided if you got to pick a kind of candy out of that colored pile, steal from someone, lose a turn, or put your existing candy into a "safety lockbox".  The kids needless to say thought that they had gone to heaven!

Let the games begin!

You can see which color of candy she got and immediately dug into!

Over the course of the week, we did a few more outings than we have in years past with the fact that the kids are getting so much older.  The weather was very mild this year, so it was easier to be out and about.  Over the course of the week, we headed out to the movies once, bowling and rides/arcade center (always a favorite) and the older kids went to a hockey game while the youngest stayed home and built Legos and watched movies (alas, the hockey goers did not take pictures to capture the fun!).  No sledding at Little Red this year - but there sledding in front of the house for "mini" fun!

Loaded up with popcorn!

The younger ones got out of their movie faster, so they got an extra treat of a smoothie!

The bowling crowd!

Basketball shooting - so intense - look at their faces!

Bumper cars - one for every child!  Always a crowd pleaser!

No trip home to the farm is ever as fun without having a project to work on (Zs like to be productive!).  This time, it was working on finishing out the basement family room - unfortunately it wasn't completely finished by the time we left, but they did make a lot of headway so that was encouraging!  Who was the only Z child who went down to help voluntarily though you ask? Addison!  And there was of course working outside with tractors - couldn't be more fun than that!

While we're there, we always try and do some group family pictures - just to capture everyone that was there and what everyone looked like!

In height order, but we're missing Gianna & Nik (didn't think of doing this sadly until late Saturday when they had already left!).  Gianna would be between Kayley and Addison, and Nik would be just shorter than Addison.  In terms of age order, it goes Emily, Connor, Zach, Kayley, Kaleb, Addison, Gianna and Nik

We thought it would be fun to recreate the picture of the boys from when they were little - we should have taken a close up picture of the picture that Kent is holding as that is what we were recreating! :)

Speaking of recreating pictures - Amy found this picture of Kaleb and Kayley from when they were about 3 and recreated it - are those two babies now the cutest or what!?  Totally biased I know! :)

Other random family pictures:

These two are inseparable the whole time, they get along so well!

The only downside of the trip occurred when we were going home -- we got to the airport as always on Sunday morning for the 6:30 flight, only to have Delta tell us that somehow an error had occurred on their side where they changed flight numbers but didn't actually transfer our tickets over from the original flight number to the new one -- and thus we didn't have seats on their flight and they were oversold.  Long story short, we were stranded there for a day, but they put us up in a hotel and gave us $800 EACH for gift cards of our choice (we took Amazon and Delta flights)!  We were pretty upset about having to miss work and being stranded, but $4000 certainly helps lower the pain! :)