Time to pack up the car and head to Colorado for Thanksgiving! We spent the week at a cabin in Estes Park with my brother and his family plus my mom and her boyfriend. It was gorgeous! But first there was a lot of packing and planning. I had the great idea to pre-measure my pie ingredients and label them all in Ziploc baggies. Guess who LOVES Ziploc baggies full of stuff?? The cats! I actually gasped out loud when I saw this ridiculousness.
On our way!! These girls did a great job of dealing with the long car ride. JKK was super smart and planned a stop in Kansas halfway for the night. They got to swim and recover before another day of driving. We left super early to beat the snow storm coming into the mountains!
It was a fun week of just spending time together, cooking lots of meals, baking TONS of pies, playing games, reading, watching movies, enjoying the view, tasting beers, and soaking up the togetherness.
The dogs always steal the show...such a big part of the family. Ty is getting a bit older and more fragile, so we are all careful with him. Funny story: all three dogs are boys and Ty is the only one not neutered. One morning, he was getting a little worked up (ahem) with Asher. Millie starts laughing and pointing "mom, look Ty is twerking!". We all died laughing and Leann comes sprinting around the corner telling Ty to stop it and behave himself!
Kendyl and Ethyn give the best hugs
Brandon's boy, Asher
Just as the snow was starting to fall, the girls took a dip in the hot tub.
Not too shabby!
College boy was exhausted
cutest brother and sister ever
Sweet Bertie
And then it hit....and kept coming and coming for an entire day. Over 20 inches!
We woke up to this on the second day and just pretty much stared at it the whole day. Wow.
Bugle finger hat
gingerbread house fun
more pies baking - we had the BEST idea to bake the pies at the beginning of the week and every time we finished one, we just made another! it was a good 4 days of pie and it was glorious!
look at these jive turkeys! they are good at humoring me
A few days in, we were getting cabin fever so the adults left to visit a brewery. We saw a huge herd of elk crossing the road on the way home!
winter wonderland!
Unfortunately, I didn't bring snow gear. The girls really wanted to play in the snow, but they could only handle it for a few minutes at a time. At one point, Syd came up the door with tears in her eyes she was so cold. Sorry girls!
cutest lil underbite
paper airplane making
Tim and turkey Terri
For our thanksgiving dinner, we decided to go different: Brandon and Leann made a delicious prime rib!
Nana and her babies
Kendyl and her baby
turns out Jive in the mirror looks like EVIL, hahahaaha
Millie's thankful list was pretty sweet, of course.
It was a great week together! Thankful for these people. But it was good to get home to our kitties too. They really missed us! Can you tell Lily doesn't love having her picture taken as much as Jasper??
The weekend we got home, our elves came to visit for the first time this year! They brought the girls some fancy advent calendars...so good to them. Welcome back Jasper and Juniper!
Have you ever seen a cuter Christmas card?! The receiving of cards is one of my favorite things this time of year. Makes my day, every day of December!
