A is for Awesome

I know that my generation is the one who minimized and ruined the word "awesome". Gotta love the 80's! But this past weekend was awesome!

Dave has figured out that a last-minute trip is a much cheaper trip to take. He got us a nice condo in Winterpark for $100 a night. He actually haggled with the guy - so not like Dave! - and finally worked it out Friday night for our weekend trip on Saturday.

We spent more time than usual in the actual dwelling but there was a Husker Bowl game on Monday, so I don't know if that counts.

We left right after I got off work on Saturday (3p) and on our drive up, we weren't even all the way out of town when the wind was whipping across the highway so badly that we saw TWO semi's and one unattached trailer that had been blown over before we got there!! The hitch on the lone trailer was a thick twist of metal.

That made us a bit nervous about the drive up, but we arrived without incident.

We went to the condo, threw our stuff in and then kicked back for a bit, deciding where to eat. We chose Moe's BBQ (mostly because Dave's nickname throughout high school and college was Moe). It was an excellent choice!! The boys got hamburgers that were full size without being giant and very well cooked. I got the pulled pork platter with beans and coleslaw and Dave got the special of a 1/2 rack and 1/2 chicken.

Everything was so tender and delicious!! The BBQ sauce was a bit plain but when mixed with their special hot sauce it was perfect.

Then we went back to the condo and changed into snow clothes. We went to the local park because we read that they were having a family event for New Year's Eve. They had about 20 super cheap saucers and little plastic toboggans for everyone to use on their icy snow hill. There were 2 fire pits with fixin's for s'mores and also hot chocolate - all free! (The s'mores fixin's were marshmallows (some as big as your fist), wooden skewers, and those keebler cookies that are round and have fudge on one side - brilliant!)

We spent over an hour sledding and having a blast! There were about 60 or 70 people there and we shared our 3 sleds and used the cheap ones too (so much faster!!). At one point I was racing down headfirst, hit some killer snow ramp, and landed half off the sled, slamming my knees into the icy hill. Yea, that bruised beautifully! Half the fun was walking back up and dodging all the people coming down. The sledders were of all ages and everyone was laughing and sledding, dodging and being kind to each other, and it was a lovely evening.

The only thing that could've made it better would be fireworks. Good thing they had those, too! They set them off at 9p because it was a family event and there were lots of sleepy kids around.

We got home about 10p and the kids went right to bed. Dave and I stayed up a little longer and rang in the New Year right (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Sunday we didn't sleep in too late; we ate at a breakfast place that had all the good reviews. It was pretty good. It's called Sharkey's and they specialize in benedicts. Unfortunately, none of us like benedicts. Dave got their biggest breakfast (the 18-wheeler) and I got an English muffin. We split his giant meal and the kids had pancakes. I'm of a mind that breakfast food is breakfast food and it's hard to mess it up - Sharkey's was great! They make their own jam and y'all know what a jam whore I am. They call it Shark Bait and it's a strawberry jam (maybe with some raspberry thrown in?) and it's a red not found in nature. It's a bit thin, almost like strawberry syrup and it's delicious!!

After breakfast, we went to the tubing hill. It's weird because there are two tubing companies RightNext to each other. We went to the one that had their shack at the bottom of the hill. They also had "snowscoots" - miniature snowmobiles for the kids. We tubed for an hour and then we got the boys on the snowscoots.

T cracked me up - he was riding really straight-backed with a big grin, lookin' like gentry....

D2 was all hunched over his snowscoot, very intense looking and serious.

That night we got movies and frozen pizza from the Safeway. The pizza was for the kids; for us, we went to a Chinese place (Pearl Dragon II) and got food for us. That was the best Chinese food we've had since we moved to CO. Wish there was a place like that near us!

We watched the Green Lantern and then we played the game of Life. It is super-complicated to start out with, but once you read all the rules, it's pretty easy. My brother and I used to play that game ALL the time when we were kids! I'd forgotten how much I love that game! We got it for the boys for xmas and I'm so happy I made Dave put it in the car to play on our trip! (T won)

The next day, Dave made his famous breakfast burritos for all of us and we did a whole lot of nothing. Just kicking back and messing about until the Husker Bowl game came on. (Huskers lost) There was a frozen river behind our condo which the boys were fascinated with. Dave was able to stand on it, so they wanted to play on it constantly, too. It freaked me out severely but I tried to hold my tongue and let them be boys and play on it. Even though the ice was easily at least a foot thick, I lasted about ten minutes then I made them come back inside (I was with them on the ice the whole time) and play Life again. The two of them played while Dave and I watched the game.

After the game, we took them to Winterpark proper (our condo was in Frasier) to look around. We were looking for Back Bowl Soup and we found it and it was delicious. Homemade soups and sandwiches. T and I had the Black-eyed Pea and Ham and Dave and D2 went around the corner for pizza (none of the soups appealed to them). Time was spent in a tiny arcade and then we took the boys and rented them some ice skates so they could skate on the tiny frozen pond.

They had someone out there giving "free lessons" and by that, they seem to've meant a nice lady giving tips, "Bend you knees".

Davis started with the stabilizer thing....

He kept falling down a lot and had a hard time figuring out how to get back up. The nice lady showed him how to get up and then he ditched the stabilizer for most of the rest of the time....

(See the lady in the background texting? Her daughter kept saying, "Look at me, mommy!" and the lady kept texting. So stupid.)

T picked it up pretty quickly without the stabilizer....

They had some speed competitions....

As always, the best of friends....

We got back to the condo and the boy's took a warming bath. Hot chocolate and popcorn were the dinner meal and we watched Thor (hot!!).

Dave kept looking in the ads at all the condo spaces for sale. 2 bedroom, fully furnished jobbies for like $100K. That's pretty cheap for that type of thing!

Then, the first night, the train came through every couple of hours, laying on it's train horn each time.

Ah.

But we had a sleep-number bed! That was kinda cool if for no other reason than I now know I'd never buy one. It was such a subtle thing and it didn't seem to make a difference in my sleeping. Fun to try out, though!

On Tuesday, we had donuts at a local shop (Ziggy's), then we went to the other tubing hill and spent another deliciously exhausting hour tubing and laughing. It was a much warmer day and we ended up in snow pants and short sleeves.

On the way down the mountain, we stopped at Beaujo's pizza. That seems to be a tradition we are starting. We've done it three times now. Another tradition is T getting all dramatic about being car sick. He doesn't throw up, he just feels awful and is all mopey and poopy until we get some crackers in him.

He and D2 said this was our best vacation ever! They say that at every vacation and it makes me happy that they think it's so much fun spending time with us!

Best start to a New Year ever, Ruth!