Christmas in Colorado

We went to Colorado for Christmas this year, by way of Wichita Falls and Amarillo, TX. It had been a while since we had seen Jason's siblings, so we made a round of it, including where Jason spent most of his childhood days in Wichita Falls and Burkburnett, TX. Thomas and his family live in Amarillo, which is only 6 hours from Jason's parents, so not too far off the beaten path.

Our Explorer is awesome and just moved us along so much better than the Freestar ever did. We listened to the 3rd and 4th Harry Potter books out and back, so that made for much more tolerable travel. Some Bingo cards from the dollar store, lots of snacks, and some time on their own screens made us very good travelers! It helped to have nice hotels where we have lots of points built up and which also gave us free breakfasts and swimming pools to enjoy.

Forts in the car.

Prairie dogs at the last stop before Jason's hometown.

 The kids really enjoyed seeing where Jason used to live and go to Jr. High and High school. Victoria particularly loved the small town feel. We got to go to church in the ward Jason was baptized in! Since it's a military ward, we didn't know anyone, but the service was wonderful and the people were friendly. We saw Jason's brother Thomas and his wife Rebel and their kids later that day, just a few hours from Burkburnett.

They loved being able to walk on train tracks!

A nice park in Burkburnett.

In the background is Jason's high school  and the tennis courts that he played a lot on, which have been redone and are super nice!

Big new playground there.

Such a Texas thing, Texas-shaped waffles at the hotel!

 There's nothing like a pool to get kids who haven't seen each other in 4 or 5 years to bond! Thomas' house is being redone, so we just hung out with them at the hotel pool and ate meals with them. It was great!

Lots of chicken fights.

We played some games in the lobby.

Ate pizza for dinner

Mexican food for breakfast

 We made it to Gramms and Abuelo's house on Christmas Eve. Victoria helped Gramms make a Puerto Rican dinner when we arrived.

The key board was a big hit!

The boys decorated the tree.

We brought our stockings and they match the ones I made for Will and Kay for Victoria's first Christmas.

Santa found us in Colorado Springs!

 That afternoon we went to Jason's sister Auburn's house. She and her husband, Jason, made some delicious American and Puerto Rican food.

Big cookies for dessert from Gramms!

 Bonus: our friends, the Looslis, recently moved 5 minutes from Jason's parents, so we got to see them! It turned out that Victor (6) was sick the day we were supposed to spend the day at their house, so we went to a couple of places with most of the kids. Our kids got to play at their house a couple hours two days later when he was better, so we got to see everyone!

A little stage at Focus on the Family Center.

Most of the girls from both families.

The weather was wonderful, so we hiked around Garden of the Gods.

These deer weren't too far from the path!

We ended the night with Dallin coming over to show Austin his new game.

On Thursday we went skiing, well, most of us. Austin insisted on snow boarding, so he did. He spent a lot of time on his behind, but he had fun. It was Erik's first time, so I mostly skied with him between my legs, but he started to get the hang of it. It was very busy! My last run I took the girls down a harder slope from the top of the mountain. They managed it, barely! It wasn't very hard, just long. Not something they're used to yet.

On our last full day we went to see Mary Poppins Returns with Auburn and her family, and Gramms and Abuelo. We also celebrated Karissa's 12th birthday, since we would be in the car for it the next day, after attending sacrament meeting. It was a fun celebration with family, pizza, cake, games, and gifts for the birthday girl. She always gets to see other family members on her birthday. Lucky girl!

On the way home, Erik finally lost his second front tooth, about 6 days too late to sing the Christmas song. We tried to convince him that popping it out on Christmas Eve would mean the tooth fairy and Santa would come that night, but he wasn't willing to twist it that hard.

He's our big Nebraska fan. We stayed in Lincoln, Nebraska on Karissa's birthday and he was so excited when we went by the stadium!

Happy New Year! (People over 40 have a hard time smiling right for selfies!!)