Caroling and Cocktails 2015

A week or so before Christmas we had some friends over for caroling and cocktails.  Arn had the new star showers all in place for the outside of the house.  He also printed the words to some carols and practiced the songs beforehand.  Everyone had a great time and willl probably become a tradition. It makes me stop procrastinating and get the house ready for the holidays.  Some notes for next year..............we are getting older - bigger font for the lyrics, jazzier songs, carol before guests or piano player drink too much.

Getting Ready for Christmas

We always get our tree the first week after Thanksgiving during the week so we can go with fewer crowds and get the first pick (as if a bunch of new trees are going to grow in one year). This year it was around 19 degrees and we had quite a bit of snow so the walking on the trail at our secret spot was a little more difficult.  We did find a great tree though.  We stopped for a burger at the Wines of Colorado which was one of the best burgers around.  The place is cute and we sat by the fireplace.  Our waiter agreed that we found a great tree.  Valerie and Eric also had a cookie decorating get together and it was a success.  We decorated lots of cookies and had potato leek soup and skinny lasagna soup.  Arn was happy since the Steelers won that day especially since he was watching the game with a bunch of Bronco fans.  If I can figure out how to get pics from Instagram or from Val I'll post some pics of the cookies.

Thanksgiving 2015

This year Thanksgiving was a little different but good.  Val and Eric were hosting Eric's family and Tyler and Lauren stayed in Denver due to weather and a foster puppy.  They went to Val and Eric's house.  Arn and I went to Crested Butte with Tim and Meredith.  On Thanksgiving day we hiked in the morning and fried a turkey in the afternoon.  We learned how to play Mexican Train (dominos) and worked on a jigsaw puzzle.  It is addicting!  The next day we went cross country skiing and another day we went to The Black Canyon.  We had gone there a few years prior but didn't really see the whole thing. Tim has kayaked thru about 11 mi. of the canyon.  It was beautiful and we'll go back to cross country ski and to hike around there.  It's just as beautiful as the Grand Canyon and Canyonlands.

Getting ready to put Tom in the fryer

Success