Spring Break in Breckenridge

Until this year we'd never gone on a winter vacation. Jeremy and I love the beach so that is always our first choice. But this past summer Nadirah moved to Breckenridge so we wanted to visit and our kids really wanted to go skiing and snowboarding. We loved the town of Breck, it was so cute. Our first day there we just walked around, shopped, ate at Eric's and the Crepe stand (both so yummy) and took a hike which didn't last long without snowshoes. We woke up Tuesday morning to inches of snowfall. We were all so excited and amazed by the beauty of the falling snow against the mountains. We headed over to Keystone for our first day to ski and snowboard. Some of us had a little experience but most had none which led to a very interesting first day. Jeremy and Bailey both tried to snowboard, but were quite unsuccessful. I think they said it took them about an hour and a half to get less than half way down the mountain before they decided to call for a ride down. Apparently, that was super fun and the highlight of their day. Riley, Eric and I skied until sunset. It was amazing being on the mountain at night with the town lit up below. I had so much fun with Riley and he was pretty impressed that I could keep up with him. Although, he was not so comfortable watching me fall. He said it's weird to watch Bailey and I fall down...so sweet!! After skiing a day we headed to Glenwood Springs, Colorado. There's a natural hot spring so even though it was snowing and cold we could swim. We all skied again on Friday at Peak 8 in Breckenridge. Bailey, Jesse and Colleen finally got the hang of it and skied with us all day. Jeremy is an awful skier!! I have no idea how someone can be so athletic and so bad at skiing :) Honestly, he was our entertainment all day. He ran into trees, the kids ski school area and a group of resort employees. He decided to give snowboarding one more try and was finally able to get the down the mountain. Before we left we stopped by Denver to visit some friends and spent a little time in downtown Denver.

J&J in downtown Breckenridge

Jeremy's brother drove in from Denver

Nadirah, Russell, Jill, Jeremy, Bailey, Rebecca, Lilly and Riley

On the slopes in Breckenridge

Aunt Colleen

Jeremy standing :)

Riley on the Terrain Park jumps

The whole gang at the base of Peak 8

Bailey doing a lot better on ski's!

Denver

Bailey and I heading out to a Green

Eric, Jesse, Colleen & Rudy

Jeremy, Jill, Riley, Bailey & Nadirah

Jeremy being funny

Rudy

Glenwood Springs

Jeremy calling for his ride

Jesse & Jill

Jesse & Colleen

On the "emergency" sled

Keystone

The gondola

Back in Breck

My little brother

Waiting on crepes

Snow Days!!

Temperature's started dropping Monday night and haven't stopped. We've all been home since Tuesday and nobody around here is complaining! Today we woke up to a few inches of snow, which was a nice change from the ice. We met Riley and his friends at the Keller Smithfield park to sled and snowboard.

Gingerbread House Decorating Party

Last night we hosted our first Gingerbread House Decorating Party. We invited some family and friends, bought LOTS of candy and spent hours decorating. Rudy spent most of the night crawling under the table and going through Luciana's diaper bag playing with the granola bar he kept finding. Mariana decorated her house and then spent the rest of the night eating then sneaking candy. Not sure how easily she fell asleep :) Colleen and Jesse wanted to build their house from graham crackers and marshmallow creme which seemed like a good idea but the marshmallow creme wouldn't harden and hold the graham crackers in place so it did not stand long. We were able to get a quick pick before the wall fell off. We all had a lot of fun and will definitely do it again next year.

Finished

My awesome snowman!

Mariana

Bailey and Chelby working hard.

Me and Aunt Colleen

Jeremy stealing ideas ;)

Jesse and Colleen starting from scratch.

Two hours of hard work.

"Snow Drift"

Mariana liked eating hers best!

Riley's 16th

You would think it would be pretty hard to "mess-up" a 16th birthday. Unfortunately, Riley's birthday take 1 did not go so well. We were told by the DPS that Riley had to have a Verification of Enrollment form to get his DL the Monday of Thanksgiving break. The schools were closed so we had no way to get the form. On Monday the 29th Jeremy took Riley to school and begged the receptionist to fill out the form. Her reply "it's not possible"! Seriously all we needed was her signature, but I guess if they start that everybody would come last minute. We finally got the form at 2:30 so I take Riley out of school and we head straight to the DPS. By the time we get there it was too late and we had to schedule a drive time for Tuesday. We hand over all of our "needed" paper work and as the DPS guy starts looking through it he hands back the VOE form because "we don't need it". I kind of freaked out and I quote "what did you say?" in a not so nice voice. We waited all day to get a form we didn't need which took so long that he missed getting his DL on his birthday. Little did we know that was only just the beginning with our birthday issues. Jeremy and I started looking for a car about a month early thinking that would be more than enough time. We looked at A LOT of cars all with no luck including one that smelled like cat pee. That was a treat! I almost threw-up before we could get it back to the dealer. As his birthday drew closer we were starting to lose hope on actually finding one, but the Friday before we found a Scion TC at the Ford dealership in Grapevine. It had just been traded in so it was dirty and in need of some detailing, a tune-up and paint touch-up. We both liked the car and knew he would love it so we bought it that night. We were promised that it would be ready Monday morning...and so the story begins. Of course it wasn't ready even though we were calling and driving up there almost hourly. It wasn't until Monday early evening that we finally got through to someone willing to really help. At this point we had a kid with no car and no driver's license on his birthday...awesome! Luckily I had figured out Riley thought we were getting him an iPhone so we told him that his gift would be delivered a day late. Birthday take 2...we let Riley stay home on Tuesday because we had to go take his driving test and as soon as we heard the car was ready we picked Bailey up so she would be there to see him open his gift. Jeremy told Riley that he picked the gift up from UPS so we wrapped the key in my old iPhone box letting him assume he was right until he actually opened it up. He was speechless!! It was so much fun for us to give him his first car!!! So we all drove to DPS so that he could take his car once he passed his test. It was all fun for me until he drove away. As we're walking out for him to drive away I asked if I could ride. Of course he said no, but Bailey could. I give a little speech on how other than his dad he now has the two things I love more than anything in this world in a car and drive safe and...."I know mom". As they drive off I cry and cry again every time he drives off for about a week. In Jeremy's words "a little piece of Jill's heart drives off every time he drives away".

NSM 3rd Annual Turkey Bowl Tournament

Ryan, Alec, Galen, Auryan, Riley and Nick

Riley and his friends have played in the Turkey Bowl every year and every year they win :) Recently I decided to start taking pictures of Riley and his friends because I'm sure than none of these boys every take any and later they'll be glad someone did. Anyway, I asked Riley to stand off to the side with his friends but the rest of the team wouldn't walk away. As soon as they realized I was taking a picture they all huddled up. So I took a picture of everybody, which for any other person would have been sufficient. But I had my mind set on getting one of just "The Wolf Pack." Well it didn't come easy but finally I was able to get one of just the six.

Bailey still has friends who go to Northwood so she was invited toplay too. Her team doesn't have a lot of athletes but they were able to win a few and even made it to the junior high play offs. I have to brag because Bailey has an amazing arm!! Seriously, she's been able to throw a spiral since she was like 3 and I'm positive she can throw farther than I can. We have a video so I'll post that too.

As promised: