Christmas in Colorado

On the Wednesday before Christmas, we left St. George to drive to Arvada for Christmas.  The original plan was for us to drive to Denver on Friday but the weather was looking bad for Friday so we changed our plans and left on Wednesday. 

I checked Courtney out of school early and drove to pick up Ethan from Success Academy.  When we were ready, we went by and picked Bryan up from his office and took off.  The van had been giving us problems but we were hoping it would get it to Denver without a problem.  It did well but it did overheat as we were going over the last mountain range.  I was nervous that we would be stranded, but we got there okay.

It was a fun time.  Here are some of the highlights:

Baby Lizzy was a highlight for Courtney and she couldn't wait to get her baby time in.


Ethan is a bit awkward holding a baby.  I'm not sure which was more uncomfortable in this picture.


Rock climbing was a great activity that Courtney loves.  Grandpa took them one time and then Julie took them another time.  Courtney is a spider going up the wall.


Ethan made his "chemical pie" for everyone and had fun listening to them guess what was inside.


Shopping at the thrift store was a plus and Courtney found this cute chair!


It snowed on Christmas Eve and then again the next week.  The kids had a lot of fun playing in it...for a minute.  It was really cold so they didn't stay out for too long.






Ethan was getting a little better at holding Lizzy as the week went along.  He didn't look so awkward.


Church was at 9 a.m. and we got to drive in the deep snow to get there.  It was cold but we got there just fine.


Courtney was ready to be a babysitter at any moment and took advantage of it.


We had Christmas Eve dinner and the teenagers (and Bryan) did dishes as they sang Christmas carols.  It was fun to watch them.



Christmas PJs was a highlight, was it usually is.
    

Christmas morning:
   

          

He is looking like a natural by the time we were getting ready to go home:


Check out all that garbage:


We left on Wednesday morning.  The weather was great and we didn't have any rough roads but the van decided to overheat.  It was white knuckle driving home waiting for the van to die, but it didn't die and we got home just fine.  It did take longer because we couldn't drive very fast on some of the uphill stretches.  But we made it home safely.  And we had a great time!