Happy Christmas

San Francisco

San Francisco, a set on Flickr.

Sawyer has always thought that California was some Nirvana where people go when they leave his realm ... kind of like falling off the end of the world or something. Since he was born his brother, his cousins, his aunts and uncles and his godparents have all come and gone from this mysterious California place.

For the first time in living memory, he got to visit California. We spent 10 days in the Bay area, visiting the redwood forest, swimming in the ocean, touring the Exploratorium, riding the trolley and browsing the farmer's markets.

The whole tourist part of the trip was topped off by a visit from our southern California cousins Gracie and Max in addition to the Bay area cousins Kingston and Kieran.

And if that wasn't enough, Santa came for a visit and left us two suitcases worth of stuff to haul back.

Sawyer decided that he loves California and wants to live there someday. As for me, I think I'll skip the crazy traffic, exercise pants and earthquake threats and just stick with the occasional visit.

Winter Park skiing

Fashonista on the track

Arden is a girl with her own sense of style

Falling is hard

Conversations

What do you want to be when you grow up, Arden? A mermaid.

Sawyer: That's not a real job. If you, say, worked in a pit stop, now THAT would be a real job.

'Tis the Season

I think I've mentioned before — I'm not a big decorator, shopper, baker or dresser-uper, which makes me bad at almost all things holiday. This year, short of bobbing for apples, I made a concerted effort for Halloween. We carved pumpkins for the first time since the kids were born, baked pumpkin pies, roasted pumpkin seeds, and I decorated the front porch with a spooky skeleton and spider web. I even got a temporary tattoo of a black widow spider crawling up my neck. Awesome.

Halloween this year was a weekend-long event, starting with a costume party at school on Thursday and continuing Friday with trick-or-treating at businesses in downtown Granby, followed by a big insane bash at the elementary school. The kids headed over the pass to Evergreen for the rest of the weekend with their dad while I headed out with Brussels Sprouts and his little cabbage for an evening of trick-or-treating along the main strip in Winter Park, followed by a delicious meal at the local Indian restaurant.

About that guy

So after three months, my Brussels Sprouts guy is still kind of a secret. My kids are getting to know him and he's got a plane ticket to meet the family before Christmas. But we are keeping it on the DL around town ... primarily because it's a small town and, if you've ever lived in a small town, you know, that's all I really need to say about that.

Here's some things I like about Brussel Sprouts:
  1. He took AP French in high school. (He studied Russian and Spanish too.)
  2. He plays the guitar and sings with abandon.
  3. He remembers almost every number he sees (like my license plate number and phone numbers he's dialed one time.)
  4. He's a Yankee but roots for the Cowboys.
  5. He drives 4 hours round-trip to Denver twice a week to see his 18-month old daughter.
  6. He plays Scrabble with me (and sometimes even wins.)
  7. He can hang out with me all day and then still want to talk to me on the phone for hours at night.
  8. He baked an apple pie the other day. Just because.
  9. He plays house with my kids. They make him be the kid. He's good at it.
10. His eyes, and heart, are full of kindness.

Snow day

Snow day, a set on Flickr.

We had our first snowfall of the year in town today. Kids played in the snow and then we hit the coffee shop for hot drinks.

RMNP

RMNP, a set on Flickr.

Took a beautiful autumn drive through Rocky Mountain National Park.