Spring Break Denver

After the snowstorm I asked my beloved if there was any chance we could get out of Texas for Spring Break. He says he is stuck in Denver the whole week for meetings. Denver? Um, yeah, that's not a problem for me! Our first and potentially only ski trip! Dan left Monday morning. The kids and I left Wednesday. Our ride to the airport came down with a suspected case of COVID which left us in a lurch. We decided to just park the Pilot at a remote lot at Love Field (which turned out to be the biggest blessing in the end!)

 

Airport food.

We have a family tradition of passing around a drawing while at restaurants while on vacation. This one turned south quickly with our hero ending up in cat hell. :)

We were mostly just killing time until Dan could take us to the mountains. Sister played with a friendly nickel.

Dan rented us a car. I took the kids downtown. Here is Union Station.

Here is the convention center bear. No pictures, but we had lunch at Sam's No 3 for lunch. Oh man, that was some delicious breakfast for lunch food!

Macers killing more time.

Mace and I having a change war.

Alex says, 'hey, got into UNT music school. this calls for steak!' To the Outback Steak House we head. His first filet mignon!

Our 2 hour drive through the mountains ended up being over 3 hours with a HAZMAT spill on the interstate. But the views were amazing!

Time to rent our ski gear! We borrowed nearly everything we needed and rented the rest. Too bad this helmet wasn't part of our purchases.

Our first day in the mountain we went to the resort to pick up our passes for the weekend. Such a beautiful place!

We stayed at Dan's coworker's house. His family was super fun and made us feel welcome and comfortable.

Photographer Alex getting awesome sky shots with his new camera phone and tripod.

Saturday's drive to the resort. It was a warm day for skiing in the morning.

Our drive to the resort on Sunday. A storm pushed through late Saturday making Sunday the best skiing conditions of the season (according to our fellow skiiers!)

Day one on the bus.

Before anyone knew how to put their skis on. As they were sorting us out they asked if any of us had skied before. I said, well, yeah, but it was 20 years ago. That's ok, you belong in level 2. That's ok, you belong in level 3. That's ok, you belong in level 4. Um, no, put me in level 3. The ski school takes me up on a gondola, has me strap on my skis and then ski 1/4 mil down hill weaving and dodging crowds without so much as a refresher on 'this is how you stop. this is how you slow down'. I'm surprised I survived the morning! But I did end up a level 4 by the end of the day.

Macers went to ski school by herself and the boys stuck together. This is called the magic carpet. I didn't go in here, but I think it is just an escalator for skis.

This is the bunny slope I started on. There were 6 in my ski class. Half were doctors or married to doctors and were already vaccinated. I felt super safe from COVID on this trip. Well, as safe as a person traveling can be!

Dan and the boys, I presume on the bunny slope ski lift.

End of day 1 of skiing. Look how happy and confident we were. Ah, so naïve! We should have stayed in ski school for one more morning...

Poker with Pete's family.

I woke up at 5am to the snow plow pushing through. A beautiful sight to wake up to.

Day 2 and feeling brave and excited. We split up and went our separate ways. 3 to the top of the hill, 2 to the bunny slopes. The snow was amazing and it would have been great skiing. However, someone didn't take his anxiety medication, panicked, fell backwards full force on his helmet and refused to ski any more. Macey wanted to ski more while we waited for dad to join us. Went down the wrong course, panicked, a ski fell off and had to hike back up the mountain to where were waiting. While waiting for dad, I received a text that says, 'We got lost and had to call ski patrol'. So the 3 of us ride down a ski lift and then a gondola back to base. We find Ryan. We get hot chocolate and cookies. Everyone starts feeling better pretty quickly.

This is the update I sent to my girlfriends via text. "Update: Dan and Ryan went down a black accidentally. They bailed immediately and tried hiking back up the mountain, which caused Ryan to have trouble breathing (he didn't take his inhaler to the mountain, and in a Ryan way, not in a I'm actually dying way). Someone told them to call ski patrol. So Ryan went down on a toboggan behind a snow mobile down all blue and black routes. He said it was an awesome ride! He didn't put skis on again. Dan was given an ambassador who got him on an easy ski road and he went down a 5 mile route which was 3/4 of the mountain. He said it was awesome! He was wiped out and didn't put skis on again."

Dad rescused! We gathered ourselves. Put on brave faces and tried again. This time M&M were going to go back to the top of the mountain to ski for reals. The boys rode up half way to enjoy the view!

Oh, I should say, we had to wear masks any time we weren't actively skiing.

I was not a good match for sister. She was ready to ski and have an awesome time, but I just couldn't get over my fear of the high speed crash. I improved while with her and would have done better with a couple more runs, but we had fun nonetheless.

End of skiing day 2. A trip to the souvenir shop stocked us up on Beaver Creek shirts!

And then a blizzard happened in Denver, not in the mountains. The airport was closed for 3 days, Sat-Mon. We couldn't get to Denver Sunday night and our Monday 7am flight was canceled. Pete kept us for one more day. Our last adventure in the mountains was elk chasing. Or elk tag actually!

This was our view Monday morning.

The final day in the mountains was an average day in the life. I did laundry and packed, Dan worked and the kids did school. We left in the afternoon. A parental misunderstanding made for a long final 24 hours together before my crew went back to Texas and Dan went to Phoenix for his man-cation. Everyone kept saying, you're so lucky to get an extra day of vacation. Nope, we didn't need it since we couldn't go skiing! Family life is full of joy, but it also has its hard days too!

Our drive out of the mountains. Our last obstacle to overcome was the airport. Another text: For our last Colorado adventure, we saw VP Kamala Harris' motorcade leaving Denver Airport. Security had blocked nearly all roads into Airport. We had to get out of the car and walk 1/4 mile to the departures area. The air is really thin here! 

We were super blessed to have this great vacation. The kids all called it an 8/10 on the vacation scale, above the beach! Sorry guys, the beach is warmer and cheaper!

Snowapocalypse!

Again, in no particular order... It snowed. A lot. Don't be fooled by the small precipitation amount. It snowed 2" Sunday Feb 14th and 2" Feb 17th. This was from an arctic blast that swooped down across nearly all of Texas. It was insane. Half our friends lost power. A quarter lost water. Pipes burst. Hot water tanks froze. All in all, we got off super easy keeping our electricity. We lost our internet for 1 day. Church was canceled on Sunday. On Monday we had a church family camp out here and sleepover. On Tuesday the Sumners showed up to reheat and recharge. The crazy thing is that our schools drained ALL the water from the buildings, preventing mass flooding, but also preventing returning to school this week. So the kids got one week off from school and the district is projecting a potential full week of virtual learning while they refill all the water and restock the fridges. Also, note the temperature disparity between 2/16 and 2/21. Oh, I want to mention, our snow was soft and powdery. NO ICE. Bridges iced and there were accidents, but that was from melting from cars driving; ice did not fall.

Dan and Macers out for snow time on the 14th (Yes, a snowy Valentine's Day!)

Sledding on Monday with DeLucia clan.

Last day of snow before it all melted. It finally melted enough to become pliable for snowballs and snowmen.

Dan found these geese walking on water while out for a chilly run.

Macers and I out for the best sledding day. There was no wind so we were toasty warm in our snow gear.

Sledding at Gunstream.

I put out bird food and spilled some on the front porch. The birds found the spill.

They also found the bird feeder. We had quite the crowd! I even spotted a new bird in our midst.

Little bunny foo-foo hopping through our yard.

Snow friends!

Come on over, it is warm here!

No Wi-Fi means board games. Alex instigated 2 family game days. 

All dressed up and ready to go.

Sunday's snowfall.

Look mom, it is sticking!
 

New Year

 Ugh, these pics will be newest to oldest. I can't get the hang of this new Blogger interface! 

Above is crochet hook reinvention with handyman Crystal. I love a reason to use my Dremel! What I was attempting was to make a crochet hook that has a twisting action at the end so I can hold the hook with the back of my hand and twist the hook with just my fingertips. I combined a crochet hook to a small screwdriver with a twisting end. What I actually found was, that making an Easter egg shaped handle that can accommodate all crochet hooks is best. However, my plastic prototype was uncomfortable. Seeking out wooden Easter eggs to tray another reiteration... 

My hexies all sorted!

Hexie sorting day! Macey helped me match the pattern scraps to the solid jelly rolls. The pattern scraps were just fabric I had on hand. I made 1 to 4 sets of hexies from the scraps and then organized them on white cards so I could divide them by color/tone.

Here is how my hexie matching works. Each pile of 7 hexagons makes one flower and center. By putting two stacks of 7 together, I can make 2 coordinating flowers.

My first EPP (English Paper Piecing) hexagon scrap quilt! I am very excited to be making this quilt ALL BY HAND! I'll piece the top together, hand quilt and hand bind this project. I began by cutting out lots of paper hexagons (I'll need about 1300 to make a twin size quilt). Then I glued them either to scrap fabric and cut around them OR I used a plastic template made for fabric jelly roll (this is precut fabrics that are 2.5" wide and 44" long) and cut out the fabric hexagons and then glued the paper to them. You then baste around the paper piece folding down the fabric edges. A quick press and then paper clip 7 hexagons together. I got hyper organized for this project; I am not following a pattern, just making it up as I go and following some Pinterest ideas.

Reese's quilt layout.

The JoAnn fabric clerk and I were just absolutely in LOVE with this pallet! 

The best part of sewing lessons is that I don't actually have a curriculum. My students almost always know what they want to make and we just work from project to project.  Reese said, 'I'd like to make a quilt with an 'R' on it.'  Ok, let's make that happen!

Sewing day with Reese. So actually it takes more than 4 hours to make a quilt, but 2 months and 4 lessons is all I'm willing to give to the project. Usually I make sure that my student participates in at least each step for a few minutes, but I do the tedious work of getting everything ready in between the steps.

An actual concert! Ryan is the trombone in the back between the stands. This was the mid-winter concert. The top two bands were combined for this performance, which means Alex and Ryan performed together. Lucky us!

Alex is the tiny head in between the flautist and clarinet. 

Baking cupcakes!

I am loving this college ombre blanket. This is for Mizzou; my friend's son got into the School of Journalism. Next up is one for BYU; then SFA and UNT. 

Hey mom, I just got a job! Ryan has been bored stiff for years. He is so excited to finally be working! He is working at Palio's Italian kitchen. He runs the register and answers the phone mostly.

1st Snow Day of 2021. It snowed for 45 mins and melted 15 min after that, so yeah, it was lame.

Macey tried to make the most of it, but had to get on a YW's zoom call and the snow was melted before she got off. Bummer.

So cute, right?!

Lucy loving grandma spoiling her.

Bob and June came for Ryan's ordination to Priest. We went to church in person, but then the Bishop came to our house to do the ordination in our living room.

Macey is 4-11 the exact height my mom was when she was an adult. Thankfully, sister has some growing years left in her. She may even average out with me and the boys. Well, Ryan is going to pass us all up by the time he is done growing!

Lazy Sunday afternoon.

Ryan trying out all of Grandma's heel spur gear.

Hello, hello? Macers got a phone for Christmas. Time to make some calls!