Christmas

On Christmas morning we woke up and headed to Jaime and Rob's to see what the kids got from Santa. 

Then we headed over to Mark and Wendy's for the evening.  Kya and Cole showed us their gifts from Santa.

Kya played Christmas music for us.

Then Wendy made a delicious Christmas dinner of beef tenderloin with red wine sauce, scalloped potatoes, grilled asparagus, creamed spinach, and baked Brussels sprouts.  I wish I would have taken a picture because it was such a pretty spread.  Afterwards Mark, Ryan, Jordan and I headed to Tanner's on 87th
to see my brother Clayton, who is the GM and partial owner, because he was working and we wanted to see him on Christmas.  For anyone that lives in KC you should stop in for steak night or prime rib night or just for a few drinks and say hi to Clayton! 

The next day when Clayton didn't have to work we all spent time together, ate, and opened gifts.

It was the funniest thing when we opened our gifts from Mark and Wendy and we all had ugly Christmas shirts inside!  I guess both sides of our family think alike.  Jordan was the one that picked everything out and it cracked me up that the boys all got ladies turtlenecks.

Why are all the adult men playing with one of Cole's Christmas presents?

Later that night we played some adult games like Catchphrase and pool.

Mark and I stayed up talking waaayyyy too late (like, I think I'm still 21 kind of late) and were both hurting the next day but it was worth it to me to get to spend so much time with my big brother.

Christmas Eve

After Christmas Eve church service, we headed back to Ryan's parents for some spiked eggnog.

Then we all changed into our ugly sweaters (warning: some pictures are totally inappropriate and; therefore, completely fitting for our family):

The kids got to open one present early.  Picture books that Jaime made of our family camping vacation in northern Colorado last July.

We enjoyed a delicious meal and then unwrapped presents.  The adults had a white elephant exchange and I think the grand prize of the night was the weener kleener soap that Vearl ended up with.  I wonder who brought that...

Rob must have been really bad this year...he didn't get a thing in his stocking.

Doesn't everyone else's father-in-law wear earmuffs inside during Christmas and also vacuum out the dishwasher at the end of the night?  No? 

After a little more visiting, it was time to hit the hay.  China decided to sleep in Ryan's suitcase. 

 

Clearly we had a joyful and fun day with family.  Can't believe it's already been a couple of weeks.  I'll keep plugging away in following posts to update on the rest of the holidays.

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  I had a wonderful Christmas in Kansas with family and friends, which is part of the reason I'm so tardy in posting.  Before we left Denver we received this amazing package from our friend Julie.  She crafted the entire gift wrapping, including the card and envelope and it was so gorgeous!  Such a talented lady and I felt so lucky to receive something that she made.  If anyone is interested in her custom crafting services, check out her business "Pictures and Pens" on her blog:  "A Beautiful Day".

We left town the Friday before Christmas Eve with the entire fur family and headed to Kansas.  Thankfully, it had stopped snowing on Thursday and the roads were cleared well by the time we departed.  The drive actually went very quickly considering Kansas raised the speed limit on I-70 to 75 mph. 

We showed up just in time for chili and the annual viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  This year we got to watch it at Ryan's sister's house in the movie room, which was such a treat.  Rob even made us all popcorn.  Much better than going to an actual theater!  I was terrible at taking pictures for about the first 24 hours we were in town so I don't have a single one of movie night.

The next day was Christmas Eve and we spent the day with Ryan's parents, grandparents, and niece and nephew (and 6 dogs).

As always, Mojo was so excited to see Kylar and Ashlynn, even though Ashlynn tried to ride him.

Later that evening we went to Christmas Eve service with the entire family.  Miss Ashlynn even let me braid her hair.

I will write about the rest of the evening later as I have a bunch of pictures of that because I finally got with it.

White Christmas

Wowzers!  Did we ever get enough snow to have a White Christmas here in Denver!  I took these pictures at 7:30 this morning and it hasn't stopped snowing yet.  After spending over an hour clearing the driveway, deck, and sidewalks (with a little help from a neighbor) I'm ready for a hot tub, cocktail, and massage...



Warming Up for Christmas

Last weekend we prepared for Christmas by celebrating the holidays with friends and eating way too much.  On Friday night, Ryan and I went to the Arvada Beer Company in Olde Town Arvada.  It seems like we've been waiting forever for this spot to open up and it finally did so we had to check it out.  They serve only beer that they brew at the facility, but Mannekin Frites is connected so you can walk over and order some Belgian frites to enjoy with your brew, which we did.

The next morning I woke up early to bake cookies as I had a pierogi pinching party/cookie exchange later in the morning.  Pierogies are a Polish type of dumpling that have various fillings; for the past few years I've been attending, Krissy has always provided a potato filling and a cabbage filling.  Pinching pierogies is quite a process.  We have someone that makes the dough, someone that rolls and cuts the dough, a group that pinches the pierogis (i.e. puts filling inside and closes the dumpling) and someone that boils the pinched pierogies.  And of course we were all involved in eating them.  As soon as the first batch was done we were all over there putting melted butter and salt on top of the piping hot dumplings.

Later that evening, we went to Roy and Marlene's for dinner.  Marlene had the house decorated beautifully and she made such delicious food for us.  She also served me my body weight in cookies and coffee. 

What a great day to continue the holiday tradition of pierogi pinching/cookie exchange and to celebrate the holiday with new friends.

The next day we enjoyed a long coffee outing after church with our friends from early service, as we won't see them again before Christmas, and then watched an unfortunate Bronco loss.  Then we headed to the Sherpa House in Golden with Amy and Dion.  The boys got to sit in back with Lily.  They seemed a bit cozy back there.

Golden's downtown is decorated so beautifully for Christmas so I'm really glad we decided to go.  And the Sherpa House was amazing.  The interior is decorated with various Nepalese artifacts and the information about Sherpas.  I really didn't know a lot about Sherpas but they are a Nepalese ethnic group that lives in the Himalayas.  Apparently, they are such renowned mountain people that they are regularly sought out to be mountain climbing guides.  The server suggested I try the daal bhat and the next table over mentioned that they had been to Nepal on a guided climb with Sherpas and they were often served daal bhat for dinner.  My dish came out with all these different items on it and I had no idea what to do!  The server told me to pour three of my containers over my rice and then the other three containers were sides.  As I've mentioned before, I love playing with food!  This was the perfect dish for me!  And it was super delicious.

Ryan was super adventurous and tried yak bindalu.  He seemed to enjoy it so I wanted to have a taste but he orders everything hot and after a test dip of my naan into his sauce I decided it was a little too hot for me to handle.  Anyway, I definitely want to go back to this restaurant and try more Sherpa food...maybe after I go climb some mountain.