Christmas in CO!

The day after Christmas (after some flight cancellations, reschedulings, recancellations, etc), we made it to Denver to spend a couple days with my family and friends. The upside of the snowy weather that canceled our flights was that we had a ton of beautiful white snow to romp, dig, ski, and play in. Much of the family time was spent making snow forts and sledding down the hill near our house. The kids below are my niecephews Maya, Owen, and Connor (and Banjo, of course).
A couple days after Christmas we went to hang out with some of my playgroup friends from growing up. This group wasn't really tight through high school or college, but we've found a lot in common in our adulthoods and always have a good time and laugh a lot when we get together. My friend Katherine is the first of the group to have a baby - little Hannah. The rest of us (Becky, Erin, and I) all have dogs instead.
My sister Beth, my brother Mark, and their families headed up to the mountains for a day of skiing at Copper Mountain, and a night staying at the family condo in Frisco. Davis, my oldest nephew, is the most accomplished skiier amongst the kids (still mostly on greens, though), but we had a good time skiing together. Davis enjoyed following his dad and Tom through the trees and over jumps. We fully expect to be passed up by him within a year or two.
The kids enjoyed the snowy outdoor hot tub after the day on the slopes. I went in later and was able to freeze my hair into a very crazy spiky mohawk.
A couple days later, our friends (Kaitlyn, Erin, Ari, Dustin, Steve) started to arrive to spend New Years at the condo. We had some adventures trying to get back up into the mountains, and it turns out the second car (all the boys) just barely managed to squeeze through the Eisenhower tunnel before it was closed. Tom skiied four days overall (two at Copper, one at El Dora, and one at A Basin) and I logged one day at Copper (it was Freezing out there!). The snow was fabulous and the crowds were small due to the tunnel closings.
We had a great time on New Year's Eve. We played lots of games, drank some champagne, and spent a fun-filled hour or two trying to call up any greenmen we could get ahold of. We also upheld the annual NYE tradition of the Yankee swap. Dustin ended up with this very stylish light-up Rudolph nose. I got a hand-knit hat (by Ari), that I coveted, and it kept my ears nice and warm over the next couple of days.
Banjo didn't appreciate the intrinsic beauty of the snow and cold weather. He spent the first couple of days trying to figure out how to balance on two feet because the snow was freezing his little toe pads. He became remarkably adept at doing his business extremely efficiently and then practically dragging us across the snow back inside. We finally took pity on the little guy and got him a pair of booties. Little did we know that the booties magically turned him into a high-stepping fancy-pantsy circus dog! Watching him prance around and try to shake the boots off had everyone in hysterics.
A final picture of the group, showing our finer side. We missed everyone that wasn't with us and hope that there will be a bigger group next year, wherever it may be!