Catching up after Christmas

This Christmas was so special to me as I have not been able to spend Christmas in person with my sister, Sheila, and her family as an adult.  There has not been an opportunity for either of us to spend time together at Christmas because of the  distance between Colorado Springs and Pittsburgh and the busyness of raising families.  What a gift to be able to have these cousins have one Christmas together, getting to know one another better and enjoying extended family time!  We spent Christmas morning worshipping at the Aichele's church, which was a wonderful service.  Then we went back to their house to spend time with them.....it was very thoughtful for their kids to buy our kids Christmas presents.

On Monday, we took a day trip to see the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park.  We enjoyed our day, although it was pretty cold with the wind.  We walked the bridge and rode the gondola.  Evan and Alec wanted to go on the zipline, but it was closed due to high winds.....however, they rode the skycoaster and that was enough of an adreline rush that they weren't too upset about the zipline.  We watched the informational movie at the theater and learned a lot about the area we were exploring.  Another highlight was seeing the herd of mountain goats.  Then coffee in Canon City and back to the Aichele's house for leftover Christmas dinner!

Yesterday (Tuesday), the Aichele family took us skiing at the ski resort they have memberships to....Monarch Mountain.  Darrell and Alec decided not to ski (due to Darrell's knee and Alec coming off a stress fracture) so they spent the day snow tubing and exploring the town of Salida.  Evan hadn't skied in two years, but found his skiing legs pretty quickly and enjoyed the day.  Paula hadn't skied in about 23 years and was very nervous, but also found her muscle memory and remembered that she really enjoyed skiing.  Ann-Marie wanted to snowboard, so Uncle Kurt taught her how and she caught on very quickly.  It helps a lot that Uncle Kurt used to be a gymnastics coach, so he knew exactly how Ann-Marie learned.  The cousins were very patient with us and it was a fun day!

Before Saturday, we are hoping to get to the zoo and a hot springs and maybe catch up with a friend or two that we know out here.  We are also hoping that we can get back home on Saturday, but we are flying SouthWest (which is having problems recovering from the Christmas snowstorm) so we shall see!