Christmas 2007

Well after a day's delay due to weather we finally arrived home from Colorado last night. We had a great time with the kids and grandchildren. We went to a wonderful restaurant that is accessed only by cross country skis, snowshoes or horsedrawn sleigh (you can guess which we took).
It was a cold and snowy night when we left the small shack that loads everyone onto the sleigh. Each sleigh holds around 20 people and is drawn by two enormous horses. It was a beautiful mile to mile and half run up to a log building that housed the restaurant (Pinecreek Cookhouse). There were six of us (our daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandchildren aged 10 and 6). We immediately went for hot chocolate, ours laced with Bailey's. The meal came and was delicious. Our son-in-law had called ahead and talked to the Chef about Yvonne's gluten issue and I was somewhat disappointed that they had done nothing to accomodate her. But we did find enough scrumptious items to satisfy everyone.
I was somewhat shocked when the time came to pay and they handed us a bill totally nearly $1,000. The grandchildren had mac and cheese and we were charged $65 per plate. That seemed really outrageous to me, especially when you consider we paid $25 each for the sleigh ride.
My broken finger and Yvonne's bum knee kept us off the ski slopes on Monday at Sunlight, but we made the best of it by having the kids around and playing Monopoly in the lodge. All in all a great day.
Christmas morning came early (around 5:30) as Hunter and Michal we up early looking to see what Santa had left.
Had a superb prime rib dinner with a couple of Jeff and Jessica's friends and topped off the evening with a nice chat with Jeff's friend Bobby who is somewhat of a landmark in Aspen. He used to ride his horse into bars back in the good old days.
I managed to slip into some mittens and ski Snowmass on Wednesday and had an Epic day on the slopes. Michal and Hunter are turning into real pros on the slopes. The last time I was able to ski was with them two years ago and it was their first day ever. Now they are both on the ski team and shooshing double black diamonds. Kind of intimidated me.
The weather moved in and our flights were cancelled on Thursday so I had to conduct a little business via phone and make sure our dogs were fine at the kennel. I had
Barbara send over more food and she actually picked them up for us on Friday and put them in our car so we could make it home last night, rather than stay a night apick them up this morning.
Pretty much a great Christmas. Unfortunately we have to cancel our New Year's plans on White Pass because of the delay and Yvonne is really sick. I beleive she caught something on the plane going down as there were lots of kids and most were coughing and hacking. We were going to friends who own a motel on the pass and have converted it to a private retreat of sorts. Last year they had about 60 people for New Year's and a few of us special ones had a room right on the river. I was really looking forward to repeating the experience. Oh well.
It is very nice to be back in the green northwest. The snow is nice, but as a rule I would rather live here and visit there.
Hope you holidays are going as well as ours.
TTYL