We made it home safe and sound last week Thursday night late to arrive to cooler temperatures in Vero Beach Florida than we left in Denver Colorado! We were pretty tired and sluggish for the next 3-4 days adjusting back to EST which is rough coming West to East and spent the weekend carefully packing up our Christmas decorations, and getting our home and life back in gear after the holidays and lots of construction. The floors were finished upstairs nicely and this week just yesterday they painted and installed the baseboards. We ordered a large cabinet from Pottery Barn Kids for one of the walls to try to corral the toys and clutter a bit and get that space more in order. It was so chaotic when we moved with all that was going on, things just landed and found a home. I will post pictures from our last day in Colorado in Denver and at the hotel and of the new floors this coming weekend which is another long weekend with MLK day. We are planning to head over to the lake as we have not been there since early November due to traveling at both Thanksgiving and Christmas...we finally settled with our crazy insurance company and the dock consruction company is going to start work this week as well so hopefully by President's day our new dock and boathouse will be in place! What a way to start the new year!!! I will post pictures this weekend when we are over there.
***I got majorly caught up on the blog while we were in Colorado, I brought my lap top with me just for that reason so scroll way back, I think I posted about 5 or 6 posts on 12.31 with all sorts of updates and info since before Thanksgiving. What a 6 weeks it has been for our family. No major travel until March is planned!!!
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Winter Park, Colorado Christmas Ski Vacation
It is becoming quite a tradition around our house to spend Christmas at home and then depart for Colorado in the following days for a week long Ski Vacation in a quaint town called Winter Park, Colorado! We discovered Winter Park by pure mistake three years ago when we had booked a trip to drive to Snowshoe in West Virginia for Christmas break and there was NO SNOW...so scrambling, but still wanting to go skiing, Jon got them to book our tickets at a resort they also owned in Colorado, which was Winter Park! Never mind we had to book last minute lodging and airplane tickets and I don't want to know what extra that cost us three years ago and since that trip three years ago we have come back to this little town which is like the epitome of a Winter Wonderland in the weeks leading up to Christmas and between Christmas and the New Year. This year and last year we really got the trip dialed in and rented the same ski in ski out condo in the Zephyr Mountain Lodge slopeside condos right in the Winter Park village and next to the ski resort. We have a great two bed two bath condo well appointed, and we even get a ski locker to store our gear so in the morning we just go down to the locker get out skis and boots and walk outside, pop the skis on and go down the hill to the Zephyr lift! The people we rent through have their condo on VRBO and really have it together, hence why we came back to this same condo two years in a row and likely a third year next year! Winter Park is the closest of the ski resorts to Denver which is what makes it really attractive to locals that live in the Denver and Boulder area and can drive up for a quick skiing weekend during the season, and it also makes it attractive to tourists that take a FIVE hour flight across the country to get there and then have to get a rental car and drive into the mountains. We would love to explore other areas like Steamboat Springs and Breckenridge or even Keystone we have heard is nice for families but these places are an ADDITIONAL 2-3 HOUR DRIVE in the mountains (and these mountains make West Virginia mountains and the smokies look like hills)...never mind if there is snow. This year being our third year here we really felt like we knew what we were doing and had it dialed in. We knew to reserve certain activities we wanted to do months in advance (like our new years eve special family dinner at the restaurant up on the mountain called the sunspot that they take you to via private gondola)... and next year I hope to reserve a private Alaskan Huskie dog sled ride...I tried to do it this week and OF COURSE it was sold out months ago, bummer, Jackson especially would have love that. We also know our way around the actual ski runs pretty well and the ski school format and system is excellent here.
We arrived after a full 12 hour travel day on Wednesday the 27th and it always takes us a few days to acclimate...between the altitude sickness which is a real thing for Jack and I and gives us bad bad headaches those first two days, and the time change adjustment, we are on Mountain time here, two hours behind EST, it takes us a few days to get it together and feel normal but we push through it and ski that first full day here. We had the kids in ski school three days to refresh their skills and they both did AMAZING, they will both be better skiers than I will ever be, and then we took a rest day and did snow tubing and ice skating in the village and shopped and enjoyed the Christmas-like atmosphere and took in some bowl games as well, had an amazing dinner up on the mountain via Gondola for New Year's Eve, and then we spent our last two days in Winter Park skiing as a family, my favorite days!! Tomorrow we will check out and head back to Denver where we usually explore a local Denver museum or sight. Tomorrow the high in Denver is supposed to be 50!! It was like this last year too which surprised me. It is amazing it can be so "winter like" in the mountains and what most of think all of Colorado is like but then you go down to Denver just an hour and a half or so out of the mountains (and you can clearly see the snow covered mountains from Denver) and it is like a different climate entirely and totally mild! It also looks A LOT like Ohio in Denver and the people are just as kind as those in the Midwest, we always say we could live in Denver.....def not the mountains with the full on winter like conditions and altitude issues and dry air but Denver is doable. Tomorrow due to the warmer temps with highs around 50 expected and sun we booked a bay at Denver's Top Golf...we've always wanted to try out a Top Golf and will report back after tomorrow's fun! They serve food and drinks and its basically like a fancy driving range as I understand it half indoor and outdoor. Tomorrow night we will stay at the Westin at the Denver airport which is also a tradition we started and then Thursday we fly home to Florida. When we get home we will have been gone for ten days! I am ready to head home and get back into our routine but we have had a wonderful vacation! Here are some pictures of the fun we have had thus far!
We arrived after a full 12 hour travel day on Wednesday the 27th and it always takes us a few days to acclimate...between the altitude sickness which is a real thing for Jack and I and gives us bad bad headaches those first two days, and the time change adjustment, we are on Mountain time here, two hours behind EST, it takes us a few days to get it together and feel normal but we push through it and ski that first full day here. We had the kids in ski school three days to refresh their skills and they both did AMAZING, they will both be better skiers than I will ever be, and then we took a rest day and did snow tubing and ice skating in the village and shopped and enjoyed the Christmas-like atmosphere and took in some bowl games as well, had an amazing dinner up on the mountain via Gondola for New Year's Eve, and then we spent our last two days in Winter Park skiing as a family, my favorite days!! Tomorrow we will check out and head back to Denver where we usually explore a local Denver museum or sight. Tomorrow the high in Denver is supposed to be 50!! It was like this last year too which surprised me. It is amazing it can be so "winter like" in the mountains and what most of think all of Colorado is like but then you go down to Denver just an hour and a half or so out of the mountains (and you can clearly see the snow covered mountains from Denver) and it is like a different climate entirely and totally mild! It also looks A LOT like Ohio in Denver and the people are just as kind as those in the Midwest, we always say we could live in Denver.....def not the mountains with the full on winter like conditions and altitude issues and dry air but Denver is doable. Tomorrow due to the warmer temps with highs around 50 expected and sun we booked a bay at Denver's Top Golf...we've always wanted to try out a Top Golf and will report back after tomorrow's fun! They serve food and drinks and its basically like a fancy driving range as I understand it half indoor and outdoor. Tomorrow night we will stay at the Westin at the Denver airport which is also a tradition we started and then Thursday we fly home to Florida. When we get home we will have been gone for ten days! I am ready to head home and get back into our routine but we have had a wonderful vacation! Here are some pictures of the fun we have had thus far!
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