Christmas in Boulder

We have just returned home from one of the best Christmas holidays ever.  We were hosted by Christine at her home in Boulder and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We went to Christmas Eve services together and then put a beef tenderloin on the Weber.  The next few days we spent skiing Vail and Keystone, as well as hiking some incredible trails within walking distance of Christine's house.  There may have been some hula hooping and frisbee throwing going on as well. (Pictures to follow in another blog post.) We ate at The Buff restaurant for breakfast one morning and at the Walnut Brewery for dinner one evening.  We saw True Grit and loved it.

It is quite likely that this will be on next year's Christmas card since we seem to have a difficult time getting together in one place with everyone's schedules, but we'll see. Thought you would enjoy seeing what we looked like when our ski trips first began.  Steve still has those RayBans tucked away somewhere.  I wish I had kept those Adidas jackets.  They would probably still fit C and L.  We thought we would try to recreate this photo after lunch at Keystone and completely forgot to.  So here are the alternative pictures. 

The
      Boys
              and
                    the
                         Girls!
 

Louise's Graduation from NC State

What a great weekend we had in North Carolina.  I just cannot wrap my mind around the fact that our youngest has graduated from college.  The ceremony was held in one of the buildings that Louise had a number of her classes in which really made it special.  As you can imagine, not as many students graduate in December, so it was a smaller but more intimate ceremony.  Lovely.
We went to one of our favorite restaurants on Friday night. ( Firebirds ; where Christine spent many hours seating customers.) Since Steve's folks are so close to Raleigh, we spent the night with them and woke up to a great home made breakfast that Marcella whipped up and then it was back to Louise's apartment to take some pictures before the ceremony.

This one Steve took as she was walking out.  One happy girl!
We celebrated with a late lunch.  The grandparents were able to join us for the day and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
And today Louise arrives in Texas.  We will have a couple of days hanging out here before we hit the road for Colorado.

Hope y'all have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Phytel Party

On Saturday night we hosted the Phytel Christmas Party.  It was a new experience for me, not because we hosted a party, as we have done that scores of times.  This was unique because we had it catered and had an event planner come and place furniture and bring LOVELY floral arrangements. Oh my word.  I am now spoiled.  The only thing I had responsibility for was making sure my house was in order and decorated for Christmas which I had done the weekend after Thanksgiving.
So on Saturday morning Steve and I went on a long bike ride and then went out to lunch at a great little Tex Mex restaurant. On the day of the party!  Never have I been able to do that before.
All this blissful anticipation of entertaining in such grand style is a credit to the one and only Marilyn!  She is a dream and an organizational genius.  I am her biggest fan.

I know I can't get used to this kind of entertaining, but I sure am thankful for the experience.  It was a blast.