a.[carolena]

Christmas!

It was a busy Christmas season this year!  On Christmas Eve Alex and I headed to a shindig at his parent’s house with all sorts of delicious goodies.  The next morning we opened gifts at their house and then headed to Christmas dinner at his grandparents’ place in Tacoma.  I spent Christmas night with Kas at her aunt’s house hanging out in the hot tub, drinking champagne, and watching Full Metal Jacket.  Ha.  We headed back home early Monday and that evening Alex and I had our own little Christmas (we both got pretty spoiled).  THEN on Tuesday we went to Alex’s cousin Lindsey’s engagement party.  Whew!

On Wednesday we got up bright and early and headed to the airport for our flight to Albuquerque! My sister and her boyfriend and my two step-sisters and their husbands and darling children all met us there and we ate lunch in Albuquerque before driving 45 minutes to meet my parents at our gorgeous rental house in Santa Fe!  That night all four of us girls got papered and then had pictures taken together after a delicious dinner.

Thursday we hit the slopes!  It was basically everyone’s first time skiing (except Alex who is a snowboarding expert pretty much…) and we took some boring lessons before deciding we were better off on our own.  I’ll be honest and say that I 10000% thought I was going to hate every minute of it, but I didn’t!!!  It was hard and I made the mistake of doing some more difficult runs before I was ready but I still had a good time!

Friday it was back to the mountain and I did much better that day.  My sister was especially awesome and her boyfriend was going down the blacks before the end of the trip.

That night we did family games…apparently the new tradition is to do Minute to Win It activities, which are always pretty hilarious.  See the 2010 version here.  

Then on Saturday we checked out downtown Santa Fe and went sledding down this expertly-build route in our backyard (thanks TQ!)  I had so much fun with my nieces sledding and really the entire time!  Alex and I barely stayed awake to ring in the New Year.  I think we went to bed at 12:01 exactly.  haha.

Sunday was our last day on the mountain and we got my mom to head up to the tippy top with us.  She screamed at my sister and I the whole way down to stay away from the edges because she thought we were going to topple down the mountain.  We didn’t obviously.  By the end of the day I got up the courage to zip down some (easy) blue slopes.  Alex was pooped from the double blacks he rode all afternoon.

And the next day we came home :(

I am so blessed to have the chance to spend time with my entire family at such a cool place!  And now that I know that I don’t hate to ski maybe I’ll let Alex drag me out to the mountains some weekend!