A Colorado Thanksgiving...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! (Okay, so I'm a little late)... So Merry Christmas!!! (there, I'm early for once). And my pictures below definitely get me in the Christmas spirit, so I don't feel bad about saying it early.

This year for Thanksgiving, we went to Colorado Springs to visit Evan & Heather, friends from our Indiana days. And what better way to remember those cold Indiana days than to go to a snowy destination?

Our first few days in CO, we went up to Steamboat Springs and spent 3 days at a time-share that Evan & Heather's friends couldn't use. Don't ya hate it when you have to go to beautiful resorts to help out some friends?

The second day we were there, we woke up to snow falling, which was really fun since it ended up being the only snow we saw fall while we were there. This is our view from our hotel window as it was snowing.

We all ventured into the town of Steamboat Springs and window shopped in the little shops and generally had fun being cold for a while.

We inquired about snowshoeing, but the locals said there wasn't enough on the ground to need it. So we stuck with our tennis shoes and endured cold toes, but it was fun.

I think this was on the third morning. The snow was still there, but the sun came out and was shining through some snow that was blowing off the mountains. So I caught this rainbow from our window.

I think this was a maintenance shop at the resort because they kept pulling out mini snow-dozers and shovels from it. But it had the best row of icicles I've seen in a long time!

While it was still snowing, Paul and I actually went out to the outdoor jacuzzi (we sprinted from the hotel door to the water) and had fun making snowballs from the snow surrounding the jacuzzi and seeing how long they would last underwater, etc. It was fun...but no pictures.

After we returned from Steamboat Springs, we went to the Garden of the Gods and drove around. We got out of the car for a few pictures, but didn't spend a lot of time outside hiking in the park. We saved that for geocaching later in the week.

Proof we were there...

Paul's such a funny guy. I love 'im!

Another day we hiked up to Pulpit Rock. It was crazy because there was snow all along the trail that we took up (on the non-sunny side), yet the temps reached at least 75 degrees that day, so I was actually regretting wearing all the layers I had on.

It was pretty slippery since the snow had been melting and then re-freezing. There were some close calls with slipping, especially since I had old tennis shoes on without much tread on them.

The view from the top - Evan & Heather looking out.

I was making a face at Paul because he jokingly threatened to push me off the edge.

Pike's Peak is in the background - it's the peak with the snow on it in the middle of the picture.

Evan had a small slide on the way down (we took the sunny trail down so there wasn't snow, but there was LOTS of mud! You can see the compassion on Heather's face as she analyzes the "injury". Just teasing Evan!

That's Pulpit Rock from the bottom of the trail looking back up.

A couple of different days we went geocaching in the area. This was along a trail of which I can't recall the name. Heather found the first cache, which was fun.

Paul hinted loudly enough that I "found" the next cache. It was pretty close to the drainage ditch, (I really doubt it was a named creek), so I had to be careful not to fall in.

The next day we went geocaching again, and the temperature was MUCH colder. So we all had lots of layers on and hats/gloves. Gotta love Colorado weather...it's a lot like Texas - just wait a while and it will change!

This was another one that I had help "finding". But it was fun.

Self-photo attempt.

Another find...I actually wasn't there for this one because I wimped out and sat down for a while. I learned the hard way that I should have brought water on this outing. While in CO I was constantly thirsty and felt like I never had enough water to drink. Darn elevation!

Other than those main activities, we played lots of games (Settlers of Catan, Carcasson, Fluxx, Sequence, etc), watched movies, and read books. It was great to be able to relax and just hang out without any appointments or meetings to go to!

Thanksgiving day we spent with the friends who had let us use the timeshare. They are Evan & Heather's ballroom dancing instructors, and their daughter is also Evan's co-worker at Focus on the Family. It was a lot of fun meeting everyone who was there and playing games (Evan & Heather introduced us to the game Fluxx there - a fun big group game). Evan and Heather are really blessed to have great friends there in Colorado Springs.

After our week with Evan & Heather, we spent Sunday-Wednesday at the CCCA national conference that was hosted at the Broadmoor Hotel. I'll post another blog with pictures of the hotel. It was the NICEST hotel I've ever stayed at! More details to come!