hiking and sledding

Some photos from a February hiking and sledding journey we took on the roads and trails behind our house…

wish not granted

As I mentioned in the Easter post, yesterday was closing day at the Breckenridge Ski Resort. The final snow tally for the season was 519”. I was hoping that the day after the season ended—today—all the snow was going to magically melt away. But alas, it was not to be. This was the state of things at our house this afternoon. A lot has melted but there’s still a long way to go (and it’s snowing too). That’s the bear’s nose poking out in the snow mound in the bottom left corner of the photo…

and these are just some extra photos from the mountain last week.

heading up the Imperial Express SuperChair (highest lift in North America goes to 12,840 feet)…

my sister Molly…

watching a storm roll in…

hunting and eating

Easter was worth the wait. We had a wonderful day.

We managed to get everyone dressed in their Sunday best and out the door in time for 8 am Mass. After that we returned home for an Easter egg hunt…which was then repeated several times. The girls were incredibly fortunate that Adrienne’s mom was staying with us; she hid the eggs over and over and over again much to their delight…

After the egg hunting festivities, we prepared for the arrival of our guests. Molly and Phil arrived in the early afternoon, so Molly and I headed out for our last few runs of the season at Breck—it was closing day. The snow was surprisingly good and we managed to get in five runs before they shut the lifts down until November.

Mike, Jenny, and their sons, Emmett and Owen, joined us for dinner later in the afternoon. It was a lovely affair.

have you ever seen a more dignified looking table of toddlers?…

I’m proud of my bunny napkins for the kids…

the awesomeness of Emmett’s seersucker suit is beyond description…

little brother, Owen, also pulled off the seersucker look in style…

Dinner was great—HoneyBaked ham, asparagus with lemon tarragon sauce, lemon fluffy, scalloped potatoes, Hawaiian rolls, 7-layer salad, and English trifle.

I’d be remiss to not mention that Jenny should charge a fee to attend our dinners; she cleaned up everything after the meal. And if that wasn’t enough, she also covertly planted Easter eggs for our kids in our yard the night before.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

milk teeth

Time to put the tooth fairy on alert—Junie has a loose tooth. I actually can’t believe she’s on the verge of losing a tooth. It just seems so grown up. And while June prepares to replace her current set of teeth, Jolee is trying to put the finishing touches on her first set. And as all parents know, cutting molars isn’t fun for anyone. We’ll let you know when June’s tooth finally gives up the fight and lets go.

her bottom right central incisor is the wiggly one…

monkey training

Today the girls took their first of several weekly climbing lessons at our rec center. Jolee is a bit young for a formal class but she still had fun nonetheless. Junie was into it right from the start. (sorry for the blurry photos—I had something set wrong on the camera)

and here’s a video of June’s day…

birthday escape

For Adrienne’s birthday last month we escaped from the snow and spent the day at the Denver Zoo. I think it was nearly 70 degrees. It was glorious.

a lot of these backlogged posts will essentially be photo dumps, so I’ll keep the commentary to a minimum…

this was right near a sign saying, “Please don’t chase the geese!”…

the sign should have also said, “And please don’t taunt the geese.”…

Adrienne enjoying her much anticipated free birthday ice-cream cone. Also notice her lovely birthday button. By the way, the zoo gives you free admission, a free ice-cream, and a free train ride on your birthday. Not a bad deal…

a dramatic pose from the birthday girl…

Record Setter

The previous seasonal snowfall record at Breckenridge Ski Resort was 504”. With snow steadily falling throughout yesterday afternoon, the season total has now reached 506”. I’m glad the ridiculous amount of shoveling I’ve done this winter has at least been part of a record setting winter. The resort closes on Sunday, so we’re hoping that all the snow melts on Monday—we’re not holding our breath.

I’ve been putting it off, but I’m going to try to unwind our crazy backlog of posts. Instead of doing it all at once, as I have in the past, I’ll try to post one every day or two until we catch up. We’ve had birthdays, great-grandparent meetings, a wedding, skiing, races, etc. etc. I’ll do my best.

snow sculptures

Here’s a video from the annual International Snow Sculpture Competition here in Breck (it ends on Sunday). The girls and I all liked the underwater scene with the scuba diver, shark, and octopus the best…

snow globe

One of these days we'll resume blogging, but in the meantime, enjoy the screenshot below from today's Breckenridge Resort Snow Report. Pay particular attention to the "Last 7 Days" and note that 26 of those inches came in a single day (Monday), which was the largest one-day snowfall at Breck in the last 18 years. Needless to say, the shoveling has been demanding, but the skiing has more than made up for it…