Merry Christmas

Rebecca - day 1

Out at the local ski area on Saturday for the first time this season. Becky has decided that she also wants to snowboard this year leaving Andy the only skier. As her personal instructor I decided to skip the bunny hills and get her straight on a lift up to a gentle hill - turned out to be a good move as sh was determined to like it and took to it like a duck to water. As someone who was rubbish at snowboarding for the first several attempts I felt a mixture of irritation and fatherly pride. By the end of the morning Becky was coming down the slope herself while Dan and I came down via the freestyle area (not doing anything very exciting at this stage of the season though).

Concert-tastic

Madame La Pomme

The best October yet

October visitors and the North Shore

The Parents visit and gorgeous Autumn cycling...

Rebecca's 6th Pajama Party

First Day of 3rd Grade then Kindergarten!

Over the Hills to Adam's Falls

Today we're off to yet another waterfall, this time a lot further away so we've got a lovely drive across some of the mountains in Estes Park. On the way we pass by the Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for the hotel in The Shining.

Spectacular drive over the mountains




Pausing only for some much needed hot chocolate

Quick picnic by the lake. Why quick you may well ask
And here would be why, it looked a lot worse than the picture makes out in real life with the wind whipping in
Adam's Falls

On the way back we saw a fantastic double rainbow

Day 3 - Another Hike

This time we're heading to Bridal Veil Falls which is quite near the cottage. Very limited parking so we had to wait for a space, the high rainfall is great for the waterfalls but it means that everyone is out going for hikes. This was going to be a shorter hike but it turns out that we have further to go today, about 6 and a bit miles total with another decent elevation. Really pretty trail, lots of alpine flowers and meadows.


Discovered Clif Bars on this walk -mmm, Clif Bars. Not sure however if they are named after the rock formation or some bloke called Clif who came up with the recipe. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I decided to save anyone the trouble to looking this up and it turns out that it was named after the father (Clifford) of the guy who started the company.
Here's the kids at the top of another pretty long hike



Having a quiet read by the falls



Off to Estes Park town center in the evening, primarily to buy fudge.
Also had a pretty good meal out in the town, basic food but well done