Waiting for Santa, more skiing (new venue), and Monster Trucks!

With Christmas just around the corner and no snow yet in Denver, we trekked up the hill to Keystone to find Santa for Joseph and Andrew to visit with.  As you can see, Joseph was ready to chat with the big guy in the red suit while Andrew wasn't so sure about the whole ordeal.....  I think Joseph filled Santa in on what his brother wanted, though.

The following day, we all decided to head over to Arapahoe Basin to try out the slopes there.  Lots different than Keystone since most of it is above timberline!  Our fourteener hike this past summer was just on the other side and well above that 12,000' ridge behind Dianna - Whew!

Another shot of A-Basin, a beautiful day for skiing once the sun came out a bit!  

What would wintertime be without a monster truck show?  Bradley and Kent have gone to those every year since Bradley was 3, so figured we might as well make it a family ritual for the guys every year!  Joseph and Andrew loved the big trucks jumping and squashing cars and even got to ride in the back of one of them during the intermission - something Joseph will never forget!  Here's Joseph climbing up on top of the tires of the winning truck. 

Bradley, Joseph, Andrew, and Jolene with a redneck family portrait!

As long as the boys want to keep going, Papa still loves to take them to see the monster trucks!

Thanksgiving at Keystone

What an awesome time with all of our family at Keystone for the long Thanksgiving weekend!  Sara, James, and the twins went up on Tuesday afternoon, Dianna and I joined them on Wednesday night, then Bradley, Jolene, and the boys came up on Friday afternoon.  In addition to getting in LOTS of skiing, swimming, hot tubbing, relaxing, and plenty of yummy turkey, we all got an abundance of family bonding!  It started out a little cold on Thanksgiving morning with temps hovering in the -15 degree range, but the lack of wind, abundance of sunshine, and lack of crowds actually made it a fantastic day.

Here's a shot on Thanksgiving morning of sunrise from the gondola (looking through the snow blowing from one of the snowmaking machines)

No crowds!!!!

Dianna enjoying the spectacular scenery atop South Peak.

Still no crowds, the entire hill to ourselves.......

James skied with us while Sara stayed behind with the twins to start the turkey.

WOW, Dianna and James have an awesome view of Breckenridge from the top of South Peak.

Just another Kodak moment......

Having fun watching the snowboarders and extreme skiers jumping and doing tricks on the big snow jumps while we were riding up the chair lift.  These guys are crazy!

We did manage to get a couple inches of snow on Friday morning.

Bradley giving Joseph some more ski lessons:)

Sophie all dressed up and ready to tackle the slopes.

James giving Bella some ski lessons.



Bring It On!!!!

WOO HOO!!!!!!  Opening weekend at Keystone!!!!

It seemed like November 5th would never come, then the big pre-season dump happened (Keystone got 26" in 3 days) and it was on!  Of course, we decided to go up and catch a few runs on opening weekend even though the crowds were pretty thick.  We got our half-dozen runs in, stopped for a hot Bailey's and coffee (ok, maybe it was two), then finished off the day with a few more runs just for fun.  It'll be pretty challenging until they get all of the runs open (hopefully by Turkey Day), as our goals for now are to get to the base without getting run over by boarders.

Here's the 'beach' set up atop Dercum Mountain with the phenominal views of Breckenridge in the background.  It was 65 degrees on opening weekend!

North Peak (Kent's favorite) - not open yet, but looks like they are getting pretty decent snow too.  They plan on having everythng open by Thanksgiving weekend. 

Dianna enjoying the new deck next to the beach on top of Dercum Mountain, Breckenridge behind her. 

Sara, James, Sophie, Isabella, Bradley, Jolene, Joseph, and Andrew joined us on our second weekend for skiing.  Joseph did his first real run with a little help from Dianna. 

It's a long ways down the big hill, Joseph taking a break. 

Sophie and Isabella couldn't stand it watching their cousin Joseph skiing, so Sara broke down and got them equipment too!  They'll be joining us in a week or two to learn skiing too:)  Looks like all of our grandkids are doomed to be snow-bunnies too! 

Greetings from Keystone

Living room afterwards........

Kitchen afterwards......

Master bedroom afterwards.....

Master bath afterwards.........

Second bedroom afterwards.....

Second bath afterwards......

Loft before remodel........

Loft afterwards......

Living room, fireplace, and stairway to loft before remodel......

Stairway to loft afterwards......

Kent & Bradley's return to Vegas!

Kent & Bradley's return trip to Vegas for the SRT Track Experience started out with a trip to the Carrol Shelby museum at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway where they got to see new Cobras and Mustangs being built.  This one is the very first one the Carrol built in 1964 and he hung onto it throughout the years.  He was recently offered $20 Million for it and turned down the offer!

While there, Kent & Bradley drove over to see the new Pat Tillman memorial bridge which bypasses the Hoover Dam.  This view is taken from the bridge (about 900' above the river).

Looking from the dam up at the bridge - pretty spectacular!

Of course, the main attraction for the trip was a return to the SRT Track Experience where Bradley & Kent got to do autocross challenges, drag racing, performance driving, and hot laps with professional drivers.  Here, Kent is preparing for the autocross in the purple Challenger.  When Kent got his new Challenger last year, he and Bradley went to the same venue and did the same thing - this stuff just never gets old!  This year, Bradley took 1st Place (out of 45) in the only two events that were judged.  Of course, he had an awesome teacher for his skills and Kent was in the top 4 in both events too.

At the end of the day during hot laps, Bradley got to ride in this Viper at ~150 MPH, a ride he'll never forget! 

After the boys finished the SRT stuff, they went over to the NASCAR track and got to dress up and ride some laps with professional drivers there too - this time at 175 MPH! 

One of the NASCAR cars we rode in....... 

If that wasn't enough testosterone refreshment for the day, the guys went over to the exotic car racing circuit and pretended to be SRT officials and got a pass to see the whole fleet of exotic cars - one of Bradley's favorites was this $200,000 Ferrari. 



Beauty Fall Colorado

After such a beautiful fun-filled summer with lots of hiking and mountain biking around Summit County, it was finally time to get prepared for - you guessed it -- SKI SEASON!  But not without getting to enjoy some of the beautiful fall colors around Keystone and Breckenridge.  We haven't done any of the same hiking trails twice yet and are only beginning to scratch the surface of the many trails available.

These aspens are right at the entrance to our condo complex in Keystone.

More aspens just outside of Breckenridge

Our timing was impecable when we took a drive over Boreas Pass near Breckenridge

A week later, we were hiking just outside of Keystone along Peru Creek on our way up to Chihuahua Lake.....

More beautiful aspens and evergreens.

Just a few more long hikes this past summer, and we finally decided that we needed to get a new toy to get us to the trails instead of beating up Dianna's SUV or Kent's truck just getting to the trailheads.  Kent was immediately all over this one and jumped at the chance when Dianna commented that it might be kinda fun to have a little Jeep to help us in our exploration trips around Summit County:)

Jeepers Creepers!

On our final hiking weekend this fall, we got the subtle reminder that Arapahoe Basin was getting ready to open up for the ski season, and Keystone would only be two weeks behind them.....  Time to get our ski equipment ready for winter!!!