Thanksgiving Week

Tyson had the entire week off, so we made the most of it by doing some things around here that we haven't done yet.

GARDEN OF THE GODS

This beautiful park is just a couple of hours away near Colorado Springs. We packed food for the day and explored away. We had Jeffrey and Amri carry all of our food in their little backpacks. Tyson is putting them through backpack-training, preparing them for the 100 mile trek they're going to do next year ;) JK. Although, Tyson did do a 100 mile backpack trip with his dad when he was just a year older than Jeffrey. It's amazing all the things the Hazard kids did when they were young!

Siamese Twin Rocks

 

Skiing at Winter Park

Tyson got a few free passes to Winter Park Ski Resort by going to a Warren Miller film, and he convinced me that we should bring the kids (I was super skeptical about this idea). I did persuade him that we should at least get a babysitter for Jacob, but we bought a kids pair and two adult pairs of skis & boots on craigslist, and off we went!

I am shocked to say that Jeffrey is a NATURAL, which took me totally by surprise. When we first put the ski boots on, he started screaming and crying that they were too big which they are but we kept telling him it would be fun, and as soon as we put his boots onto the skis he LOVED it!!!

Tyson is in the yellow jacket three people up pulling Jeffrey. Jeffrey did go down both sides of this hill.

As long as Jeffrey had his skis on, he wasn't cold or hungry and just wanted to keep on going. The only times he was sad was when he had to let Amri have a turn. He kept begging Tyson to take him down bigger and bigger hills until Tyson took him on the chair lift to one of the highest points that was open that day. 

After the chair lift, he was ready to go totally on his own. The first time down I was skiing next to him to make sure he didn't crash or keep on going down this hill, which turned into a four foot drop on the bottom intersecting another slope. He started out slow, so I slowed down, but then he picked up speed and I couldn't catch him. I thought he was going to go down the four foot drop, but he didn't. He gracefully turned right and stopped, perfectly in line to go up the conveyer belt again. He got on by himself (a feat I saw adults fail at) and was on his own after that. I left for a different slope while Tyson filmed.

Amri was happy to do whatever--be in the skis, sit in the wagon, whatever, so she only was in the skis a total of 20 minutes the whole day. But she still had fun (until the last five minutes when she woke up and begged to put her skis back on, but then realized she was super tired and started screaming).

Thanksgiving 2011

We went to a ward friend's home with two other families for Thanksgiving. It was so fun. We all have kids the same age--each of their families has a child that corresponds in age and gender to one of our children. Our camera was being kind of lame when we tried to do a group photo, but you get the picture ;) Our kids also loved the Turkey pinata, and I think we may make it a tradition. It's been a great week. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!