Birds [of Prey] Watching

Spent the morning at Beaver Creek watching the men's Super G races (Day 2 of the Audi Birds of Prey Men’s Alpine World Cup).  And ... it snowed! Fun day.

Just playing with the camera around Beaver Creek Village
while Gregg took a few runs.

Fresh snow! It's been a while around here ...

Hanging out at the grandstands at Red Tail Camp before the
races started.  Notice the eagle on the screen is a real, live
eagle being filmed in the bottom left corner of the photo.

Crowds starting to form. Still waiting for Gregg to show up.

USA Ski Team member Bode Miller. In the flesh. He ended up in
the 20s for this race, but yesterday he won gold on
the Men's Downhill (which we didn't get to see - bummer).

Freezing, but still smiling.

Countdown to Christmas - Song Style (Dec 3)

Today's song is dedicated to my brother, Nate, because for some reason whenever I hear it (which actually is not very often, shockingly) I think of him:

Countdown to Christmas - Song Style (Dec 2)

Day 2: Gotta love Home Alone.

Countdown to Christmas - Song Style (Dec 1)

Last year I did a little "Song-a-Day Countdown to Christmas" on Facebook.  I figured there is at least one person who reads this blog who is not my friend on Facebook and I didn't want to leave anyone out of the Christmas cheer this year.  (So, sorry if you follow both - you'll feel a little deja vu for the month.)  At any rate, I hope you enjoy!  I admit I started listening to Christmas music long before today.  I love this time of year - and I love the spirit that comes with Christmas music (whether it's technically "spiritual" or not).  Here goes, Dec 1:

We Don't Volunteer, We Pose

A couple weeks ago our branch took part in an annual tradition at Avon Elementary where the community helps fill Thanksgiving boxes for families in the valley. Not ones to simply do things out of the goodness of our hearts, we wanted some glory for all the effort we had put into driving nearly 5 miles to volunteer. Kim had been trying all morning to sneak into a photo, with no luck. Finally, as she placed a can of green beans into her box at just the right moment, she got the timing spot on and glory was hers. This shot appeared on the cover of Vail Daily the next day.

Vail Visitors

We had the great pleasure of hosting some Blanchard and some Elwood visitors on two consecutive weekends in October.  We had a great time with our families, showing them around some of our everyday sites, as well as discovering some new things.  Thanks for coming to see us Paul and Kim and Richard and Peggy and Heather and Kylie and Megan!  We love you.

P.S. People who may read both The Original Kim Blanchard blog as well as ours will probably feel a little deja vu while reading the first half of this post.  Thanks to Kim for capturing some fun memories that we could steal because we didn't have our camera out as much as we could/should have.

Gregg in the Storm Trooper - ready to give the parents a
grand tour of our new town.

A gorgeous day and a beautiful trailhead that
 we'll have to come explore another time.

Kim and Paul and the lovely, lovely mountains.

Yum!

Picking out a pumpkin at Wildflower Farm.

Guess who?

A peek of color and condos in Vail.

They've been making snow!

Steel Roots ... only Gregg guessed correctly
what these were - the rest of us thought
they were antlers.

In the Ski and Snowboard Museum - the History of Bindings display.

Dinner at Fiesta's.

So SO so yummy!

Ready for church.

The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens.

There were lots of cool benches in the gardens.

The only blooming thing we saw.

The Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater - I want to check
this out in the summer for some sweet concerts!

Exploring in the Children's Garden.

Cute fam.

More snowmaking - on the sidewalk!

Statue honoring the 10th Mountain Division soldiers.
We were lucky enough to be in the museum at the
time that one of the former soldiers, Sandy Treat,
was there telling stories of his experience
 in the 10th. So cool!

Sisters, sisters.

Pretending to warm up by the fire - it wasn't really that cold,
but the gas fire pit was pretty sweet looking,
so we couldn't resist a photo-op.

Camp Hale (or what's left of it) - where the 10th Mountain Division
trained before entering WWII in Italy in 1945,
just a few months before the war ended.

Those rocks across the way are where the soldiers trained in rock climbing.
 They also learned skiing techniques and weaponry while here, too.

Fall in Col...orado

We thought the leaves around our new place were breathtaking, but upon driving up the road a ways, we found that we were quite mistaken. This place is gorgeous!