COLORADO!!!

The girls on the trip...

Jarred and I in front of the pretty Christmas tree.
At the Lodge, these are some of the slopes...you can kind of see the Gemini lift on the right.

View from our Condo, we stayed at Beaver Village.
Christmas tree outside the shopping center we went to.
This is the town of Winterpark, some of it anyway
This is us on the top of the mountain where the restaurant is...

Here are some pictures from our "Spur of the Moment" Colorado Trip we took last week!! The Tappe's called us on Friday the 14th to see if we wanted to go to Winterpark, CO and we were on the road driving on the 19th!!! Crazy!! I LOVE being able to pick up and go at the drop of a hat...I guess that's one reason I don't have kids yet! This was my first trip to Colorado and I had a blast. This was also my first time skiing (unless you want to count skiing when I was 8 in West Virginia, which I'm told is NOTHING like Colorado). Well, if you know me very well you know that I was very timid and scared going up on the mountain. I had no clue how I would do skiing and all I'd heard were horror stories about altitiude sickness, falling, etc. Well, luckily, I didn't have the altitude sickness too bad...I think I had it for a little bit the first morning on the mountain but after I ate lunch I was fine! Let me just take you through my first couple runs down the mountain. Okay, so Jarred, being the wonderful husband he is, was going to stay back w/ me and go slow down the mountain for the first time and just be supportive. We take the easy run and for the most part it went very well. I was feeling really good about myself after that. We decided to do it one more time and then try something a little harder!! The second run went great and of course by that time I'd grown a HUGE head thinking man, what in the world was I worried about. I'm athletic...skiing, no problem!!! HA! Was I wrong???? (Side note: we decided I didn't need ski school, Jarred thought he could just teach me, another side note...he's only been like 3 times before) So he takes me up the mountain a bit further...we get off the ski lift and I'm searching for the Greens...umm...where are the greens honey??? We go left and I look down at what at the time seemed like the biggest drop of my life!!! Straight down too, if I remember correctly!!! Well, Jarred takes off and flys down and gets to the bottom as I'm starting down...at this point, I'm not to happy w/ good ol Jarred!!! I get maybe a fourth of the way down and end up flipping (not on purpose) about half way down. Skis over my head, etc. So now I'm half way down this mountain and I'm upside down and stuck. By the way, it's not easy to just push yourself up on a slant! I know you put your skis sideways on the mountain but it's still hard...plus no ski school, remember??? Well, I finally get up (without Jarred's help b/c he's at the bottom, great right??)!! I'm going again and once again there I go, rolling down the mountain! I've made it to the bottom by now but I'm mentally done and I'm just at the bottom of that drop, not the bottom of the mountain!! I remember falling at least 4 more times down the mountain and on one I heard Jarred say "Good fall honey" at that point I'd had it. I was done falling, all I wanted to do was Get the Heck off that Mountain!!! I can look back now and laugh but at the time I was not a happy camper. We decided to go in and have lunch after that. I needed a break!

That's probably my best story of the trip...the rest went a lot smoother. I didn't fall much after that. I was able to go to the top (where the restaurant is) and ski down multiple times and I thought I did pretty great!! I'm no pro but for not doing the ski school I was pretty proud!! I've never been more sore in my life but it turned out to be worth it!!! I would LOVE to go back someday! Winterpark was beautiful...I don't think I'd ever seen that much snow in my life! OH- you should ask me about Jarred jumping off the ski lift too...that's a good one!! NOT! He did jump off though. I don't have time to write about it now but if you ask me later I'll let you know all about it!! Thanks to everyone who let us borrow all their ski stuff...at least we looked like we've been doing this all our lives!!!

Retreat Picture!

Here's a picture Amanda sent me from the retreat!! Thanks Amanda!

Honeymooner's Retreat Dec. 07 and more...

Well, it's be FOREVER!! Life has been crazy! I finally feel like I can breathe again though. Most of you don't know but for the last 4-5 months I've been planning our Sunday Morning class's Honeymooner's Retreat...Honeymooner's seems like a funny name b/c most of the folks in our group are no longer Honeymooning but oh well! We went to Petit Jean State Park on Friday night and came back yesterday around noon. I had such a good time! It was fun to hang out w/ friends and just enjoy being "away from it all." On Saturday we went hiking down the the Falls and it was great!! I've never been to Petit Jean, I know, I know, crazy, but I haven't! It is such a neat place and MOST of the staff there are very nice!!! I had some problems w/ one of the guys in the restaurant that tried to take charge once his manager left every afternoon but other than that it was fun! It's pretty stressful putting something like that together b/c you don't want people to have to pay too much money but EVERYTHING costs money so trying to keep the costs down was my biggest worry! Now that it's over I'm sleeping A TON better! :) I just pray that everyone enjoyed their time there and that they were able to grow a little closer as a couple and as a class. There's SO many of us in that class that smaller group trips are needed just to get to know people! I'm thankful for those that signed up and let me plan their weekend together!! Sorry I have no pictures from the weekend to put up!! Such a bummer! Hopefully Amanda will put hers up sometime soon!! Thanks Amanda for taking so many pictures!!!

We're now house/kid sitting again for a couple from church. We started yesterday around 3:00 so not too much of a break from the retreat to kid watching!! They're pretty good though, old enough to pretty much take care of themselves other than the driving part! It's fun, we really enjoying hanging out with the kids. It's fun to pretend for a while and then go back to our quiet home w/ our dogs!! Jarred calls it my "birth control" until we're ready to have our own family. I guess I'm selfish right now. I LOVE having Jarred all to myself and being able to pack up a do whatever without having to worry about anything else!! Don't get my wrong, one day I want to have a family but for now I'm perfectly happy with it being just me & Jarred!

One more thing before I sign off...I can't WAIT for the holidays to get here!!! We're having Christmas w/ Jarred's family on the actual DAY of Christmas but then my family will all be coming the weekend before New Year's. HOPEFULLY my Mimi will be coming up w/ Mom, Dad, and the boys. I LOVE having people over to the house and decorating, cooking, etc...can't wait!!! It seems like most of the time we get together Mom and Dad end up having to go back and forth from Little Rock to Searcy (my brothers both go to Harding) and so it will be nice to have them in LR the ENTIRE visit this time! Once again, I can't wait!! Anyways, there will be more info on the Holiday celebration later so be looking for that. Mom and Dad- make sure you tell Grandma & Granddad and everyone else we wish we could be there this weekend, hope you all have a good Christmas celebration together and give them all our love!!