Christmas Break 2017

Christmas 2018 and our traditional fireplace picture.  I can't believe how big they are!

I had to let them do a silly one because they were not wanting to sit still.

This little girl had her heart set on a pair of glasses.  Santa brought her some "fashion glasses" in her stocking and she loved them!

My oldest.  He's an introvert and he doesn't say much but he is a sweetheart.

A slime kit from grandma

A game from grandma

Rainbow Brite!

A fun magic painting book from Mom and Dad

A board game from Uncle Joseph, Aunt Amy, and the cousins

My boys love National Geographic books with facts in them.  Finn was excited to finally get his own.

Another board game from the Maryland Hickmans

How to keep a 4 month old puppy out of the chaos that is Christmas morning??!

We really enjoy this board game and spent quite a bit of time playing it on Christmas Day!  Good pick Uncle Joseph!

The day after Christmas I went to get milk at Walmart.

During our Christmas break we took a trip out to Royal Gorge to see the bridge and park.  I'd been wanting to go, but we'd never made the trip.  I ended up winning a Great Strides contest and we got some free tickets that had to be used by the end of the year.  So, despite it being the off-season and not the best weather, we made the trip.  

The first thing we did was ride the gondola across the gorge because the wind was picking up and they close the gondola if it gets too windy.  This was a good call because the gondola closed not much later. 

There is a window next to Finn's head--I promise.  But seriously that view!

Looking at the river below

At the other side of the gorge we visited the children's play area and there was a carousel that the kids could ride over and over again.  So fun!

This display was in a theater where they showed the history of the Gorge.  It was fascinating and even the boys paid pretty good attention.  Bree was a harder sell.

The loop we took around the park ended with us finally walking the bridge.  After learning all about it's history, we were ready to finally cross it.

Don't look down!

Along the bridge were signs for each of the 50 states.  We had to take a picture with "Kansas" to send to their Kansas-cousins.

Selfie.  Can someone explain how Reid is better at these than me??

I'm really bad at selfies

After a couple of hours at the park we were ready to head home

Wood from the Royal Gorge Fire

While we were at Royal Gorge we left Rosie at a PetSmart in Colorado Springs that does boarding.  We decided that after we had dinner (at IHOP) we would stop at our favorite candy store, Cole's, before heading to pick her up. Reid had never been and seemed to really like the place (just basing that on the number of pictures he took of the store!).

He didn't take a picture of the popcorn counter, which has at least 40 flavors to choose from.

Some sibling play time.  I have no idea how Finn talked Kai into playing horse!

We worked on some of our cooking lessons over the break.  This lesson was on flipping with a spatula.

It led to Kai making us pancakes for dinner and the other two cutting up some fruit so we had fruit and bacon and pancakes.

We also took a fun trip to the zoo during our break from school.  Our break was 19 days long this year so we had a lot of family time!

I love this picture.  I love that they aren't fighting here, which normally this elephant results in huge fights because everyone wants to be in the trunk.

We loved feeding the goats.  We had never done it before and now it's a favorite thing!

Whenever we go to the zoo, we look for Mister.  He is this green parrot that Finn adores.  The first time Finn saw him, Finn was walking by an outside exhibit when "someone" said "Hello"!  It turned out to be Mister the parrot and Finn has been enamored with him ever since.  He normally lives in the education house, and that's where we found him on this trip.

Oh, well, there was a fight over the elephant.  This time it was "Peanut" who was throwing the fit and needed her own picture.  Classic!