Colorado Springs Thanksgiving

For the first time in many, many years, we didn’t host Thanksgiving. Instead, we went down to to Colorado Springs and spent the holiday with Brett and Kami and some of the Johnson family.  It was such a fun time. Kami was an amazing host and it was really fun to get to know some of her family better.  Here we are packing up all the pies. We wouldn’t be able to get them in a fridge for about 8 hours, so it took some creative packaging and a lot of dry ice to pull it off.

The fun began on Wed with our second annual trip to Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole.  Last year we went the day after Thanksgiving and it was a total zoo.  This year we went the day before Thanksgiving and it was so calm and uncrowded.  We enjoyed ourselves so much more when we didn’t have to fight long lines for the rides and huge crowds.
 
The day started at a beautifully sunny 55 degrees.  By the time we left around 4 pm the temp had dropped to about 30 degrees, and we were were freezing!  Brayden had forgotten his jacket and was in short sleeves.  Poor little thing looked like an ice cube at the end of the day.  The older kids had a blast going on the scrambler and the tilt-a-whirl about a million times.  Kami and Rusty both have weak stomachs, so when Blake and Kali wanted to go on a fun ride, I went with them.  Hearing their cute little screams on the tilt-a-whirl just made me laugh.  It was so fun!  Blake and Kali also got to sit on Santa’s lap. 


A storm blew in that night and when we woke up in the morning there was a sheet of ice covering everything.  The die-hard crazies still decided to go hike the Incline.  I volunteered to stay with the kids  

(Rusty, Brandon, Tina, Jordan, and Stacy)

We cooked the afternoon away and sat down to our Thanksgiving feast around 5:00pm.  Everything was delicious.  Brett was working at the hospital, so Kami and Rusty packed up a slice of each of the different kinds of pie and braved the nasty roads to deliver Brett a Thanksgiving treat.

The next day was still freezing but everyone was going a little stir crazy.  Brett didn’t have to be at work till noon so we got everyone dressed in their snow gear and into the cars to go drive through Garden of the Gods.  That was no small feat!  Garden of the Gods was beautiful in the snow.  We got out at a few scenic spots along the way, snapped some pics, and rushed back to our warm cars. 

The kids really wanted to go sledding even though they knew they wouldn’t last long in the cold.  We found a great park and had an amazing 15 minutes sledding down the hill. 





We went back to Kami’s, scarfed delicious Thanksgiving leftovers and left to see The Good Dinosaur.  The big girls were sitting a few rows away from us and they had some popcorn.  Blake really wanted some, but for some reason was too shy to ask the girls.  I refused to buy him some and he was so mad.  We had been staying in a hotel and the kids were going to take turns sleeping on the roll out bed.  But Halle really did not want to sleep in the big bed with one of the boys so she paid Blake $5 for his night in the roll out bed. After the movie was over Blake ran to the car to get his $5 and buy himself some popcorn.  A teeny tiny bag cost him $5.05, but he was determined to get it anyway.  He ate about a quarter of the bag and then promptly forgot all about it.
 
After a delicious dinner of Turkey Noodle Soup we hit the road for home.  It was a perfect Thanksgiving weekend.  Thanks so much to Brett and Kami for hosting all the fun!