Christmas Fun

Lou and I had our Christmas on Christmas Eve because we had to get up early the next morning for our hut trip.  Lou prepared a very nice dinner of pasta, asparagus, and Ahi Tuna.  We opened a bottle of wine, put on our Santa hats and dove in to the pile of presents.  People were VERY generous this year with gifts.  I take that as a sign of increased confidence in our economy.  :-)  We both received clothes, gift cards to Chili's, Itunes and a sporting goods stores, and prepaid debit cards.  Lou received a Nook and a Cuisinart food processor so he can start using the Paleo cookbooks he received last year.  I received several new board games that I'm super excited to play, a steam mop that will make life a lot easier with two dogs and two cats running around, and Apple TV which I was excited to receive until I tried to hook it up to our outdated audio/video equipment.  I'm beginning to think electronic manufacturers invent new connections so you're forced to buy new equipment so everything will work.  Needless to say, we were thrilled with all of our new stuff.  The cats were thrilled with all of the wadded up wrapping paper we had thrown around the living room, and the dogs were content with their large rawhide bones Lou's mom sent to them. 

After fighting with our electronics and various cables for a awhile, I realized I had better get to bed because 6:30 am was approaching quickly.  When Lou's alarm went off at 6 am, I about cried.  My body did NOT want to get up and prepare for our excursion.  I allowed myself an extra 15 minutes of sleep while Lou showered then drug my lazy hind end out of bed.  It's amazing to me how I can pack a backpack the night before and manage to tear it apart the next morning and add/delete so many items.  I've come to the realization that packing is not one of my strong points. 

We rushed out of the house to meet at Karen and Doug's house at 8.  We got there at 8:03 only to find Karen, Doug, Tammy and Harlan slowly moving around the kitchen, making breakfast, fitting skins to their skis and packing the sled Harlan was going to use to tow the beer, whisky, and food.  Karen realized they were running "a little late" and decided she would occupy Lou and I with as many PB&J covered pieces of toast as she could.  About an hour later, we were all off to pick up the 7th member of the caravan, Kurt. 

Kurt was a little late getting to the Park and Ride at the bottom of Snowmass, so we finally arrived at the GondOla around 10.  We unloaded all of our stuff in to a big pile, Lou and Doug parked the truck and we boarded the GondOla for a quick trip up Aspen Mountain where our treck would begin. 

It was a georgeous day!  There were no clouds in the sky and it was a comfortable 37 degrees.  Everyone skiied to the hut while Lou and I snowshoed.  About 2 miles of snowshoeing later, I realized it was rediculouse to continue to snowshoe because the snow was packed by all the snowmobiles that had used the trail.  Once I removed the shoes, the route was much easier.  I had also purchased a $10 round sled and used it a few times on the steeper downhill sections.  That was fun!

.......I figured I'd better just post the book I started writing becuase I'll probably never finish it.  After all, it's been 3 weeks.