We Found Thomas' Tender

Annie and I took a trip to the Colorado Railroad Museum this weekend to learn about the railroad history of Colorado and the Czech composer, Dvorak. Dvorak possessed a great love for trains and steam engines and so the Museum thought it would be appropriate to have a special exhibit on the composer (many other Denver sites are participating in CzechPoint, a celebration of the Czech culture in Denver).

The first two pictures are of Annie and me in front of two of the locomotives on display. For you train experts out there, you will notice that each of the trains has a tender (a car full of coal), similar to that of many trains from the Island of Sodor.

We had the opportunity to ride in a passenger can that was built in the 1880s. It is from the narrow-gauge railroad called the Chili Line (so called because all the residents along the Souther Colorado to New Mexico route were always drying chilis outside of their homes). The light fixture above our heads is the original light fixture from 1880.

Our last stop was in front of the oldest operating steam locomotive in Colorado (yes, it also has a tender). What a fun afternoon of learning about trains, music, and tenders.

New Hobbies

I have picked up some new hobbies lately.  New year=new hobbies.  The first hobby is being crafty with my little sister Whitney.  This last week we made these cute flowers to wear in our hair or on a jacket.  

 Doesn't she make a great model?

The second hobby is growing and juicing wheat grass.  For Christmas, Santa brought me a wheat grass growing kit and a juicer.

 So, for the last ten days I have been growing wheat grass in my little apartment.  I have never had much of a green thumb, but it is kind of hard to mess up on this stuff.  You can start juicing the grass after it is 6-8 inches tall.  These pictures come from our first day of juicing.  

 The look on Ian's face tells you how good it tastes.  However, if you can get over the grassy aroma, 1/4 a cup of wheat grass juice has the same nutritional value as 2 1/5 pounds of green garden vegetables!  

So, if you want to drink a glass of the wheat grass juice to good health any time, come on over!  

Christmas 2010

Our Christmas season was filled with so many wonderful parties, friends, and family activities.  However, it really feels like Christmas when I hear the Christmas music.  My thoughtful husband miraculously got us tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert the weekend before Christmas to see David Archuletta.  We enjoyed our quick trip to Salt Lake City and as always, the concert was fantastic and we felt lucky to be able to go.    

My whole family except for the Lintons were here in Denver for Christmas!  We all started our week together with a good day of skiing.  This is the whole crew on the top of the mountain.  What a miracle my mom was able to ski with us!  

My siblings.  We missed Jennie and Lindsay!

 My brother-in-law Kris used to be a ski instructor and decided to lead my mom, Ian and I on some fresh powder.  This is a picture of my first attempt to ski powder - I am the black blog in the snow!  However, once we got going it was really fun.

The next day we saw a Christmas Carol in downtown Denver.  

My Grandma Darlene got to come to our house for Christmas!  We loved spending time with her and our other Curtis cousins on Christmas Eve.  For the first time ever we had as many men in the house as women!  Here are the three brother-in-laws. 

 All the siblings with our new Christmas Eve slippers.  

My little brother Nathan set up a double elimination foosball tournament that went all weekend long. It was very intense with hilarious commentary from Brent and full length filming by Nathan.   

 Team BLT won (the Brent Lindsay Team) after a very close championship game against the Kris Twice team (Kristen and Kris).  

We loved spending so much time with family and just enjoying an extended amount of time together when Ian didn't need to travel around the country!  We are looking forward to another great year.