When the World Gives You Lemons...

This post was originally going to be about a wonderful weekend of skiing and relaxing in Park City, but instead turned into a post about the generosity of random people.

As soon as we arrived in Park City, we rented our skis and headed to our hotel to pick up our lift tickets (free skiing at Deer Valley; shoot us a note if you want to know how to score this deal) and change into our ski clothes. To our great dismay, we found that I had grabbed the wrong bag off of the plane and we were in possession of a Southwest Airlines flight attendant's suitcase. Instead of snowpants and gloves, we had shaving cream and the Southwest Flight Attendant Manual. When I called the flight attendant's cell phone, he was extremely forgiving, told me to enjoy my vacation, and mentioned that he wouldn't need his bag until the following day.

Trying to make the best of the situation, we decided to ski in what we were wearing. Both of us had only a pair of jeans, wool socks, a beannie, and a fleece (luckily Annie had a pair of glove liners as well). Before we hit the slopes, one of the hotel staff donated a pair of gloves to my cause and while on the mountain, a ramdom camera man gave me another fleece. Annie ended up with a neck gaiter and a pair of gloves to keep her warm. While we were far from the winning the best-dressed couple at Deer Valley and definitely had the best story for all of the Deer Valley staff, we were warm enough and enjoyed a great day of skiing.

This weekend a number of ski competitions were being held at Park City, including the Skier Cross World Championships. It was an incredible site seeing four skiers race down the course and battle for the glory of being crowned the champion.

After warming up in the hotel we had some friends and family join us for the next skiing event, the freestyle aerials competition. We saw a perfect score on a lay, triple full, full (translation: a full-laid out flip, a flip with three twists, and a flip with one twist) which turned out to be the winning jump. Nick and Jordan Olsen (cousins), Brent and Kristen Ludwig (Annie's sister and her husband), Alana, Eileen Heng (Alana's friend) and Heather Balli (a former roommate of Annie's) enjoyed dinner, the aerials competition and some hot chocolate with us.

Overall, it was a fantastic weekend. Yes, we did receive our luggage (back in Denver) and yes, the flight attendant did receive his luggage (in Ontario). I have always been told by my mother that when the world gives you lemons, just make lemonade. Little did I know that it would be some random strangers that provided the much needed sugar to make this weekend as sweet as it was.

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.  

A Rocky Mountain Weekend

Some of the Finlays came out to Colorado this past weekend to spend some time in the Rocky Mountains.  We went downtown for a dinner of Crepes, to ice skate, and to watch the parade of lights.

On Saturday, we drove up to Georgetown and walked around the Christmas market there.  We also rode the Georgetown train which Gavin, our nephew couldn't get enough of!  Here we are with Santa in front of the train.

Isn't the scenery spectacular!

We went to Ian's work party a few days ago at Invesco Field and took these pictures.  Ian in the media room.

 On the field.  What a cool experience to look up at all the stands.  We learned that the chair that makes the eye in the bronco in back of us is the only chair brought over from the old stadium and is a very coveted seat in the stadium.

Thanksgiving In Los Angeles

This year we spent Thanksgiving with the Finlays in California.  The whole family started the day off with our own Turkey Trot down the bike path.  Here is the whole crew after the race.

Alana and Ian with the turkeys. 

We started off black Friday by shopping all the great deals at the dollar store!  Actually, we had gift cards from our wedding to the dollar store in CA that we still needed to cash in, so we stocked up on A LOT of travel sized toothpaste for Ian.  Why not?  The rest of the day we spent hiking the Hollywood Hills and looking at stars at the observatory.

 A classic Finlay family jumping picture.

I am sorry I didn't take more pictures of the weekend but we had a great time in sunny California!

A Weekend in Ohio

This last week Ian had training for work in Ohio so I flew in later in the week and met him there.  On Friday I drove down by myself to Kirtland, Ohio and saw some sights that are important to our church's history.  Then we drove to Akron, Ohio and spent the weekend with his Grandparents.  We had such a great time!

Saturday we spent touring Amish country.  Our first stop was the biggest hardware store I have ever seen called Lehman's.

Inside I found my favorite pear tool which looks like this.  I have been searching every kitchen store I could think of to find this and finally found it here!  

Our next stop was the Ashery Country Store where they had spices for really cheap!  We walked out of there 30 minutes later with a bag full of spices.

We made our rounds to the Guggisberg cheese factory and Der Dutchman for a home cooked dinner of baked chicken and potatoes. 

We are looking forward to our next trip to Amish country when we can buy some wood furniture.