While I am very excited to usher in 2020 and all of the new possibilities a new year brings, I cannot leave 2019 without saying how much I adore Christmas and all of the holiday joy it brings. Our holiday season has been very merry and I am leaving 2019 very happy.
I ended the year of healing from my foot with another season of recovering from Mono, and yet what a gift rest brings. It wasn't my plan, but I have been able to embrace it and truly have had one of the most lovely holiday seasons. Do you know how wonderful it is to wake up and sit on the couch for hours just reading? Its a gift......and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have fallen in love with Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books and find myself in the middle of a her 3rd installment. A 900 page behemoth it gave me all the excuses I needed to just sit and read.
We spent our week up in the Vernon forest with Memaw and Papa. One of the things Mom and I wanted to do this year was something for others. Mom organized a caroling adventure to 2 different assisted living homes. While we were originally supposed to have a whole community crew it ended up just being our family and it was such a lovely experience. It is so important to spend time with the elderly and we sang songs and brought them candy cane reindeer. I hope it can be a tradition for us and look forward to continuing the experience.
On Christmas Eve we went Skiing! Oh how we all love to ski, and the girls were up bright and early to get packed and headed to Sunrise!
It snowed all day up at Sunrise and it was truly a winder wonderland. It took Evie a bit to get her legs under her again, but Lily was a pro in short order.
Papa held the lodge down and the 5 of us had a blast cruising around the mountain. Because of the storm there were very few people there and the slopes were wide open!
One of the most incredible experiences happened when Bob, Memaw, and I went to the backside of the mountain and skiied where literally NO ONE else was. I mean we quite literally had the entire mountain to ourselves, carving fresh powder, and having a once in a lifetime experience. It was amazing and we stayed until closing time. What a great day for all of us!
I honestly took 1 photo all of Christmas day because being in the moment is one of the best things you can be. I have fallen more and more in love with yoga and this professional mat has been on my wish list for a long time. I cannot wait to tackle my handstands for 2020! My other favorite moment was when I successfully got Bob back for his "Listen to Bob" shirt on my birthday. Marriage is fun.
Santa came in full force up in the mountains and we had a lovely time opening all of our presents and spending time together. We watched The Star, and spent all day reading, playing, and watching movies. Well all of that and eating turtles!
The day after Christmas was beautiful, and snow was in the forecast, so we decided to get out and ride horses!
When we got done riding the ponies, Evie and I sat in the barn to try to catch a kitty. These 3 little kitties are skittish and shy so it has taken a while for me to capture them on my camera, but I did it, and Simba, Nala, and Sirabi are just so cute!
Bob, Papa, and I also moved over 170 bales of hay! I turned it into a game to see how many bales I could safely tetris in the truck. Our numbers improved from 16 to 30 by the end of the job! I won't lie, I felt pretty accomplished. The three of us had a lot of fun and laughed a lot.
The last couple of days we had SNOW, and the girls just LOVED it!
We attempted to make a big snow man, but ended up finishing a BB-8. Its a Star Wars Thing.
We even managed to find an awesome sledding hill up in the national forest and spent the better part of an hour having a ball on the slope!
Evie and daddy had a BLAST trying to go as high as possible without running into logs or rocks.
Ellie, of course, was in heaven for the week running absolutely free and without restraint. She is a Husky through and through. Snow is her playground and she can stay out in it all day long.
Between my Mono and foot injury, I find myself less than excited about going pell mell down a hill on a sled, but I found my way down the mountain a couple times. It was a blast!
What great time we all had. We finished our time up in the mountains by going to see the New Jumanji: The Next Level movie.
On the Saturday following Christmas it was time for us to journey home. With snow in the forecast we left in the morning and managed to get ourselves to Forest Lakes before the weather and road conditions turned terrible.
FUNNY STORY: We had very little gas in our super efficient vehicle when we left Memaw's and the plan was to stop in Show Low. Well, Show Low came and went and Bob made the call not to stop. Under normal conditions the range of our current gas was more than enough to make it to Payson. Well.....then we hit terrible weather and road conditions which absolutely trounced our efficiency and all of the sudden we were actually considering what was going to happen if we ran out of gas. Best thing about our marriage is that we were seriously giggling at the circumstances and playing the game of distance left vs. current fuel economy. At one point in time the gas station was 24 miles away and we had 25 miles of range. Bob went into hyper efficiency mode and we decided to keep going.....get out of the heavy snow and if worst came to worse......we both can run.....a long way. So all good.
I am happy to announce that we made it with 5 miles of range left in the tank. Bob and I high fived each other and filed it away as a great adventure. Too funny.
We got to Payson and as we reentered the desert we looked off and saw the most gorgeous of landscapes. Arizona is truly a spectacular state. I mean seriously where else can you, within 2 hours, go from 3 feet of blizzard conditions to slow-less desert? AND then see where the switch is? Gorgeous.
Our holidays were truly very merry, and such a special time of rest, refuel, and re connection.
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