In December:
Josh and I took and early and abbreviated 10th anniversary trip to Estes Park. Our long-time plan had been to escape for a week on the beach sometime in the spring (our actual anniversary is January 3, 2014), but this impending baby changed those plans.
We decided to take a shorter, closer trip before I got miserably large, so we booked two nights at the Della Terra Mountain Chateau in Estes Park at the beginning of December. Unfortunately, I was pretty uncomfortable already, but it was a nice getaway nonetheless. (Except for the wind. The wind was insane!)
The trip included yummy food, no schedule to follow, our first ever couples' massage, and a lot of relaxing and enjoying each other's company.
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| When we got to the Della Terra, we were greeted by these guys. |
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| Breakfast in bed! |
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| On the chateau bookshelf, I found Mike Mason's The Mystery of Marriage and I loved it! Can't believe I've not read it before. The passage above says, "Marriage is one of the great steps we can take in the direction of choosing for ourselves what has already been given to us. It is a choosing of thecloseness of God, in the form of a close relationship with another person. It is a deliberate choosing of closeness over distance, of companionship over detachment, of relationship over isolation, of love over apathy, of life over death. It is not a choice that comes to us at all naturally. It can come only supernaturally, by the divine agency of love. For love is what makes choice possible. But more than that, it is what makes it possible for people to choose what is good for them, even though that is not their natural inclination." |
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| Here is our big girl with Ms. Clayton, her assistant teacher. |
I love that our church has some fun, interactive events for kids to Celebrate Christmas. This was our second year attending Breakfast in Bethlehem.
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| Making crafts to go along with the Christmas story. |
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| Lorien wearing her Magi crown |
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| Josiah and Lorien with the Christmas story cast. |
Josiah continued his December tradition of cutting his head open (this time on the corner of the coffee table) and getting patched up with a little tissue adhesive.
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| Before the super glue |
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| After the super glue. This kid is really tough! |
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| All dressed up for church the Sunday before Christmas. I guess the bandaid makes a good accessory. |
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| Me at 32 weeks. Sorry baby, I think this is the first official belly shot we've taken. |
On Christmas Eve, the 10 a.m. service is an interactive one for children. They are encouraged to dress up as an angel, a shepherd or a wise man. Costumes are provided outside the sanctuary for those who don't arrive already dressed up. As the related parts of the Christmas story are read, the children are invited to come up on the stage.
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| A little shepherd and a little angel. |
CHRISTMAS MORNING!
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| Lorien got a CD that Mommy used to listen to when she was little. Except back then, it was on vinyl. |
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| Playing Staws and Connectors with Daddy. |
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| Christmas afternoon at Mimi and Papa's house. Here they are opening their train set. |
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| with Uncle Steve |
On Christmas night, Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Mike, Aunt Mandi, Tyler and Kinsey came to visit. The next day (Grandma's birthday), we opened more gifts!
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| Annual ugly Christmas cooke making with the Hacker cousins. |
I was 33 weeks pregnant and Mandi was recovering from surgery, so we didn't get out much, but we DID finally make it to Garden of the Gods, just to give the Midwesterners a little bit of Colorado adventure.
You know you are a family with young children when you spend New Years Eve at the Zoo, return home by 8:30 and are in bed before midnight! The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's Electric Safari was a great way to send the year out!
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