Steamboat - December 23 - 25

Tuesday, December 23

Today was a fun day. We spent the morning eating breakfast and we went to the gym. In the afternoon, we went downtown to Howelsen Ice Arena to ice skate for an hour. After skating, Grant and I went to dinner at Cypress, a newer restaurant with a southern flair.  We went for Happy Hour and shared an order of deviled eggs, hot honey brussel sprouts, a chopped chicken salad, and the Cypress burger. The meat in this burger was amazingly delicious, and the pimento cheese was perfect. Meanwhile, Geoffrey and Katelyn went to Beau-Jo's for a mountain pie pizza. We finished dinner at the same time so we took the bus back home together. We went in the jacuzzi and then played some board games to round out our evening!

Wednesday, December 24

Happy Christmas Eve! Today we went skiing again! the temperatures continue to be fairly warm - 45 - 50 degrees during the day. Therfore, the conditions on the mountain haven't really improved and there is still very little opened. We started today taking the Steamboat Gondola up to Thunderhead so we could check out the runs that were open on the other side of the mountain. Unfortunately, there really was not much - just one series of runs, all blues. Rudy's Run was pretty nice, but Lightning was rubbish - crowded, icy, slushy, and bumpy, but Ego was smooth. We took Storm Peak (lift) up top to do the upper Buddy's Run, which was a really nice run. Unfortunately, only the upper part of the run was open. From there, the route was directed onto Calf Roper to 4 Points Lodge, and onto Rainbow and the small, small portion of Why Not that connects back to Lightning again.... Those are the only runs open on this side, making some parts crowded on the sketchier parts. 

We did this twice, and then decided to head back to the Sunshine peak side. Highline was open, so we could ski over to there from the top of Storm Peak. Over on Sunshine, we did Tomahawk (my favorite run) and High Noon a few times, taking a little break at Rendezvous lodge in the middle. When it closed, we took the Wild Blue gondola back down to the base. 

Back at the condo, we took a soak in the jacuzzi. We had Christmas Eve dinner - turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, crusted broccoli, and Hawaiian rolls. YUM! Then we played a few games together (with the kids!) including Carcassonne, Anomia, and Flip 7. Then we watched Home Alone, as is our tradition on Christmas Eve! 

Thursday, December 25

We had a wonderful, cozy Christmas! Grant and I woke up before the kids.... wow, never thought that would happen! Outside was gloomy and there was some precipitation.... unfortunately, it was more of a slushy rain since it still was around 45 degrees.  We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and then opened presents.... it seems Santa made his way to Steamboat again! 

After presents, we played more games... Katelyn and Geoffrey joined us for a game of Tapple and Codenames, and then Grant and I played Castles of Burgundy. Next, Katelyn and I baked cookies - We made peanut butter, peanut butter chocolate chip, peanut butter and jelly, gingersnaps, oatmeal chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisen. They all turned out so good and now we plenty of cookies to get us through winter break! Lol! We went back to the jacuzzi for awhile and then came back to watch a Jonas Brothers Christmas - which was a fun movie! 

We hope you all had a wonderful day!