December 2022

In December we participated in a window advent calendar. We were allowed to decorate however we wanted as long as it had our number and celebrated the season. We had number 3, so Oscar picked the Three Wise Men. I had picked up liquid chalk markers meant for glass and windows, and he found an idea on Pinterest then modified it into his own thing. It looked really good!

On December 3rd I took the kids to do Christmas crafts at the Pioneer museum and Oscar and Allison went to our community center's annual daddy/daughter holiday ball. 

Allison didn't think she'd have fun dancing. These videos say otherwise.

Here are the kids jumping on the trampoline on a lovely day. We do get some mighty cold days in the winter here, but we also get these random gorgeous, unseasonably warm days, and we try to take advantage of them whenever they come. 

Cute Kitties! Leela always wants to be in the middle of as many pillows as possible. Nibbler climbed to the top of the mattress when we put it up after mom and dad's visit, yet he's never tried to climb the fence outside. 

In the picture on the right you can see the floor of our newly finished basement. We made a cat space down there for them to use the litter box, so for the first couple of nights we put food and water and a board down there to keep them in the basement so they'd get used to it. 

The next weekend we went to our community center's "Cookies with Santa." I thought it was just meeting Santa and eating cookies, so we showed up for just the last 15 minutes to avoid the crowds. Little did I know they'd also have bounce houses, crafts, and cookie decorating. We'll definitely go earlier next time! They gave us several printed photos for free, but I didn't love the pictures enough to pay $30 a piece for the digital copies.

Later that night we went to the Grinch house, a home about 4 minutes away from us that's always decked out in Grinch decor. Once or twice a month he dresses as the Grinch and poses for pictures.

The Grinch house is close to the Meridian Ranch recreation center, so we went to their Cookies with Santa as well. Theirs was simpler, more along the lines of what I'd been expecting ours to be like. They didn't have professional photography but just took pictures of us with our own cameras. They also had some fun crafts, but they were pretty stingy on cookies. They only allowed one cookie per person, and mine was the size of a chips-a-hoy.

Tyler made my name out of train tracks, then Oscar made his and helped Tyler make his names out of the tracks too.

On December 12th we went to Electric Safari at Cheyenne Mountain zoo. They have incredible giant animal blowups, like this gorilla and a chameleon that changes colors. They're not exactly blowups since they're much more solid looking than the blowups you'd see on someone's lawn. They reminded me more of glowing Chinese lanterns that are also inflated.

Here are the kids on the Carousel and a view of the lights I had through the nearby trees.

We'd picked the kids up from school and come straight to the zoo, so they were a bit hungry and wanted garlic knots from the Grizzly Grill. 

Allison finished up before Tyler did, so I took her around to see more blowups. This hanging sloth just blew my mind.

Here are some lights of salmon swimming upstream and a bear catching them. This is more along the lines of what I was expecting from zoolights based on what I've seen before at Tacoma and Seattle zoos.

Here are some tiger lights and an actual tiger. Several of the nocturnal felines were still awake and active, like the mountain lions. 

Love this giant peacock!

The red eye tree frog on the reptile building was so cool! We went inside to see the snakes and warm up. To our delight the sloths were actually in their exhibit and we got to see one moving across the trees. Every other time I've been here the sloths have been "off exhibit."

Here are some boxing kangaroos, a rhino knocking over a jeep, and Tyler with some alligators.

Lion and meerkat blowups

And we even got to feed the giraffes. I knew they did this during the day, but I hadn't realized we'd be able to do it at night in the giraffe barn too. Oscar had one giraffe eat a piece of lettuce off his head, which made Allison upset. She'd remembered from a previous visit there was a sign posted saying not to do that, which she pointed out to us as we passed by.

We saw a Christmas tree made entirely of lights before going up the chair lift. On our way we ran into our friends the Medina family who were just arriving.

At the top of the lift we found gingerbread village lights and animal train lights.

Here are the  beautiful city views on the way down the chairlift.

Everyone was getting pretty tired by then and wanted to head home, but I insisted we go to the one last area we hadn't been in. I'm glad I did, because we got to see this awesome blowup lemur. 

We participated in a wise men activity in our ward where we were assigned family to bring gifts to and a different family was assigned to us. Ours brought us these gingerbread men to decorate and a candle and hot chocolate. Allison made good use of the candle, just maybe not the way they'd intended us to use it.

While they were decorating the gingerbread men, I went with some friends down to see the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations at the Broadmoor hotel. Here's a big gingerbread car Santa is driving.

Then we walked around the lake and enjoyed the outdoor Christmas lights.

Inside they had a Lego Broadmoor hotel. Outside we saw the fountain had circulating water, but it would freeze into an icicle. 

On Wednesday of the kids 1st week of winter break, we went to Great Wolf Lodge to do their non water park activities. We started off with mini golf, the climbing wall, and Christmas crafts.

They also had some holiday games. Here's pin the nose on the snowman

Tossing rings on reindeer antlers and feeding the snow monster.

We also bought Tyler a wand and let him play some Magicquest. They charged us for the wand but gave us the game for free as a Christmas gift. They'd also given us the mini golf free when we bought admission for the climbing wall. It was a good day to be at Great Wolf Lodge!

Thursday was our coldest day yet with a low of -16 and feels like of much colder due to the -40 degree wind chills. The high that day was -2. We hunkered down and didn't leave the house. The high winds even managed to push snow under the door that leads from our yard into our garage. It was definitely one of those days when we appreciate having an insulated garage (we were a former model home, so our garage was their office before the home was sold). It was still plenty cold out in the garage, but probably no colder than the low 30s.  

On Christmas Eve we went bowling at the Summit Interquest then went out to eat at Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen. I highly recommend watching the video of the kids bowling. They tried so hard! Allison tossing the ball in the other bumpered gutter then slipping to the ground when she went after it is adorably hilarious! 

After eating we drove around seeing Christmas lights on our way back home thanks to a map I'd found of homes in the Springs that really light up. Some even had neat light shows, though my favorite was the house with Santa and Mrs Claus waiting in the driveway and a whole bunch of blowups.

On Christmas morning we had red and green waffles, opened our stockings, and let the kids open a couple small presents before going to church.

Allison was excited by her new Lego owl set from grandma.

We then went to church and opened up the rest of our gifts when we got home. 

In spite of the -16+ degree weather on Thursday. Christmas and the two days after it were really nice. Here's Allison playing in the bath with her new toys from grandma and the kids jumping on the trampoline while Oscar fixed one of the poles.

On the 27th we took the kids to Lost Island Adventure park to do some mini golfing with Christmas lights. We arrived early so the kids could do the outdoor inflatables, but apparently they were done for the season (which they really ought to mention on their website). Allison did the indoor play area, but it's for ages 8 and younger, so Tyler couldn't do it. It really should be height based, not age based, since he's on the shorter side and would have loved it. While she was playing indoors, I took him to the outdoor ninja course, but it was WAY too hard for a complete beginner like him. 

But the mini golf with Christmas lights and decorations was everything I wanted it to be. Allison wanted a little more time in the indoor playground, so Ty and I did one course then she and Oscar joined us for the 2nd.

They decorate like this for Halloween too, but we were never there at night this past October. I'll have to give it a try sometime. 

Allison and I were twinning in our red shirts and jeans that day.

Before going in to Lost Island, we stopped by the new Bricks and Minifigs store. They buy and sell used Legos, so I'd hoped we could find some good used Lego animals, dinosaurs, and minifigs, but their prices were way too high. For example, they had two used Lego carnotauruses for $40 each, but you can buy the set the carnotaurus is from new on Amazon for $35. The only reasonably priced thing we saw was Raya and the Last Dragon. It was brand new and cost less than what it sells for on Amazon. Allison loved it and got right to work putting it together when we got home.