Happy New Year’s Eve, friends! With the near arrival of a new year comes my favorite part of keeping up with this blog: Reminiscing about our adventures from the previous year.

It was a good one, friends. A real good one. Here’s what we got up to 😉

January

I love this blurry photo of the five of us, chillin’ in a hot tub in Iceland the morning before flying back to the states. Rounding out our European holiday adventure (and here!) with a last day in Iceland on Jan. 1, 2024 was the perfect way to start the new year. The rest of January was spent heading to the mountains each Sunday for the girls’ ski lessons (we made an entire weekend out of it here and here!) and reliving my reporter days with a travel event in downtown Denver.

These girls ROCKED their ski lessons this year! Lotte was even riding lifts by herself by the end. (Insert Mom’s terrified face here!)

Drinking booze back at the lodge was a big hit for Mom & Dad during lessons 😉

I loved heading to the Convention Center in downtown Denver for the travel expo. It made me feel like I was young again, traipsing around NYC to report on events for my editors at various mags.

February

The absolute joy of a cousin’s get-together <3

In February I snuck away to New York with the two big girls for a surprise 5th birthday treat for my niece, Rosalie. We all had the best time. The girls got to run wild, stay up late and eat an insane amount of treats. I got to see my little baby twin niece and nephew who are growing up way too quickly, and my sister and I even snuck away one night for dinner/drinks on our own. Amazing.

Someone wasn’t very happy to be leaving …

March

March was a super fun month that included a Fort Collins staycation with one of our faves and … drum roll please … OUR NATIONAL PARKS DRIVE FROM ARVADA TO THE GRAND CANYON!

These girls are super lucky to have you in their lives <3

I blogged about our Grand Canyon road trip adventures from Arvada to Moab here, from Arches National Park to Monument Valley here, from Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon here & from the Grand Canyon to Bryce Canyon —and then on home! — right here.

Horseshoe Bend was a stunning, last-minute addition to the trip!

And Capitol Reef National Park, which turned out to also be such a fun surprise addition!

April

My birthday month arrived so quickly! We started the month off with a bang, heading to Steamboat Springs for a press trip that was truly a delight.

Lotte & Grace had the best time skiing the fun runs on the mountain! Emilia … not so much 😉 We have faith that she will get there!

At the end of April, Chris took Lotte and Grace on his first-ever solo trip with them! They headed back to New York to visit LEGOL AND! Too much fun was had by all.

I’ll never get over this amazing photo 😉

May

I was so lucky to snag the opportunity to grab a girlfriends’ getaway weekend in Breckenridge with some of my neighbors. These ladies are simply the best.

June

June was such a special month for us, as we headed Down Under for the entire month. We started out in Sydney, headed to Canberra, flew to Melbourne, checked out Airlie Beach and Hamilton Island, met friends in Brisbane and then were back in Sydney for a few days before heading home. We even had a couple hours layover in Vancouver on the way home.

What. an. epic. time.

The Vivid light show was on while we were there, and it was so beautiful!

The gang is all here for Auntie Kate’s wedding party <3

An initial Melbourne fam meet-up at Queen Victoria Market.

The Great Ocean Road was so wonderful. All the beaches were gorgeous, but the 12 Apostles were particularly delightful.

Dinner with my Melbourne family was such a highlight <3

We even checked out the fairy penguin parade on Phillip Island!

Beach Baby in the Whitsundays. No biggie 😉

Ready to snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef!

We even got to meet up with my bestie from 2nd grade — and her mom! — when we flew back to Sydney before heading home. So. Amazing!

July & August

We made the most of the rest of our summer after returning from Australia, that’s for sure 😉

We racked up the activities after getting back from Australia — concerts, camps, visitors and lots of swimming topped the list — and before we knew it, we had a 3rd & 1st grader, and little Emilia starting 1/2-day preschool!

The kids loaded up on fun camps, including this one at a horse farm where they got in lots of riding.

Some of our NYC friends came to visit for a week, too, and the kiddos went to Muddy Buddies camp together, which was adorable!

September

In September I took a trip back to New York to see Hamilton with my sister for her birthday, and we went to Mexico as a family on a press trip. It was one for the books.

Taking in the sights the first night I was there.

Spending time alone with my sister was definitely one of the best parts of the trip.

One of my many NYC happy places — Bryant Park.

In mid-September, we took a long-weekend trip to Punta De Mita in Mexico, and I was delightful!

October

We very much made the most of fall in Colorado this year. We went to the mountains a couple of weekends, visited Great Sand Dunes National Park and really just Halloween’d out. It was a delight.

Great Sand Dunes National Park was gorgeous.

November

In November we headed out on our last trip of the year — back to New York to spend Thanksgiving with our friends and family. We had so much fun! We spent time in the city (including seeing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person and checking out the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Lightscape with friends), and upstate, with stops on the Polar Express (oh hey there, Santa!), seeing Wicked the movie and having a lovely holiday. We hope your holiday season was bright, as well!

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Lightscape with our crew.

And that’s a wrap on the year, friends! It was a jolly lovely one, filled with so much friends and family … and travel!

Until 2025 … BIS BALD!

Happy Monday, friends! This past Sunday was the final ski lesson of the season for all three girls. So we decided to stay up in the mountains and make a weekend out of it, like we did for their first lesson. Since we would be leaving right after their lesson on Sunday, it made sense to stay closer to A-Basin, rather than halfway between our house and the mountain like we did before.

We picked this Airbnb in Dillon. Although it’s less than 20 minutes to get to the mountain from the Airbnb in normal traffic, a big storm blew in on Saturday (we were staying for the weekend, so of course it did), and the mountain traffic was heavy. It ended up taking us about 45 minutes to get there on Sunday. Still, we were so grateful we didn’t have to drive all the way from Arvada, which would have been a nightmare. Mountain traffic. It’s a thing 😉

The Airbnb was the perfect size for us, and we had outdoor access to a little backyard that the girls played in for a bit while we finished packing up to leave on Sunday.

This snowman was there when we arrived. The girls had a lot of fun “fixing” him up.

Look, I’m not going to lie. It’s not always fun and games when we go away with the girls. There is always a lot of bickering, a certain level of who will sleep with whom, who’s waking up in the middle of the night (Emilia) and requiring one of us to sleep with them, etc., etc. BUT, at the end of the day, we will always come out the other side with only the fondest of memories. Everything else tends to … fade away 😉

On Saturday a fairly hectic snowstorm blew in, but we knew if we didn’t get out of the house we would all go crazy. Chris had been snow tubing with visiting family at Frisco Adventure Park a few years prior, and he knew the girls would love it. The short 20-minute (less when it wasn’t storming out!) drive away was also appealing.

I’ll be honest — I had my doubts! It was freezing and windy and I didn’t know how long the girls would last. And at $32/hour/person, I didn’t want to waste that kind of money on one run.

My girls, as usual, surprised me. And although yes, there was some complaining about the wind/cold (who could blame them?!), they did great. Even Emilia! All three of them loved it. Lotte even went by herself once, because apparently I have a daredevil on my hands.

Dad did a lot of heavy lifting on this particular adventure 😉 Getting to the runway to head up the tubing hill was only a short walk, but doing that short walk through inches of snow with teeny, tiny legs proved burdensome for some.

Emilia was so confused, but she had the best time!

Thanks for a fun time, Frisco! We’ll definitely be back … perhaps when the weather is a bit more balmy 😉

The thing that I love about the mountains is that you go hard on all these activities — skiing, snowboarding, tubing, what have you — and then you crash hard. We all ended up taking naps at the same time after we had lunch when we got home. I mean … AMAZING. That never happens.

Sunday was the girls’ last ski lesson of the season, and Chris and I hung back and had a leisurely, boozy (for me, the non-driver, at least) breakfast at the restaurant. It was so wonderful. Even if the girls learned nothing in their lessons — which they did! — having that non-kid time for four Sundays in a row would have been worth the price tag alone 😉

By Sunday the snow had stopped and the temps warmed up, making for a seriously gorgeous drive!

The cutest little skiers! Em did more snow-eating than actual skiing, but that’s okay! She got used to having skis on and she’ll be even more prepared next go-round. Grace did amazing and is ready to move on up to hill riding, too!

This one, though … holy moly! She’s riding lifts by herself, flinging herself expertly down blues. She really came a long way this season. Even her instructor said it seems to have all clicked <3

Thanks for an amazing time, A-basin! We’ll be back!

That was our mountain weekend in a nutshell, friends! Now that the girls are finished with their lessons, we can go up to the mountains and ride with them whenever we want, which will be so. much. fun! Hope you guys are making the most of the season, whatever weather that brings you 😉

Bis bald, all!