Welcome to 2026, friends, and welcome to February! I hope you have incredible adventures planned, lots of time for relaxation, plenty of opportunities to hang with loved ones, and a realization that you’re incredible just the way you are.
Sorry. Feeling my feelings, guys. Let a girl live 😉
Anyway, my little family spent our entire January livin’ that mountain life. Chris and I decided to enroll all three girls in full-day ski lessons in Winter Park every Saturday in January and it was incredible. Not only did the girls’ skills improve drastically, but Chris and I had SIX HOURS every Saturday in January to be by ourselves.
Life changing.
Not only that, but Winter Park is also the sweetest little spot. It’s only a little over an hour from where we live, the base is full is fun shops and restaurants, and the girls pretty much got to know (and love) the mountain like the back of their hands.
Time (and money … sheesh, the money) well spent.
Bis bald, friends!
Dry January, anyone?The mountains are also the perfect place for a little self care.Self-care includes hot tub time, of course!These girls have gotten so good! Grace even unlocked her hidden talent — skiing backwards 😉On our second weekend we stayed at a ski-in-ski-out condo that was super close to the mountain. This was the most fun, even if ski-in-ski-out is a bit of a misnomer because you often have to be a pretty good skier to get down the runs that get you to your home. Emilia couldn’t have done it, but it was fun for the rest of us when we got the chance.This girl served up some real looks in the month of Jan 😉Snowman — Emilia’s beloved stuffie that used to be my mom’s — has seen some real adventures.Emilia truly fell in love with skiing on that second round of lessons and she was so good!My whole crew <3<3<3<3 … minus me. Hah.The girls actually didn’t have ski lessons on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, buttttttt … we didn’t know that. Wah wahhh. So, back we were! Emilia actually took a bit of a scary fall at the bottom of this run (and ended with a nice shiner to show for it). It was the wake-up call we needed to realize that although she’s getting better and is totally fearless, she is brand new. My brave girl was back at it the following day, but on easier runs where she could practice speed control and pizza stops!I didn’t mind the easier runs to hang with these ladies (who are WAY faster than me on anything thing else we do).It was a delightful weekend, despite the head injury. I think the whole no-snow and fear of crowds thing kept the crowds away. The mountain was EMPTY and it was a delight!On our fourth and final weekend stay, our VRBO had a VCR player. WHAT?! Despite the fact that we can – and do — watch all the movies that they had on demand, the allure of popping in a CD, watching the trailers, and hitting “Play” or “Scene Selection” was such a treat.Just a couple of parents with kids in ski school! (Despite how freezing we look in this picture, the temps actually weren’t that bad, and the fresh snow was very welcome. It’s been a DRY season out here, friends …)Ending a full ski day with a mocktail and a hot tub soak is always a good idea.We’ve become big fans of stopping at a little hole-in-the-wall donut and coffee shop in Georgetown on the way home. Their donuts are truly the definition of delicious. I had a book event on the final Saturday of ski lessons, but the girls finished out strong, and Chris used his solo time to take a tour of the mountain with a guide. (It’s free!)
It was a long, long January, friends, but spending every weekend in the mountains certainly helped keep it entertaining and gave us something to look forward to.
Now … we’ll be taking February off! So until our next trip … bis bald, friends!
I know — we all end up saying the same thing every year. The time flies, and suddenly your kids are so old you can’t believe it. It always amazes me.
Anyway, I digress. The REAL news to report this week is that WE FINALLY GOT TO SEE OUR AUSSIE NAN AND POPPA! After far too many years of Covid-induced distance, Chris’ parents were at last able to hop on a plane and fly back to see us. Lotte & Grace had not seen their grandparents since October of 2019, and Emilia had never met them. So to say that this was a monumental event for everyone is an understatement.
The Connor’s trip coincided with the girls’ spring break, which was lovely because we were able to spend a week in Winter Park together, as well as have them experience taking the girls to and picking them up from school.
In other words, we’ve simply had the most amazing time and I refuse to believe that it will be ending soon. Our plan is to head out to Australia for Christmas this year to catch up with all of our Connor family, so we’re all very busy keeping our fingers and toes crossed that that can still happen.
In the meantime, we have no less than 20,000 photos to keep on loop from our time over the past two weeks.
All the happy faces <3This little one has thoroughly fallen for her grandparentsChris and his dad cooked a yummy traditional Australian bread for dinner one nightNan & Poppa bought us ice creams in the park BEFORE dinner one night — doesn’t get better than that 😉Lotte had two ski lessons while her grandparents were here, one of which they attended and cheered her on throughoutPizza tasting at Crosscut in Nederland before skiing in Eldora was a highlight, as well
Besides having Nan & Poppa here to just live our lives with us for the past two weeks, the trip out to Winter Park was so much much. We stayed at this Airbnb, which was the perfect location for viewing the best times to visit the hot tub and swimming pool (a favorite activity amongst our group), and it was a short walk to the sweetest little sledding hill with community sleds to share. The girls also had an absolute blast hanging out in the bunk beds together.
Our itinerary included a visit to Grand Lake, as well, which was one of our stops on our first-ever vacation as a family of five last year. Chris cooked delicious food, we played games, explored a new-to-us ski town, and generally had a delightful little getaway.
Grand Lake is so much fun in the winter!Chris and I snuck away for lunch and margaritas at The Ditch, which was SO TASTY
You might imagine that two visitors from Australia would be exhausted after all of the above, but that’s just not how my in-laws roll. They are up for absolutely any and everything, and they are happy to do as many activities as possible when visiting their grandkids. So, we thought taking them to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science would be a fun activity for the girls’ last day of spring break. This place is so fantastic for kids, since it’s created for them to be able to run around and touch whatever they’d like. We had the best day, followed by a lovely dinner at Jack’s, one of our favorite neighorhood joints.
Dinners out with three kids is SO MUCH BETTER with grandparents 😉
And now we’re staring down the final few days of our visit with these lovely people which, to be honest, we’re all a bit in denial about. Seeing family is always the best thing in the world. Saying goodbye … not so much. To have something to look forward to — like our trip in December — does help soften the blow, I’ve found.
I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your spring season. Until next time … bis bald!
Oh hi there, friends … remember me?! If you don’t, I am not offended. My last post on this website was September 1, 2020, but even then, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to report. Sure, the past year has been pretty busy — we had a baby, Chris started a new job and became a U.S. citizen (he has dual Australia/U.S. citizenship now … wahoo!), we both tried to hold on to some semblance of our careers while watching two children from home full-time. However, because of the pandemic, there was also a heck of a lot of nothing that happened. My trip back to New York with Lotte in February of 2020 was my last flight, and Chris’s trip back to Australia in February was his. Those were the last times that we saw our family, as well. If only we could have known what was coming … am I right?
Anyway, it’s been a rough 12+ months for everyone, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, my friends. Although Chris and I haven’t been able to get vaccinated yet, just knowing it’s right around the corner — and seeing the numbers drop from the people who have been vaccinated already — is such a joy. So, with all of that in mind, Chris and I decided to pack up the car with our brand new family of five, and to head out on a vacation that was as safe as it could possibly be. Rather than taking a super-long car ride, we opted to head into the mountains, to one of the spots that we’ve loved in the past: Granby Ranch. We stayed at a little Airbnb in the Blue Sky Trail area, which was the perfect location for skiing (the older two girls got their first lessons!), as well as quickly getting to a beautiful hike in Rocky Mountain National Park and checking out the most adorable Grand Lake area, which had the cutest little town and, as you might have guessed, a very grand lake 😉 The lake was frozen, so we were able to walk out on it, which I think the girls found to be pretty fun.
Grace is never happier than when she’s running into wide, open spaces!
Before I get into the fun parts of the trip, and the amazing pictures (because, Colorado), let me just say … Chris and I were pretty surprised at the level of difficulty this trip reached. We’ve traveled with a 3-year-old before, but every 3-year-old is different and, if I can just say, our current 3-year-old can be quite sassy, to put it delicately. When we were out and about exploring, everything was pretty great for the most part, but when we were back in the cabin, things tended to get a bit hairy. To be fair, thanks to the pandemic, Grace probably doesn’t even remember the trips that she has been on in the past, so she’s not used to being on an extended adventure. I was looking back at pictures of her last trip, and wow she was so little! Chris and I kept reminding ourselves that this, right now, with a 4.5 and 3-year-old and a six-month-old, will likely be the hardest it’ll be for us in terms of traveling. At the end of the day, the minute you get home, the stressful moments tend to either fade away or become funny memories, so it’s almost always worth it, or at least it has been so far, in our experience.
What about you guys? Any other readers out there traveling with littles? Care to share any tips and tricks to make it magically easier?!
While I wait for that advice to roll in, here’s a look at our trip in pictures ….
Lotte, Emilia and Grace, ready to hit the road!Chris, Lotte and Grace, adventuring out on the lake.Okay, so maybe we didn’t actually make this snowman – hah! But we did enjoy posing with him!Just a couple of ladies on the ice … cue the Frozen soundtrack 😉We wrangled the kids to take a quick selfie when we got out on the lake in Grand Lake.Grace might seem uninterested, but I’m happy to have gotten this shot of the three of us in front of the lake.Lotte, Grace & Emilia cuddled up on our couch in the cabin.We stopped for lunch at the top of our hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. The terrain was icy in spots, but I’m glad we stuck with it!Anyone else have a trick to get a sassy 3-year-old to smile for pictures?!We were honestly very impressed with both of the big girls on this hike … they took it like champs! Lotte even walked the whole thing — about a mile — by herself.This gorgeous view was a short but steep hike about three minutes from our cabin in Granby Ranch.It was windy and freezing at the top of the hill, but we just had to stop for a quick family selfie!Lotte and Grace had their first ski lessons on this trip, and I was honestly so proud of both of them! Lotte especially loved it, and I think Grace will come to love it more with time, as well.They look a little weathered here because this was after their lessons … but I HAD to get a pic of the two of them with their adorable little set of skis! If we offer the girls hot chocolate after every ski lessons, I’m pretty sure they’ll always be happy to oblige 😉
And that, my friends, was our little trip in a nutshell. We packed a lot in, while still trying to be as socially distanced and as safe as we could. I’m glad that we were able to get away, for however short of an amount of time. We were all so happy to be back home, even though we’ve spent pretty much every day here for the past year, which was a nice feeling. Now, with some more trips planned for the summer, it’s starting to feel like things are getting back to normal, and we are HERE. FOR. THAT. Hope you guys are all finding some moments of happiness amidst this craziness and, until next time … BIS BALD!
Holy cow tomorrow is New Year’s Eve.
Holy cow tomorrow is the very last day in 2013.
Holy cow as of tomorrow Chris and I will have been married for one. whole. year!
Just … that’s a whole lotta holy cows!
So Chris and I had a lovely, action-packed holiday week last week, and the fun will continue this week with some anniversary activities. But last week …. let’s see. We spent Christmas eve into Christmas morning in New Jersey with family, then hopped to upstate New York to spend the rest of Christmas with my mom and stepdad, and drove the day after Christmas to meet up with my aunt, uncle, two cousins and cousin’s boyfriend for a little extra Christmas celebrating in Stowe, Vermont. My aunt had booked the place for us as our Christmas gift, and we stayed in a Stoneybrook cabin with a fireplace, huge kitchen and gorgeous views.
^^ The view from the back porch of our bedroom on Friday morning, after it had snowed all night.
My sister and her boyfriend, my uncle and Chris and I were excited to head up to the mountain to ski/snowboard. I would be taking another snowboarding lesson (I think after this time I finally got it down!), while the others went off and did their “we’re already good at this” thing.
Unfortunately we arrived too late on Friday for me to catch the lesson. (Word to the wise for any of you snow bunnies who might want to take a lesson at Stowe — they start at 10 a.m. on Fridays — maybe every day but I can’t say for sure — and they go for an hour and a half in the morning, then break and meet up again at 1 for another hour. And they’re expensive! With my gear rental and the group lesson, I ended up paying around $230. Ouch … but worth it!)
Anyway, since I wouldn’t be snowboarding on Friday, I did this instead:
^^Found the bar …
^^Had an extremely delicious Bloody Mary while I waited for everyone to meet me for lunch.
Saturday was different, though, my friends — Saturday I actually took a lesson! And let me tell you — by the end of it I wasn’t half bad 😉 It ended up being a private lesson when no one else showed up for the class, so that’s always a good thing.
Of course I never left the beginner’s hill but hey — I need to leave something to aspire to, right?
Saturday night we headed into town to the Vermont Ale House, which had awesome beers, amazing music and tables made of chalkboard so you could draw on them. It was pretty much the best.
We left yesterday to make the drive back to the city (in a snow and rainstorm, no less!), but Chris still got in a half day of snowboarding, I took a hike with my uncle and cousin’s boyfriend on the trails right near our cabin and Steph and I checked out a bit of the town.
I think it’s safe to say Stowe was a major success, and that we’d all love more than anything to make this trip an annual thing.
Bis bald, friends! I seriously cannot believe that tomorrow will be my lost blog of 2013. Time really does fly when you’re having fun …
This past weekend Chris, Steph and I took a trip upstate to my aunt and uncles for what has become an annual ski/snowboard adventure. Last year I didn’t head over to the hill (otherwise known as Mountain Creek), but this year I decided to try my luck at snowboarding. Unfortunately for Steph, Chris, and my uncle, they are all a lot better than I am, so I may have slowed them down a bit. But it was still a great time. I even took a lesson, which I highly recommend for anyone trying to learn how to snowboard or ski. It was my second lesson, and even though I hardly ever get out there to snowboard, I finally do feel like I’m starting to pick it up.
Thanks to Auntie M for having delicious food ready for us when we came home
Bis bald, friends! And be careful out there on all your own ski and snowboarding adventures!
