Skiing: 2011-2012

Much to Matt's disappointment, ski season is over. In fact, it's been over for a few weeks. We had a pretty crummy winter and an early spring, which was quite the opposite of the amazing 2010-2011 season. Sadly, there will be no skiing in July this year. But despite the not-so-great conditions, we were still able to get in quite a few days - and even a couple of powder days. Because all ski pictures start to look the same, I thought I'd save them all up for one massive 2011-2012 skiing post.

Matt started the year with a couple of early season A-Basin trips, but I decided to wait for the real snow... or at least slightly better snow. The first couple of weekends together, we went to Keystone. It was still limited terrain and long lines, but the conditions weren't too bad. And we even went night skiing!

Week 1 at Keystone.

While I'm a pretty ok skier now, I still enjoy resting every now and then.

Week 2 at Keystone. Long lines, but pretty views.

My first time night skiing.

Dave, our friend who works with Matt, no longer lives in Colorado, but he had to get a four-pack to use when he came back on business. So when he was in town, we spent a couple of weekends at A-Basin. One of them became the Official Corona Insights (Matt's work) Ski Day... with me tagging along. Luckily, Matt works with pretty cool people, so I didn't mind hanging out with these folks for the day.

The Corona Crew.

Hanging out at the "beach" of A-Basin.

After some skiing, we made our way to another resort - but we left our skis/board in the car. We went to Breck to watch the men's snowboarding half-pipe finals of the Dew Tour. It was pretty cool to be really close to all the crazy tricks. Plus, I got to stand 10 feet away from Shawn White!

All the gear left behind as people stopped skiing and became spectators of the big event.

Half-pipe! And Todd's fist??

We had a little big of a hard time keeping our footing on the slip hill, but seeing Shawn White's HUGE air right in front of us made it worth it.

Since we didn't have our skis with us, we had to find a more creative way to make it back down the mountain. Meredith and I slid... kind of. It was really more like falling, skidding one foot, and stopping. But fun, nonetheless!

Whee!

Keystone was pretty much our destination of choice this year, and we went there more than any other resort. We were able to have a lot more fun there because I'm finally comfortable enough to explore the back side. Woohoo!

The side of Keystone I hadn't seen before.

Being awesome at Keystone.

It's very pretty on the back side.

While we were able to have some pretty good ski days, it wasn't until we went to Idaho in February that we got our first powder day of the season. We went up to Pullman, Washington to visit Dave and Katie in their new home (more about that trip in another post), and Dave had to take us to his local ski resort. It was pretty small, but had some cool areas. Matt loved this glade, especially because of all the fresh powder:

Enjoying the snow.

Being my first day ever skiing in powder, I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like I was fresh out of ski school all over again, which was quite disappointing. But it's always fun to play in fresh snow, so I just stayed on the greens and enjoyed it.

Matt and I have recently decided that we'd like to ski more of the resorts in Colorado. To start checking some off our list, we made our way to Vail (Matt had been, but I hadn't) and Sol Vista (new for both of us). I LOVED Vail because there was SO much terrain to explore. We could ski the whole day and never do the same run twice. It was awesome.

Skiing Vail.

Pretty pretty.

Sol Vista was pretty much the opposite of Vail. The only have two lifts, and their conditions were pretty bad because it was later in the season. But we went on Matt's birthday, so he got to ski for free!

Lots of dirt visible, but Matt still found a big hill to conquer.

To finish the season, we went to Breck on the last day they were open. While it was nice that it wasn't crowded at all, the snow was pretty slushy. But slushy skiing is better than no skiing, so we enjoyed it while we could.

Last Day at Breck.

So, that's it. An entire season of skiing in one (very long) post. Now that I've shown you all these pictures, I'm sure you wondering how I've progressed over the season. No? Well, I'll tell you anyway. I can now do pretty much any groomed run! Hooray! Steep black hills make me nervous, but I just take my time and I make it down fine. Next, I need to work on bumps and powder. Only five more months until next season!

Winter Randoms

Winter has always been my least favorite season. I'm usually ok with the cold weather as we head into the holidays because it puts me in a cozy mood, but then I pretty much think winter should just end. Since Matt and I started skiing and snowshoeing, I've been able to tolerate the cold months a little more. In fact, skiing and snowshoeing (though mostly skiing) are really the most fun things we do in the winter (see upcoming blog post with ALL our fun skiing pictures for the entire season). But we managed to throw in a couple other mini events over the last few months.

1. We've been pretty big fans of the Discovery show Mythbusters for years, so the thought of seeing Mythbusters Live: Behind the Myths was pretty exciting for us. Of course, we really had no idea what to expect from a live version of a show that usually blows up at least one thing each episode. Sadly, there were no giant explosions during the show, and the whole thing was a little weird...


Basically, the whole thing was just very gimmicky. No real myths were tested and it was mostly demonstrations of basic physics. I imagine the show would be really awesome to most of the kids at my schools, and in fact, there were lots of young'uns there having a blast. What made it a little odd was that it wasn't marketed as a kids' show and they didn't completely buy in to the geared-to-kids idea. Instead, it felt like a weird meld between something for adults and something for children.

But I got to stand two feet away from Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, so that's super cool.

Jamie and Adam doing silly things.

Yay Mythbusters!

It was still a fun night, and we're still completely in love with Mythbusters.

2. There's usually some sort of Super Bowl gathering in my family each year, and it's frequently hosted by us. As usual, I failed at taking pictures of anything other than the food. But it was just another football-watching party, and you know what watching football looks like.

My food was rather delicious, if I do say so myself. It included bacon-wrapped smokies, pretzel bites, jalapeno popper dip, guacamole, corn dog muffins, and brown-butter rice krispie treats. Plus some frozen chicken wings and fruit salad.

Yum.

My husband would hate to hear me say this, but I can't even remember who won the game. I spent most of the time eating and talking. So it was a pretty good day.

3. As I'm sure you've seen on my blog before, my dad is in an Eagles tribute band called The Long Run. We like to get out to see him play every now and then, so a while back we went out to see a show at Nissi's, a restaurant/concert venue. Other family members were there, too, so it was a fun time.

Talking, dancing, and acting crazy.

Dad playing.

4. And finally, it wouldn't be winter without at least a little snowshoeing. Our snow was so bad this year so we didn't get out much, but we managed to get in one good snowshoe up Squaw Mountain.

There it is! We had a little bit of a climb ahead of us.

It was a super windy day, as many of our days have been this year. Because it was a summit hike, there were some points where we were pretty exposed to the giant gusts. It was crazy!

On the hike. Someone lost their car under all the snow!

Pretty views from the top. We somehow managed to not get blown away!

We had a couple of other fun things going on this winter (posts coming soon), but mostly just lots of skiing (that post coming soon, too). And now winter is over. Hooray! Bring on spring!

Christmastime is... Gone (Part, the Second)

After a very short stop home, we were off again. My family rented a house in Estes Park where we gathered for New Year's Weekend. We get to see each other a lot more frequently than Matt's side of the family, but it was still nice to sequester ourselves away for the weekend. And it was awesome that every member of our family was able to be there.

We had our big "Christmas" dinner on New Year's Eve, followed by our gift exchange.

The whole family at dinner.

For presents this year, we did our traditional pooling of money, with each person receiving one gift. But because a lot of the money pot went to renting the house, our gifts were less lavish - which is definitely ok by me! I like giving big gifts, but I also like remembering what Christmas is all about! And the kids got lots of gifts, of course.

Presents!

Though the theme was certainly "Christmas" up to that point, we still had a new year to ring in. The start of 2012 involved lots of football, food, shopping, games, and Christmas Carols.

Happy New Year!

We had to acknowledge a little one's birthday:

I'm sure she was happy to get some attention in all the craziness.

And then we just hung out. We ended the weekend with a rousing game of Telestrations, which was hilarious for those who played and highly obnoxious for those who heard us laughing from the other room. That's a pretty typical situation at Krause gatherings.

Best. Game. Ever.

And so, another Christmas has come and gone...

Christmastime is... Gone (Part, the First)

Christmas? In February? That's craazy!

We had quite the Christmas adventure this year, which led us through three states and to five different gatherings. Our first stop was El Dorado, Kansas on Christmas Eve. For the first time in years, the three Krause boys (my dad and uncles) and their wives were able to gather with my grandparents for Christmas. We felt a little bit like kids crashing the grown-up party since there were no other younguns around, but it was nice to see everyone.

After a beautiful dinner made by my aunt and uncle, we sang some Christmas carols and exchanged a few gifts. While Matt and I just sat and watched while the older generations opened their gifts from their draw-a-name exchange, we participated in the fun of the white elephant. Lots of laughter and fun was had!

On Christmas morning we got up early to make the drive to Bella Vista, Arkansas. Matt's immediate family stayed in a nice lake house so that we could have our own little Christmas before the big family gathering at Oma and Opa's.

At our little lake house.

Most of Matt's extended family was able to get together to celebrate, and we had quite a crowd.

The whole clan.

The few days we spend in Bella Vista were full of lots of visiting, playing games, and eating tons and tons of delicious food.

Too soon, we were off to our next stop: Marshall, Arkansas. This portion of the trip was much more subdued, as it was mostly just sitting and chatting with my other grandparents (and a little time visiting my aunt and uncle).

With Granny and Grandpa.

We felt so fortunate to be able to visit all of our 6 living grandparents over the course of a few days - and so fortunate to have these wonderful people in our lives.

But we had to continue onward - to fun times with good friends. We had a reunion in Ark City with our little group of Matt's best friends from high school and their wives. It was the first time in years that all of us were able to gather at the same time, plus we had the addition of Ruby (John and Anna's little one).

The night began with a giant box of beer:

Dac's mystery box of 24 different beers.

And the night continued with hanging out, watching Birdemic (if you have Netflix, you should go waste 2 hours of you life on this movie), and generally acting ridiculous.

We love getting to see so many people in such a short time, but it's definitely exhausting. We were excited to head home to our own bed for a short time. Then we were off again for more Christmas craziness...