Final Post of 2016

As has become the tradition, the final post of 2016 has Bode's school picture.  This year, we get a treat and also have his soccer picture.  It's always fun to look back on the years and see how Bode has changed, but also how much his features have remained.

2016 was a decent year.  I'm still a bit down because we lost Harley, but I guess you have to play the ball life serves you.  Sometimes you'll do great, and sometimes that ball will smack you in the man-parts and leave you crying.  However, it is always a great year when it ends and Ashley and Bode (and Joey) still put up with all my idiosyncrasies.  We are looking forward to an amazing 2017 and some exciting adventures.

Happy New Year to All!

Albuquerque

We spent the week after Christmas in Albuquerque, visiting my brother and his family.  It was a wonderful visit.  The first night, we belatedly opened our Christmas presents, and also had a mini-snowball fight with fake snowballs.  Quite the occasion :-)

Bode, as usual, loaded up on too many gifts and remains the most spoiled kid in America.  He also spent some great quality time wiht his cousins.

We spent the days doing various activities--the Main Event, which is a big arcade, and we also tried our hand at an Albuquerque Escape Room.  Sadly, we didn't escape in the allotted time--we needed about another two minutes.

We also played some cards, which is always entertaining.  We tried our luck at spoons, BS, and Uno.  I managed to get this (poor quality) visit of one of the spoons hands.

And, of course, the kids got in their fair share of video games.

We had a wonderful visit, and are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new year :-)

Christmas 2016

Christmas has come and gone, and we had another grand time.  We spent Christmas Eve together, going to the gym, swimming, and lunch at the Waffle House (yes, really).  We lounged around the house last night, watched some football, and relaxed.  We also kept track of Santa's progress on the Santa tracker.  Around 9, we snuggled up into bed, but we left the tree lights on and cookies out.

We sort of slept in, with Joey rousing us at 7:30 or so.  We then proceeded to the cornucopia and dove into the mass of presents...but we did take a picture of Bode before starting.

Here are some action photos of us opening various gifts.

We all hauled in some great loot, and spent the better part of the morning trying things on, adding batteries to games, and just (again) relaxing.  After lunch, we headed up to Dave and Jennie's for Christmas dinner.  JoAnne and Frank were there, as was Larry (Jennie's father), Jason, Olevia, Teddy, and Charlie.  The prime rib was amazing, as was the gravy.  Ashley chipped in and made a cherry pie.  And the icing on the cake (pie) had to have been the Steeler victory over the dreaded Ravens (the Donkos didn't win...sad).  We also opened gifts, which was the highlight of the day (other than that tasty gravy).

I also got a nice picture with "Santa."

 And, of course, a double-selfie with my wife, who must always wear something Auburn-related.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a (WarEagle!) goodnight :-)

Camping Part 2

We stayed up in Breckenridge until the 23rd of December.  We skied a bunch, and Bode spent a day in ski-school.  I can't believe how good of a skier he is.  We skied on Thursday, and were thrilled (again) by the lack of people (although today it was starting to pick up in town, which was our cue to leave).  Thursday was such a great day.  Thus sun wasn't out, which might make you think it was cold; it was not.  Plus, there wasn't a hint of wind.  We got there right as the lifts started, and headed up the Mercury lift to warm up.

We did a few runs, but Bode complained they weren't "blacks," so we headed over to the Peak 8 superconnect.  We again paused for a quick photo.

Bode's new favorite run is a black diamond called Shock, which is steep and bumpy.  I don't want to exaggerate and say he whips down this type of run.  He does your typical "learning how to do bumps" thing, where he skies in and around the big bumps, and is quite cautious while doing so.  Still, it's amazing he's doing these types of runs.  We even went up Chair 6 a number of times, and he's really keeping up with Ashley on the way down.  Here's a nice shot of me and my little guy.

We skied until 1130, which is when more people started to show.  Ashley was extremely upset when she checked her vertical feel count on the Epic website.  We all skied exactly the same runs, but my pass registered 9,500 vertical feet, while Ashley's showed 5,500 (Bode's showed 8,900).  She has sent a strongly worded email to the Epic folks demanding they remedy the situation :-)  We all had a great start to the ski season, with everyone already over 30,000 vertical feet.

Ashley's parents (JoAnne and Frank), her brother, Jason, and his wife, Olevia, and her other brother David, and Teddy and Charlie all came up to Breck.  We had a couple nights together at our place, visiting, eating, and staying warm by the fire (although many complained the fire was too hot).  Here are some basic photos.

Today we slept in (sort of--Joey always wakes up early), and headed over to Frisco to go tubing.  It was such a beautiful day--almost too hot for the mountains.  We had a stranger take a large family picture, which was pretty cool--I think this is the first time in awhile all the Rankin children and grandchildren have been together for a photo.

We tubed for an hour, and I managed to take some shots.  First, here's Ashley on the "lift" and then before her run.

Next we have Bode, Teddy, Charlie, and Dave getting ready for a 4-banger.

The three kiddos wanted to do one on their own.  They were successful in that no one fell off :-)

We had a wonderful stay in Blue River.  The weather could not have been nicer (well, maybe more snow, but being warm while skiing is a big bonus).  I'm sure Joey will be happy to be home, as he won't have to go to the bathroom in a snow tunnel.

Temps in Colorado Springs today are close to 60.  Thus, we probably won't have a white Christmas, but we will have this memory of all of the Summit County snow :-)

Santa comes tomorrow night--we hope he isn't confused as to Bode's location :-)  Happy Christmas to all!

Camping

I affectionately call staying at our Breckenridge house "camping."  To me, we are roughing it in this tiny 2,000 square foot house.  Yes, we do have cable, wifi, Netflix, indoor plumbing, and a rocking wood stove that gets the house up past 80 degrees.  Still, we are in the middle of nowhere (three miles from a medium sized town with tons of amenities).  In fact, pulling out of our driveway this morning, we almost ran into these guys in the middle of the road.

It's hard to see the moose running off into the trees.  Seeing those babies on the road will get your heart going.  We have been up in the mountains since Friday, when Breckenridge got 19 inches of snow.  We skied Saturday morning, but it was cold and probably too much powder for Bode, as he would quickly lose his forward momentum.  I rarely took the camera out of my pocket, so only got this shot from Saturday.

There was hardly any sun, and the temperatures were very low.  We skied for a few hours, but then we headed home to the aforementioned campsite.  We didn't stay long because Rogue One was playing at the local theater.  We decided to go, and got this picture of Bode in the parking lot.

We all enjoyed the movie, but Bode didn't like the fact one of the characters name in the movie was also Bode.  Weird.  On Sunday the high in Breckenridge was a balmy 5 degrees.  We didn't feel like taking Bode out in this mess, and Ashley wasn't too keen on it either.  Therefore, I went for about three hours.  With the sun out, it wasn't near as bad as the previous day, but around 1130 the wind started to pick up and I was done.  We all went to lunch, and then went swimming at the rec center.  We spent the evening by the fire and were lazy dogs like Joey.

Today was a much better day.  The high was 30 degrees, and this huge delta in temps made it feel even warmer.  We got to the slopes around 9.  We thought it would be crowded but it most certainly wasn't.  We headed up to the top of Peak 9, skied some, went over to Peak 8, flew down a black diamond, and then back up Chair 6 to near the top of the world (sort of).

Hardly anyone on the slopes and not a cloud in the sky--quite a day.  Mommy was kind enough to snap a picture of Bode and me.

I also tried to take some movies.  It's hard to tell, but Bode has really improved.  His stop is looking more and more like a hockey stop, and he sort of swooshes when he's essing down the mountain.

We went to town for some lunch.  Like I said, it was a beautiful day.

We will likely ski again tomorrow.  At some point, it might get boring (skiing again?), but until then, we'll continue to go :-)  Happy Monday to all.