One Week of Heaven

In honor of my mother's 60th birthday this month, her entire family came to Colorado for the week to visit. We rented a beautiful house in Breckenridge and hunkered down for some serious relaxing.

I was lucky enough to have a job to do in Frisco (about 20 minutes from Breckenridge) on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of that week. So I was able to go to Breckenridge with everyone else on Sunday evening and be with my family in the evenings rather than making the 2+ hour drive every day.

We started off the week with a Robert Earl Keen concert in downtown Breckenridge.

We took a lot of hikes,

we were massaged, we cooked (actually Ray and Barbara did most of the cooking)

and ate a lot of good food, we read, we slept, we watched movies on the giant projector screenWe played cards, we hot-tubbed and steam-roomed, and we talked, talked, talked (as we are known to do....loudly). By Thursday night, the whole group had arrived.....

My Mom and Dad

Mom's sister Cathy and her husband Ray

Mom's brother Chet and his wife Barbara

My hubby and me

Cousin Casey and her husband T.C.

Cousin Haley and her boyfriend Evan

Cousin Ali

Brother Adam and his girlfriend

15 of us! Luckily there was plenty of room for all of us in the house.

On Friday everyone went rafting on the Arkansas River. They survived and had great fun, with no serious incidents, except for when one of the guides deliberately rowed the raft into a boulder and Barbara was flung from the raft!

Mom and I opted to skip rafting and had our own adventure. We went to Minturn (near Vail) and had lunch in a great little diner. Then we headed to the Yarn Studio, http://www.theyarnstudio.webpage66.com/ , one of my new favorite yarn stores in Colorado! We spent lots of time and money there and had a wonderful time with the shop's owner, Cathy.

Then we hit up a great little consignment store in Minturn called Holy Toledo. We took the scenic route from Minturn over Tennessee Pass to Leadville, from Leadville to Buena Vista (where we managed to fit in a stop at Serendipity http://www.serendipityyarn.com/, another great yarn store), and then over Hoosier Pass from Fairplay to Breckenridge. Friday night we all went out to dinner in Breckenridge.

Saturday was full of hiking and BBQ. The Dillon BBQ festival was lots of fun...and we all ate ourselves silly sampling all the offerings from the vendors.

Saturday night was a big birthday party for mom, and we were so happy that my in-laws the Petersons, and my sister in-law's sister (Carrie) were able to join us for dinner. Great food, champagne, cake, and ice cream were a great end to the most wonderful week. I love my family so much and was so sad to see everyone go home on Sunday.