A Wintery Thanksgiving

I'll start this off by saying that all of my pictures are loaded on Sheri's computer in Denver so for now there are no pictures to go with all the fun we had-sorry!
Tuesday-as soon as we all got home we loaded up all the suitcases and headed to pick up Madison's new glasses. She was so excited about getting them-and she looks SO cute in them. She doesn't have to wear them all the time-they are mainly to help with distance. After we picked up her glasses we headed to Papasitos for dinner with my family-Mimi, Pa, Grandma, TJ, Tiffany, Tara, Matt, Cade & Reid. It was nice to get to see everyone since we would be catching a plane later that evening for our Thanksgiving trip to Denver. Fortunately, Zach & Madison's tummy's were full and they were plenty tired by the time we got on the plane (having a 8:55 flight helped too) and they both slept for most of the way there.
Wednesday- we got up and hung around the Colwell house enjoying time with Nana, Grandpa, Chris & Diamond (the dog). After lunch Jenny came over so we got to meet Sami. Sami is almost 4 months old and the spitting image of her dad. She has favorites and only smiles at a few people. Fortunately, Bobby, Madison & I were some of her favorite people. Zach also got to learn how to play soft with a baby. He liked giving her kisses and wanted to share her toys-especially the jumpie. Zach could climb in, but would always get stuck and couldn't get out. After the kids woke up from their naps we headed to a local park to get some family pictures taken. Unfortunately, Zach wasn't in the mood to take pictures. Hopefully we got some of him smiling in between him throwing a fit. From there we headed back to the Colwell's house for dinner and waited for Aunt Cindy, Leyna & Uncle Rob to come in town.
Turkey Day-we hung around the Colwell house, fried a turkey for turkey sandwiches and then headed out to the Colwell Ranch. The Ranch is about 45 minutes from their current house and is the house they have been remodelling. I was so excited to see it since the last time we were there in June they were finishing the demolition process. The house now has all the walls up-and all the rooms are clearly defined. Fortunately they had radiant heating put in-and the house was toasty warm! For those of you like me who have no clue what that is-it's hot water running in tubes under the floor. They put this in with hopes to keep the floor from being so cold. Not something we really need to worry about here, but up there when it's cold outside it's important! The guys and Madison rode the 4 wheeler around the property and Zach screamed every time we took him off to warm him up. He didn't care if he was freezing-he wanted to stay on and ride. Well after a couple of hours we headed back to the house to have our Thanksgiving feast. Now-most of you say that you had a Thanksgiving feast, but not many of you can actually cook as much food as Sheri Colwell can. We had 2 fried turkeys (one was supposed to be cooked in the oven, but we forgot to put it in the oven before we headed to the Ranch) stuffing, broccoli & rice casserole, corn, peas, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, tossed salad, gravy, green bean casserole & rolls-I think that's it, but I'm sure I missed something. We also had several pies (about 4), cakes & other super yummy deserts. Needless to say-there was no shortage of food this weekend.
Friday-we decided to get out of the house and take a hike. We went up on a short hike, and almost to the top of the ridge decided that we were too cold to continue. It was probably close to 20 degrees and the wind was blowing very hard. Zach & Leyna had enough so we headed back to the car. This was the first time while we were there that Zach kept his gloves & his hat on-plus he was wearing Bobby's hat. We took a few snapshots and headed back to the house and started a fire and roasted s'mores. Again we realized that Zach is just as big of a pyro as Bobby is. He wanted to add more wood-and loved just sitting outside enjoying the flames. It also started snowing Friday night. Zach & Madison went outside and wished it was light outside so they could play.
Saturday-we woke up early and let the kids go outside and sled down the small hill at the house. Zach & Madison had so much fun! Madison even tried to snowboard (using a sled) down the hill. They built 2 snowmen using a cute kit my mom got for Madison. It had all the pieces to stick in the snowman. After lunch we planned to go to Keystone to go tubing, but as we were about to back out of the driveway they called to let us know that the tubing hill was closed-so instead we headed back to the ranch. Bobby pulled out the 4 wheeler and decided to be the way to get back up the hill. Zach went down twice with Bobby & then once with Nana. He did okay with Bobby, but with Nana he screamed the whole way down because we took him off the 4 wheeler. From then on Zach was the designated co-pilot. Madison had a blast. I think when we left she was wet from head to toe! She said the best part was being pulled behind the 4 wheeler. I think she could have done that the whole day! She screamed and giggled the whole time. Unfortunately, the sun set really fast and it was time to head back to the house, and get our things ready to head back to Houston.
We all had a really good time and miss the snow and all the fun things you can have in it. We also enjoyed getting to hang out with everyone there. We all have so much to be Thankful for-a very large fun loving family, health, well behaved kids (well unless someone is trying to take Zach's picture), a beautiful house, a job, and most of all our Savior. I pray each of you found many things to be Thankful for this year.