Summary: I traveled to Colorado to spend time with my family over the holidays. Here is what happened.
Every year growing up my family has always celebrated Christmas together in the home I grew up in – in Kansas City. However, this year my parents wanted to venture out and celebrate in one of our favorite places to visit: Colorado Springs.
Although I was sad to be missing out on seeing some of my other family members, as well as friends home for the holidays, I thought this could also be a fun way to celebrate Christmas with my immediate family.
I was also very excited to see my brother’s dog, Molly! My brother recently moved out to Colorado with his wife, bringing his golden retriever with him and I have missed all three of them quite a bit! Molly was also very excited to see me – she didn’t leave my side for the first 12 or so hours!
On Christmas Eve we went to a local church for their candlelight service and then had a nice, quiet dinner at home. Of course only punctuated by Molly’s squeaking toy in the middle of my saying grace… She loves the attention!
After a delicious breakfast of omelets and toast, we opened presents around the fireplace and had a great time since we drew names to exchange gifts this year. I got my brother and gave him a few different items for his new hiking/skiing lifestyle here in Colorado.
After gifts it was off to the Garden of the Gods! Garden of the Gods is one of my favorite places that I’ve ever been: I’ve spent countless hours on the trails and never get tired of it. We spent a couple hours hiking and then walking through the tallest rocks in the center – lucky for us it was a pretty nice day out!
That evening we had another great dinner and spent the evening watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas. All in all it was a great holiday with my family and I’m glad we got to spend some time together, just the small group of us, in Colorado. We also got to see my brother and sister-in-law’s newly purchased house! I have to say I was not ready to head back to Chicago and back to work!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!