fort collins or bust

On our third day in Colorado, we drove out of the mountains and into Fort Collins (where Uncle Nay Nay and Aunt Dana live) and spent some time in their cute little town. We ate yummy mexican food for lunch and then went ice skating!! This was the very first time either of our boys had been ice skating and so we were eager to see how it would go. As we first stepped onto the ice even I almost slipped and fell but before we knew it we were out on the ice, all of us gripping the railing around the rink, and scooting across the ice on our skates!! Maddox picked it up pretty quickly but Ash was nervous and had some trouble trusting himself to stay standing. He didn't want to let go of the railing.

Brandon and I worked together and took turns individually coaxing Ashtyn around the skating rink. It took probably 25 minutes to get him around ONCE and then he and I got off. I was proud of him for trying but Ashtyn was disappointed. I think he thought he "wasn't good at it" but I reminded him of how good he did skiing and how he's good at many other things. I also told him that the first time I skated I fell down tons of times! He was still kind of sad so I promised him some ice cream when brother got done skating and his smile returned!!

Maddox kept skating with daddy and Aunt Dana and by the end of his turn he was even trying to skate on his own! He's such a dare devil!

After skating, we had some Ben & Jerry's and then strolled around downtown Fort Collins. We found a little souvineer shop and let the boys pick out a little something to remember our time in Colorado. Afterward, we walked back to Uncle Nay Nay's house to make gingerbread houses with Noni. It's an annual Christmas tradition for the boys to make gingerbread houses with their Noni! I was worried that this year we had missed out on this fun tradition but Noni just packed the gingerbread kits with her and we did them in Fort Collins! They turned out really good...as usual!!

Tuesday evening, we walked back into downtown Fort Collins to have pizza for dinner (it was REALLY good!!!!) and then Brandon and I made the decision to drive home to Oklahoma overnight instead of waiting until morning. It was a long drive but I'm glad we decided to do it because I barely had time to get over my "stomach bug" when I got the worst cold in the world! Early Wednesday morning, really in the middle of the night, I started running a fever and had a cough, stuffy nose and body aches. I spent the next two days in bed and here we are five days later and I'm still battling some of it! Yikes! Overall, we had a great Christmas! We got to have Christmas morning with just our family and then spent our next week on vacation skiing in Colorado and then returned home to Brandon having the rest of the week off. We just laid around in our sweats for a few days, watched TV, rented movies and played with the kids. I wouldn't change anything except for all the sickness. Ugh. I can't complain, though! We had a blast and we made many life long memories!!!! Thank you Noni and Papa for taking our whole family to Colorado and for spending time with us! We had so much fun!