Snow in August?

Last week was pretty busy for us.  Our friend Amanda was able to visit for a couple of days, which was truly wonderful.  We hadn't seen her in more than a year, and she's a pretty great friend.  We hung out, relaxed, and watched the olympics.  After Amanda left, my youngest brother Jase arrived for an evening (we're his customary stop on his way from California to school at Iowa State).  It was great to see him and hear about his summer trip to Turkey (you can read about that here).  The day after Jase left, we had one more summer trip to take...

Elizabeth and I spent last weekend in Breckenridge, Colorado, with Elizabeth's folks (Mike & Deede) and her brother (Clay).  We stayed in a cabin high in the mountains.  While it was raining all weekend long here in Denver, it was snowing and hailing in Breckenridge.  I think there was a little bit of disappointment for most of our crew, because we had been excited about checking out some of the shops downtown, and doing some hiking... but we actually were able to fit both of those things in even with the weather.  I loved it.  It was about 45 degrees out on Saturday.  Elizabeth and I spent some time in the hot tub.  Elizabeth and Deede did most of the cooking for us (Mike grilled burgers and brats on Sunday night).  The food was great, the atmosphere was great, and it was much more relaxed and life-giving than either Elizabeth or I had anticipated.  We had brought some board games, and the cabin was equipped with an air-hockey table (I won the family tournament), a pool table, and a foos-ball table (oh, and a kitchen table).  When we weren't playing games, we were watching olympics (seeing Michael Phelps become the coolest olympic athlete of all time, or something like that).  Time seemed to crawl by, which was absolutely great.  We weren't rushed for anything all weekend long (until Monday morning when we had to hurry-up and get out so Elizabeth and I could get to our jobs here in town).  If there's a prerequisite I'm going to have for all of my future vacations, it will be to not be rushed.  Not having to worry about the passing of time does wonders for one's soul.  I hope we get to do it again someday.  Thanks to my family-in-laws for being great vacation pals!

(by the way, my chocolate cookie was fantastic)