Our first Home Leave...

B's company allows us one Home Leave per year.  As we spent the first 16 months in country, this holiday season would be our first "home leave" since arriving in Santiago.  And what a Home Leave it was...

We spent about 2 weeks in Colorado at my parents house for the Holiday's (and left there a bit over two weeks ago but I just got home from vacation yesterday so give me a bit of time to catch up on the blogging).  It is a great place to spend Christmas with the family and just relax, but it is also a place where we have a lot of other types of fun.  It was cold outside but that didn't stop us from heading out to play.  We skied, we hot tubbed (yep, not a word as blogger keeps telling me but I am using it anyway), we sledded.  We tried to make a snowman but the snow was just too dry to stick.  And when the temp dipped below zero (Fahrenheit, not just Celsius) we found indoor ways to amuse ourselves.  We painted, we made cookies, we watched some movies.  Breckenridge is always great fun for us all.  This time was no exception.

A few (many) pictures of what we were up to besides the holiday's (in no particular order since I can't spend too much time getting them uploaded, put in sequence and captioned.  I have another 3 weeks of vacation to post people, and just too many pictures!)  Next up is the girls skiing and then I will attempt to tackle Disney World and the Disney Cruise and MadHatter's 5th Birthday and, and, and.   Yep, we have already had an eventful 2013.  I think I need a nap.  Or two...

Without further ado, the pictures from Colorado (and just be thankful that I didn't post them all - A.L.L.)

Munchkins with seasonal headgear!  How cute is that?  And I still look at them and can't believe that they are only a year and a half apart - that height difference seems greater than that.

The bowling alley at my parents "other" house.  We came to swim, we ended up bowling.  Good trade actually since they loved it!

Such a great big sister helping!

And then she decided she could do it herself!

Fashionable Mama!

After bowling hot tub/ snowball fighting...

Grampa snuggling...

Snow flying...

Good times.

Mama free time.  I got to go Snow Shoeing on Christmas day.  And saw some awesome sights...

 And the girls got to go sledding on the streets...

And they got to go sledding in the backyard...

Creating the sledding path.

  

Made some angels, and ate some snow...

 Got fitted for our first ski boots...

Worked it like a pro...

Rode ski lifts like we had done it all our lives...

When it was too cold, we painted paper plates...

We went to the pool (again, at Nana and Grampa's "other" house)...

We hot tubbed outside, even though it was only 0 degrees outside...

The view from the outdoor hot tub.

Back inside.  Much better!

 And, in almost reverse order, the girls made Christmas cookies right after we landed.  For the first time.  And they had way too much fun...

Probably not even a good representation of the fun we had.  But I can't go back and try to make it any more complete.  I need to move on to the skiing lessons - a first for Stinkerbell - and then the trip to DisneyWorld and then the Cruise and then the reunion with our dear friends in Florida.  We have had a fun filled month and I would like to share...But first, I would like to sleep.

Happy New Year everyone!  It's been a whirlwind 2013 so far...