Well- 2026 is here. I have every reason to be optimistic that it will be a good one. We'll do an update on everyone probably sometime in the next week or two. For now, let's just go over our last week or so.

Right now, Rachel and Jack are at the theater watching the finale of Stranger Things. This show has been a cultural phenomenon that has flown mostly under my own personal radar, but which some people in our family have been very into. Evelyn is out hiking with friends. Maren and Lindsey are downstairs playing with (and probably arguing over) the Nintendo Switch that we got for Christmas. Addy has been sitting on the couch for the past hour or so, finishing up a book. She's been a little tired today after going to a New Year's party last night. Ev was also out late. The rest of us stayed home. I went to bed before midnight, because I am super lame like that, but everyone else stayed up and did a little celebration downstairs. The song "Daydream Believer" playing on a radio somewhere and I have no idea who turned it on, but I like that song. I've just finished cleaning the kitchen and am now sitting at the table writing this post while eating a tuna melt. It feels like a pretty normal afternoon for us- maybe a little on the lazy side- which is actually kind of nice considering the last week of activity.

So, let's back up. We had our Christmas Eve/Christmas Day celebrations. I wrote about that last week. It was nice. The day after that, we didn't take long to load up the car, and we were soon on the road headed to The Great White North. There is this little hotel in Golden that we always stay at, and it feels almost like a second home to us at this point. There isn't anything too special about it- just that it has connected rooms that comfortably accommodate our entire family, and is well situated to put us within striking distance of a lot of different adventure spots. The sauna/pool/hot tub are nice after activity-filled days, the attached restaurant has some of the best pizza I've ever had, and the baked beans for breakfast are different enough to feel a little exotic to us. In short- it's perfect.

I don't know if there's a good way to describe the skiing we did that will actually do it justice. Unlike us in the states, the resorts up there are getting some of the best snow they've had in a long time. It skis like February, and some places report that there is more coverage now, even in the early-season, than at any other time in the last 2-3 years. In short, conditions were ideal. Cold. But ideal. 

We did two days at Lake Louise and one at Revelstoke. We were going to put a day in at Banff Sunshine as well, but we got distracted by a side quest that ended up being one of the best days for everyone. More on that later. As for the individual runs- the ones most memorable to me are the steeps off the backside of Lake Louise with Ev, Addy, and Jack, the amazing trees at Revy, the super fast groomers with Rachel, Maren, and Jack, and skiing with Lindsey on her inaugural run down "Kill The Banker" (a classic, must-do run). We had great visibility and blue skies most of the time, which always makes everything feel less serious and way more playful for me, and that joyful feeling seemed to be a shared aspect for most of the people I was with as well.

And that side quest? Yeah- on the way to Banff Sunshine, we decided to take a quick detour to the town of Banff. It's a pretty place. And from there, we went, at Evelyn's suggestion, to an "ice trail," where we hiked along a frozen creek over a catwalk of sorts for about three miles. There were several frozen waterfalls throughout the hike and beautiful scenery. Also, the "official" recommendation is to have ice cleats, which we didn't...which made the hiking itself far more fun in our opinion. Even though it wasn't a ski day per se, we got our fair share of sliding in. By the time we finished the hike, there wasn't much time left to ski, so we went back to the hotel feeling pretty satisfied with our spontaneity.

All told, we were in Canada for 5 days, and it was a very nice getaway for everyone. We all still have a few more days off before work/school start up again, and we have some activities planned for this time, but our Canada trip is likely going to be the standout feature of the break.

Anyway- here are some photos. Happy New Year, and have a good week!

A lot of our best photos this week are from our little ice hike. I think that while we are skiing it's a little more difficult to think about a camera.

Our car becomes a major player on these trips. 200k miles and lots of orange lights. The car place says it's just faulty sensors. I choose to believe them.

-9 degrees and 0 miles till empty. We like to live on the edge.

"Golden Pizza" has become a tradition.

Every time I go up there, I am overwhelmed at the scale of the mountains. Simply unreal.

"I couldn't smile because my mouth was frozen, so I went for the next best thing." -Adalie

Have a good week!

 Merry Christmas, everyone!

This is likely the last post I will write in 2025. It's crazy to think that the year has gone so fast. I know a lot of people do family updates and stuff in their Christmas cards, but for us we typically do that here in the blog sometime in January, so you can be watching for that. Suffice it to say that 2025, I think, will be a year that we look back on as something important. College acceptances, jobs, driver's licenses, skiing, some key injuries...all these things will have shockwaves that last far into the future. Let's just say that for the first time in a long time I really have no idea what things will look like for us one year from now. Our family is in transition in a really good way, that much is certain. It's kind of fun.

Christmas this year has been a fun celebration so far. After work on Tuesday, Rach and I headed up for an overnight date at the Wallace house. We have some people staying there next weekend and we wanted to make sure everything was in order. Our retaining wall in the back has not fared so well with the weird weather recently, and I think we'll have a spring/summer project to work on in repairing that. I kind of like that stuff though. Also, these Wallace nights with just Rachel are really, really nice, and have had a stabilizing effect on our relationship. I like us and I like that we have a lot that we do together in so many areas of life. She is truly my best friend.

Last night (Christmas Eve) we went to a candlelight service at our church that had all the feels, and then drove back for a lovely dinner with Marissa and Wesley's family, and with Wendy, who flew up to be with us. We went home from that and did all our normal traditions, and then had a nice relaxed Christmas morning earlier today. I think everyone has had a good one. We've had jazzy holiday music in the background and that has been nice. Wendy was also with us for the whole time, and it was kind of fun sharing some of our family customs with her. 

Tomorrow, sometime around lunchtime, our family will load up the car and head to Canada. We've had enough of this warm weather, and we need some snow to slide on! We'll stay almost an entire week and hopefully make a lot of good memories along the way.

One of my favorite parts of today was over our brunch, when we all brought out our "bingo cards" that Evelyn had us do last year. These cards sort of acted as a bucket list of sorts, of things we wanted to accomplish in 2025. We read them off to each other, and it led to a lot of good memories of things we had done, both as a family and individually. It was neat.

Alright- that's it. So long 2025. It's been real.

Have a good week!

Just a few photos of the week. Our family went to see the Broadway tour of Kinky Boots! It was a fun night out.

Maren had her voice recital. I'll admit- I was a little nervous for this one. She chose to do that "December" song from Anastasia- the one with the really high notes- and I wasn't sure she'd be able to hit them. Turns out I didn't need to worry. She was hauntingly beautiful and nailed the important parts. She's pretty great.

We went to "Need a Little Christmas." It's a sort of Christmas variety show that happens every year around here. They do a good job, and Rachel got to play a role (I'll let you guess) in this year's production.

Tis the season- more Christmas parties and holiday concerts. We're getting there though. Here are some quick photos:

Rachel and Lindsey went on a date to see a Christmas concert

Every year, Rachel sets up a couple of days of bell ringing with the Salvation Army. She always takes a kid, and they usually have a good time.

Our church always does this Christmas pageant thing, and it's one of those things where we can tell how our kids have grown up. There were the years when they were the sheep, the angels, the animals, the shepherds, and even the star itself. Well, this year, none of them actually qualify as "kids" anymore, and their participation was more in the accompaniment section- Maren and Lindsey sang, and Addy with her saxaphone was part of a quintet of players.

Santa Cruise!

You can tell how warm it has been around here considering Lindsey's outfit on an evening cruise on the lake.

Ev and Josh were inadvertently "matchy"

Maren and Lindsey had choir concerts

Lindsey in the middle

Maren in the middle (top)

Work party!

Girl party!

Look at all this good unfrozen snow, wreaking our roads and making a mess. Ugh. Why can't it just stay on the ski hill like nature intended?

What a great week we have had! The ski resort opened, we went and played in the snow, the long string of Christmas parties is underway, and the future looks bright in so many ways. Here are some photos. Enjoy the season, and Have A Good Week!

These are pictures of the Christmas party at the church. Big chili cookoff and tons of food. We also had our annual viewing of Better off Dead afterwards.

Playing in the snow is so fun!

Of course it's also about the together time. Things just vibe on these days.

And of course the little contest. Evelyn and her friends did the Titanic, and it won by a landslide according to our official polls. 

The other three were almost evenly tied for second place, which was a little bit of a surprise to me that there wasn't more stratification than that. Here's the candy land, with Addy, Maren, and their friends.

Lindsey and crew did the Minecraft creation

And Team Jack did the house. Nice work to everyone- I think we had a really good batch this year.

It's that time again- Gingerbread house contest! I'm going to put all the photos at the bottom, so if you are here for that, just scroll all the way down.

*****

It has been a wonderful Thanksgiving break for us! And it's going to be a photos with captions kind of post. Here we go!

We celebrated the day with Marissa and Wesley's family at our house. Food, conversation, and games. Pretty chill day.

Well...mostly chill. This is that time that Evelyn unexpectedly threw a pie in Addy's face. That happened.

And this is when we went to Higgin's Point to watch the Eagles. Every year there are thousands of dead kokanee salmon that wash up on shore after spawning, attracting hundreds of bald eagles to the area for the feast. It can get pretty cool to watch.

Ev has always wanted to watch a sunrise over the lake. She gathered a group of her friends who she convinced to wake up early and go on a hike with her. 

This was the reward. We live in such a beautiful area.

First day of skiing!    ...ish
Silver was playing with our emotions all week. They were going to open! Nope. Yes! JK- No. Ye..No? The night before- a definite No. The morning of...It's a go! On the bunny hill. Just the bunny hill. But hey, it's sliding on snow. 

It's nice to be out again

The joys of helmet hair

And the joys of Silver Mountain Pizza

We actually made a whole day out of the skiing. Kellogg was doing a big tree lighting ceremony thing with fireworks, and then we went out to a nice dinner, and then up to watch a Warren Miller film with a big group of skiers, and Maren won some ski tickets in a raffle, and then we went to the Wallace House to spend the night. We all agreed that it was a really, really good day.

This was kind of a cool thing. Syringa (the office I work at) is building a new location and we had the ribbon cutting ceremony with the Chamber of Commerce and stuff. It's happening!

These were really big scissors.

*****

And now for the gingerbread houses! Please vote for your favorite. Put it in the comments of the blog or somewhere on social media where we'll see it. Or call us or text us. Anything really. We do this every year and it establishes bragging rights for the next 12 months. I think we have some really good options this year to choose from.

First, we have The Titanic. 

That's Jack and Rose. And a shark.

Next up: Travel-The-World Candy-Land, featuring Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Giza, and Stonehenge

Next: The traditionalist and the only actual Gingerbread House, but pretty elaborate. Especially the roof with icicles.

And finally, we have Minecraft. This one is kind of conceptual, as there is a world that was built under the world on top, which I guess is a Minecraft thing?

So there you have it. Teams will be revealed next week after the votes are in. 

Have a good week!