beyond cinderella

Christmas 2013 was spent in Grand Junction Colorado with four of our five kids, and five of our six grandkids. It was very much a cold, white, Christmas, but being with our family very much made up for being cold, and I mean REEAL COLD. Like 9 degrees COLD…

My husband, Bill, daughter, Shantel, and I made the nine-hour trip by car. We saw what I thought was a lot of snow as we drove through Flagstaff Arizona.

But, I soon found out the Flagstaff snow was nothing compared to what we came upon in Colorado.

Holy cold cow, those little black dots are cows up to their necks in snow…BRRR!!!

When we arrived at our son, Pat, and daughter-in-law, Celina’s house we were greeted by these two very excited little girls. Our granddaughters, Emma, in the red, hugging Hope .

Our kids took us out to lunch on Christmas Eve afternoon. Yum… I couldn’t get everyone in the picture, but our daughter, Katie, is in the red. Her husband, Josh, is in the orange cap. Our granddaughter, Alex, is sitting next to our son, Pat, in the gray shirt. After lunch we all headed back to our son Pat, and his wife, Celina’s house to start cooking Christmas Eve dinner. Yummmers!!!

After dinner, the fun began. Each of the grandkids were allowed to open one gift from under the tree. This is our twin grandkids, Bailey, and her brother, Aiden, opening their gift.

Which happened to be ping-pong paddles to go with the ping-pong table that was set up as a surprise in the garage. Even little Hope was excited to learn how to play the family game.

I don’t think I have ever seen anyone get as excited over a bag of cookies as our 17 yr old granddaughter, Alex, was when she opened her gift… must be REEEAL good cookies 🙂

Christmas Morning, we all headed over to our daughter, Katie, and her husband, Josh’s, house for breakfast. Katie made monkey bread served with fresh fruit. She even made some with Splenda for me and her daughter, Emma, because we can’t eat the regular kind. It was REEEAL good! Thank you Katie 🙂

Our granddaughter, Emma, received a VERY special surprise from Santa. Emma asked for an American doll, which apparently is VERY popular. However, Santa miscalculated his requests and ran out. But, he left Emma this hand written note explaining what happened and told her she would be first on the list for an American doll next year. He gave her a very nice beauty parlor chair for her other dolls to have their hair done in. I told Emma she is very lucky to have a hand written note from Santa and that she should frame it and hang it on her wall to remind her how special she is.

Our son, Marty, gave Bill, Shantel, and I a supper great gift. He works at the Enstrom candy factory in Grand Junction, and gave us both regular and sugar-free almond toffee in milk chocolate and almond toffee popcorn!!! How special are we to get that? Thanks Marty, we love it and you!

Marty received a pretty special gift himself from the family. A Broncos sports banner! Is that a happy face or what? They love their Broncos… 🙂

Our beautiful daughter-in-law, Pat’s wife, Celina, was the hostess with the mostest and received this lovely candle and holder from our son Marty.

We all had so much fun just being all together again. Our son, Pat worked his fingers to the bone cooking home-made soups, smoking ribs, pork shoulder, turkey and even ham… Thank you Pat for the labor of love you show in your fabulous cooking!

Our daughter Katie made a delicious home-made stew, and pecan pies to die for…

Josh and Katie invited us to meet Josh’s grandparents, in their beautiful home on Christmas day, where we had another delicious meal of ham, mashed potatoes, home-made rolls, vegetables, and all the pie and candy anyone could eat… What a delightful couple Josh’s grandparents are. We were so honored to be invited into their home for Christmas lunch with their family.

I thought I was dreaming when our grandchildren asked if they could come to our hotel and go swimming… did I mention it was a very COLD 9 degrees with knee-deep snow outside…? True, the pool was heated, and inside, but just outside the windows beyond the pool was all that snow…AND, kid like, they also wanted to get in the hot tub which was outside in all that COLD snow… They didn’t mind a bit standing outside in the snow getting back and forth from the hot tub to the inside pool… They wanted to know if I would get in with them… Are you kidding me…not for all the love or money in the world… 🙂

What a fun-filled, wonderful, Christmas 2013 was. Thank you to all our kids and grandkids for making it so special. I will always treasure each and every moment and memory we made in Grand Junction Colorado. And, I will never say it’s too COLD here in sunny Arizona again!!! 🙂

Stay Tuned!