Quinn's quarantined visit

Quinn arrived for a short snowboard trip on Monday night, just in time to beat the storm. After riding all day on Tuesday, and hanging out at the local bar that night, his fun vacation caught up with him in the form of a cold Wednesday morning. Instead of shredding Beaver Creek, we had a lazy day at the house watching A Christmas Story and the new series Amish Mafia. He took a nap, and tried to recover as fast as his Theraflu, green tea and citron vodka concoction would let him.

He kept apologizing for being sick, but we didn't mind at all. It actually reminded me of living together in Tahoe when we'd just hang out around the house after work. And that's the nice thing about good friends — it doesn't matter how long you've been away from each other, you can always pick up right where you left off. In sickness and health, it's always enjoyable to spend time with friends during the holidays.

Feel better soon Quinn.

Christmas hunting

As usual this time of year, we went and hunted a Christmas tree up around Vail Pass. We took our saw into the woods, but were able to trim it with our early present back at the truck (thanks for the Husqvarna Mom and Dad). It's a Thompson family tradition to trim a tree with a chainsaw.

After toting the tree back to our apartment, Tyler helped me decorate the tree — which he hasn't been able to do in years past because of work. We draped the lights around the tree, and then busted into the ornaments.

He couldn't believe how many ornaments we had; and I couldn't believe how excited he was to hang all of them. My mother has sent us some of my old ornaments, as well as two new ones for us every year we've been together. I've also inherited all the old ornaments I loved hanging on my grandmothers' trees in years past. From the painted glass balls with Alaska wildlife scenes, to the glass and gold angels with bells, he was an enthusiastic tree trimmer. He even was happy to declare that we had so many different ornaments, that there wasn't room for the unoriginal plastic ones we bought at the dollar store in Tahoe six years ago.

We may not have the holidays off, and our apartment may be too small for Tyler's perfect tree — but I'm happy to say it's ours, and that I'm looking forward to celebrating this time with my husband whenever we have a chance with our sparse days off. Merry Christmas, hon.

Balloons

I had to buy balloons at the grocery for a Christmas present I was making for somebody (I can't write more, otherwise it would ruin the surprise for some followers) and I had some spares left over. After finishing a game of 10,000 with Kent, Tyler suggested we create our own balloon animals to spice up the evening.

As you can see from the visual documentation that the boys unleashed their inner children. Sure we followed the instructions on how to make giraffes, dogs, flowers and party hats — but then we went rogue on our own custom designs:

Camping with the Thompsons

We went camping with my parents for a week recently. It was awesome to hangout with them since I don't get to see them nearly as often as I would like. To kick-off the trip, we went to Silver Jack Reservoir to stock up on firewood. After two nights, we decided we needed to get some sun, so we headed off to Moab. 

Since my folks hadn't been there before, we stayed out Onion Creek which is about 20 miles from the town of Moab. There was lots to explore out there, but we also went to see Arches National Park, Tyler's been there a few times, but I had only driven through quick when we were moving out to Vail. We had a good time exploring the arches and checking out the hikes around the park. 

And of course, there were plenty of cooking adventures. We all ate like royalty the whole time: burgers, fried razor clams, halibut, salmon, steaks, sand hill crane and ribs. Tyler even built a smokehouse for the ribs, and my dad assisted with the construction. For all of the visual documentation of the trip, click here.

Back to school

As some of you may have heard, Tyler is taking two classes at Colorado Mountain College this semester, which is helping him work toward his long-term goal to get into the brewmaster program at U.C. Davis. In order to be accepted, he needs to have some calculus, biology, chemistry and physics classes under his belt as prerequisites. He's taking both classes online: college algebra and chemistry 101.

What surprised me most about the online classes is that even his chemistry labs are done at home. It's not baking soda and vinegar projects, or water and cornstarch, but an actual kit with all the chemicals and flammable tools you need to make it through an introductory chem lab. In the above picture he's learning what colors different elements produce when they burn. And yes, that's the kitchen table. I've also caught him burning potato chips to determine their caloric content, as well as converting liquids to gases. 

Overall, he's doing well with his studies. He's disappointed when he doesn't receive an A on an assignment or test, and he's determined to nail the material. He told me the other day that school is much more interesting when you're working toward a goal. I'm just happy he hasn't set anything on fire yet.