We had a long Christmas weekend together courtesy of Reynald's company giving him both Friday and Monday off. On Friday, we opened all our gifts that we had up to that point so we would not have to take them to the mountains. Lots of fun, and a relief for Luka that he finally got to unwrap them all (ours and Axel's too)!
Then, we took off to our reserved cabin in Estes Park at the YMCA right at the entrace to Rocky Mt. National Park. We stayed there three nights. It was easy access to hikes/snow shoeing for the three days. Also, we had some fun one day making s'mores at an inside fire sponsored by the YMCA activity staff. Also got some swimming in at the pool on Christmas Eve and then hoofed it over to the Christmas Eve service. The service was wonderful with many carols and fabulous special music by a bell soloist from the Broomfield area. Luka and Reynald sat a few rows behind me because it was full. I sat up in the front row with Axel. Near the end of the service, the minister asked me if he could take Axel up front. He was his example of "the meaning of Christmas". Axel was a good little man in front of the congregation of several hundred people. He just cried only at the end. :) He was so sweet - it made me cry. My little man representing all the generations of Lindemuth/Bodeux families in the past and future.We had a good time hiking and Luka and Reynald went sleddding too. It was verrrry windy, but they had fun anyway.
For Christmas Eve dinner, we defaulted to our paella dinner since it was faster and then for Christmas Day dinner, we made the pork tenderloin, aspargus and yams. The store in Estes didn't have any more turkey breasts, so we skipped the stuffining and the salad was just too much food. But, we did make (and mostly eat all of) the pumpkin pie on Christmas Eve. Yum, yum.
Santa stopped by in person with his wife, Mrs. Clause, on Christmas Eve and delivered gifts to Luka and Axel. He even knew them by name! Luka got a really cool remote control car and Axel got some cute wood animal puzzles that Luka has had fun with so far.
