um...Christmas? Part Uno

I know no one wants to hear about our Christmas a month after the fact, but for posterity sake I am posting it anyway. It will have to be done in segments though. Otherwise I will become overwhelmed and may start compulsively rocking and twirling my hair. I might do that anyway. Its been one of those days. So here goes. In reverse chronological order.

New Years at the Cabin:

This is the one and only time Mason got in his snow gear. Good thing we bought those over priced snow boots eh?

Instead he spent most of his time dragging Grandpa all over the cabin. I think my dad spent the majority of the week up in the loft where all the toys are. He's a really good sport about it though. They are good buds.

Sledding with Dad (The purpose of the "one time snow gear putting on")

Nic and I, however, had the chance to spend a lot of time outside (thanks to my dad and Penni for watching Mason, and more importantly, Nell). This was one of our more mellow rides. Well, actually this is about 10 minutes after I yelled at Nic because I thought he was going to dump me, afterwhich I dumped us both. Not nearly as scary as the high speed, night time ride we went on with my brother and sister and their respective partners. Not a great idea seeing as two of the riders are pregnant.

(There was actually a beautiful view of the mountains in the background, but it didn't show up very well in this picture.)

The highlight of the trip for me was our cross country ski adventure through Harriman. I've never XC skiied before (though I grew up down hill skiing), and I always saw it as an activity for Geology professors and granolas in their 40s, but I loved it. It was such a pretty way to see the park, and good exercise too. Hopefully we will be doing it again sometime.

On the trail... (and "expert" trail at Nic's request. It was pretty funny until we got the hang of it.)

Our fearless leaders?

Shay. This was more than likely taken before a shriek was heard throughout the forrest as she went down that small hill and crashed at the bottom. She went to the dark side and started snowboading when she was younger and as a result she had a hard time adjusting to skiis.

Nic scoping out the river. There were about a billion swans on this river. It was cool.

The "warming" hut, which actually just allowed our sweaty bodies to cool down enough that when we went outside again we froze.

We also went to West Yellowstone one day with my dad and Penni, and then Matt and Shayna come up to celebrate New Years Eve/Day with us. It was a really great week with some really great people.