Craig's Birthday

We celebrated Craig's Birthday at Etta in Wicker Park.  

Dinner with Knights

We went to Armaud's Italian place with the Knight family.  We always have the best time with them.  

 

Braham - Ross Ski Trip ~ Beaver Creek

We went on our annual Braham Ross ski trip and this year we went to Beaver Creek.  We went over President's Day weekend, February 18-22.  It was surprisingly not crowded this year, but we did have a mishap with our accommodations.  We had a room reserved at the Westin, but they canceled on us one week before our trip.  We scrambled last minute and found a place, but it was not the same as our original place and had a lot less space.  We made the best of it and still had a great time.  

The first day the boys and I went to ski school while Daddy skied with everyone else.  Craig's skis got stolen, but he luckily found them the next day and got free rentals in the meantime.  The second night we had dinner at Grouse Mountain Grill with just the 4 of us (Craig, me, Phil and Kat).  The food was delicious and we had fun hanging out.  The next day we went skiing with the whole group and it was such a fun time.  We ran into our old neighbors at lunch - so crazy to run into them while skiing!  They moved to Golden last summer.  We took their oldest Michael with us for several runs down the mountain and later met up with his dad.  Luckily he was with us to help Liam down the mountain as it was a difficult blue.  Liam got stuck and was afraid to go down.  Daddy was ahead of him and I wasn't in a position to help him, but Joe helped him get down.  Later Liam was doing his S's and skiing with much more skill and confidence so it was a huge milestone.  Overall the boys did great skiing and we had such a nice day.  That night we had dinner at Citrea with the whole crew.  The next day we went skiing and did some fun greens and blue runs.  That night we ordered Mexican food from the restaurant in the Westin and brought it up to the room and watched a movie.  Overall it was a great trip.  We can't wait for the next one.       

 

New Year's Eve - Tubing in Wisconsin

We went tubing on New Year's Eve this year and then headed to Brian's house afterwards to celebrate New Year's Eve.  Last year we went to Brian's house on NYE and then went tubing on New Year's Day and tubed in a terrible snow storm.  We were smarter (or luckier) this year and did the tubing on New Year's Eve and had great weather, but the forecast called for a snow storm (again) on New Year's Day.  We were happy to miss the storm this year, but dealt with it a little coming home.  We had fun tubing and even let the boys go down solo this year.  Afterwards we drove to Brian's house in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.  Brian cooked a delicious beef tenderloin roast with a salt rub, asparagus, potatoes, lobster tail and two delicious desserts, chocolate flourless cake and creme brulee.  Oma came with us this year so it was really nice to have her celebrating with us and Brian's girlfriend Erica, which we love.  The food was amazing and the company was even better.  The next day we had to rush out of town to beat the snow storm.  We had a great NYE and had to re-create the celebrating on New Year's Day with the party favors we bought.

 

Family Christmas

Family Christmas ~

We celebrated family Christmas on Tuesday, December 21st at our house.  We picked this date because it was the only date we could all get together because of traveling (Ethan and Elle were in New York the weekend before) and everyone's work schedules and other family events.  We were all feeling a little sick on Tuesday (little cough), but we all took covid tests and they were negative.  We ordered Maggiano's for dinner and had lots of appetizers.  We enjoyed a nice dinner, then had Sweet Mandy B's for dessert and finally opened presents and played games.  We all had fun opening presents and spending time together and then played jackbox.  We had such a great time together and decided we will make this a yearly tradition including Kim, Julia and Ethan's mom as well as Julia's boyfriend Dan and Ethan's girlfriend Elle.