Thanksgiving in Iowa

We both had the entire week of Thanksgiving off - yay!  We weren't flying out for Iowa until Tuesday so on Monday we had Denver Fun Day.  We played in the park and went to the Botanic Gardens.  The Gardens were setting up for their holiday light display so we're definitely going to check that out in December.  On Tuesday morning we had brunch at our favorite brunch place down the street - Snooze.  Yum!

Kathy and Jordan invited Kristin, Matt, and I to guest teach their classes on Wednesday.  In the classes, we gave mock interviews, talked about our upcoming Kilimanjaro trip, compared living in the country vs living in the city, and taught them how to poach an egg.  It was fun - and allowed Matt to briefly live out his dream of being a professor.

Thursday morning started out with the first (only?) Schleswig Turkey Trot that Kristin and I organized.  We had about 15 people (family and friends) run/walk a 5ishK route.  It was a great day to start the day!  The rest of the day was filled with eating, watching football, and hanging out with family.

Friday was the ill-fated Iowa/Nebraska game, but we'll just skip over that part of the day.  In the evening Mom hosted the entire Lee family for our annual Christmas.  Everyone had a good time eating, drinking, talking, trading presents, and playing the Lee traditional game of Up and Down the River.

Kathy and I played in an alumni volleyball tournament on Saturday.  Our team (made up of girls who graduated between 1995 and 2001) was definitely the oldest team there.  However, we ended up 2-2 in pool play and ended up placing 3rd!  Of 5 teams, but whatever.  :)  After volleyball, Mom hosted our immediate family Christmas.  She was the hostess with the mostest this weekend!  I think Liv and Henry were quite excited to get some early Christmas gifts.  It was a great night being able to hang out with my sisters, parents, niece, and nephew.

Overall, it was a great, busy weekend that went by way too fast.  Hooray for kicking off the holiday season Iowa style!

Cutting our Christmas Tree

One of the major benefits of living in Denver is the ability to drive into the mountains and cut down your own Christmas tree.  The weekend before Thanksgiving Naomi, Ryan, Matt, and I drove out to Winter Park to cut down our trees.  We were all going to be out of town the next two weekends, so it was either that weekend or just have the tree for 10 days.  All you have to do is go to the visitor center at Winter Park, get a $10 permit, a map of where to cut, and you're ready to go!

We had a lot of fun walking through the woods and scouting trees.  Matt and I found ours first so Matt and Ryan proceeded to cut down the tree, under the close supervision of Junior.

While Matt and I worked on getting our tree to our car, Naomi and Ryan found their tree.

We managed to fit both trees on top of Ryan and Naomi's car.  Thanks for hauling it back for us guys!

Skip ahead a week...we decorated it when we got back from Thanksgiving in Iowa.

Weekend in Vegas!

At our going away party in Chicago back in January our good drunk friend Gil got the idea that our close Chicago friends and us should get back together in Vegas.  Being slightly inebriated at the time we thought it was a good idea.  The next day we get an email from Gil saying the hotels were booked thanks to his timeshare points.

Fast forward 9 months.

Gil and his wife Leigh Anne, our friends Jeanne and Patrick, and us went to Vegas for the weekend.  Matt was sick when we landed, but quickly started feeling better.  The main idea was for the guys to bet on watch a lot of sports, specifically college football.  On Friday we hung out on the strip and lost money on craps.  In the evening we all went to the Rio and watched a Michael Jackson tribute with a very good MJ impersonator.  He had the moves and the voice down very well.

On Saturday the guys hung out at the sportsbook at the Las Vegas Hotel and watching an insane amount of college football on an insane amount of TV's.  The girls drank mimosas and laid by the pool.  Matt's games did not go his way, except for Baylor covering the spread, so that was a silver lining.  That evening the guys went to downtown Las Vegas to go to the older casinos.  The girls went to watch Chippendales.  The guys did pretty good at craps, but the real winner was Karla who took what money Matt won and tripled it. The next morning was some detoxing and a flight back to Denver.  A very fun weekend with some very fun friends!