Denver, CO

So long story short...Brad's aunt and her family live in Colorado and every Christmas they get the crap shoot of having to drive/fly all the way to the OH to be with all the rest of the fam. We haven't gotten to see them in forever because we usually don't get there at the same time.

flight essentials:  starbucks (which I spilled all over myself shortly after taking this picture), trashy mags, and the kindle

We all decided that this year we'd fly to Colorado and it worked out great! We took over a huge house near Winter Park and it was a blast! There were 12 of us all together (Brad's parents, brother, aunt, and cousins). It was great because we could get up and ski all day then come home to a warm shower and home cooked meal. Then we either played games or watched movies until bedtime.

Brad and I flew out a few days early and spent some time in downtown Denver. We stayed at a really modern hotel, The Curtis. Each floor was themed (we were on the Laugh out Loud floor) and the lobby and other general areas were really nicely decorated.

PROS: We got a great deal, so that was nice, and the hotel was a lot of fun. Bed was comfortable and gym was great.

 CONS: The walls were PAPER THIN and the parking was a nightmare. It was $20 per night to park but then it was almost impossible to find a spot! The hotel was right across from an arts theater and they sold parking for that making it hard for hotel guests to find parking. Annoying.

It was nice to get a couple days to ourselves. We had some great food and tried a lot of different beer!

you know exactly why i tried this one!! i missed my riley bear!

We also got to do some Christmas shopping.

Just in case you were wondering... it was even more awesome than I'd imagined. LOVE. The clothes are amazing and the salespeople were great too... And they loved my accent and kept asking me to say different things. (This happens to me all the time. What can I say, I'm COUNTRY!)

I also got some great workouts in at the gym (and watched a LOT of Teen Mom!).

Brad's brother met up with us on Saturday and stayed with us so we could all hang out. Then we packed up to head to Winter Park on Sunday. More to come!!

This is us sitting in the back of our rental car in the mall parking garage. We were waiting for Andrew to find us (mall parking lot the Saturday before Christmas... you can imagine). Tailgaiting seemed like a great way to pass the time!