Holidays

The holidays this year was one to remember.  I spent Christmas in Colorado with Casey and her family.  It had snowed a couple days before I got there, so it was white and snowy the whole time with clear blue skys and relatively mild temperature.  It was pretty perfect.

 When I landed, there was snow all over the airport.  Definitely a first for me.

SNOW!  It was crazy to see so much of it everywhere.  I thought this was a pretty cool sight, with so many cars, so much snow and the Rockies in the background.

I got in pretty early in the morning.  Casey and her sister got in the day before, so Casey picked me up from the airport and we headed home.  After a quick lunch, I napped for a bit to catch up on some sleep I missed out on from the night before.  After I woke up, we headed outside, found a big hill and went sledding.

There were only shots of me from behind sledding, so here I am hiking back up.  It's a ton of fun going fast and wiping out in the snow, but it's a little workout getting back up.

Here's Casey getting ready to go down a big slope.

 And here she is flying off an unforeseen jump that catapulted her a few feet into the air.  Pretty rad!  We ended our Christmas eve with a delicious dinner cooked by Lindsay and a couple rounds of "Oh Hell!" a card game Casey and I taught the rest of the family.

The next day was Christmas.  Unfortunately, I was too busy opening up presents to get any good pictures.  But I did get some awesome presents that I am very excited to use!  We had a pretty relaxing morning.  In the afternoon, Casey and I started preparing dinner that we would eat at the grandparents' house.

We hung out with Casey's grandma while Brad, Carol and Casey's grandpa were outside tending to a huge fallen tree branch.  Dinner was Boeuf Bourguignon that we cooked until nice and tender.  It came out pretty well and tasty if I do say so myself.  Here's a candid of the family.  I think I like this picture just for the sheer happiness of Casey's grandma's face.

The next day we headed down to the Newlins' new land where they plan to build a cabin.  It was so beautiful and tranquil and I am very excited for them.

Here is Brad showing the girls an occupied bird house they had put up on one of their first visits to their land.  You could see twigs and leafs sticking out and I bet there will be chirping in the spring!

I thought this tree was pretty cool.  It was dead and Brad and Carol thought it was probably stuck by lighting.

Here's Casey and I enjoying the sun and posing.  If you can't tell, it was a beautiful day.  Up on those rocks, we had a great view of the property and the mountains behind as well and a nice sized hill across the way.  You could hear the wind gently blowing with the warm sun beaming down.  It a kind of paradise I'm not used to, but probably could.

 Jon's First Snow Angel  It really does turn out to look like an angel.

I left the group to write my name in the snow and this is what I saw when I came back.  The whole family, enjoying the sun of a dry patch under a tree.  Ahh nature!!!

Here we all are with their future home behind us.

As if that wasn't enough, on our way out we saw some wildlife.

First we saw this group of four bull elk.  This one was off to the side by himself, seemingly checking things out.  I got a quick photo of him before he joined the others and ran off.  Then, we drove for another minute and saw this:

 A giant herd of elk just chilling near someone's house.  Brad told us it was a herum of cow elk with a couple bulls.  The four bull elk that we saw were likely satellite bull elk that follow the herum, waiting for a chance to challenge the male.  It was an incredible sight and definitely the highlight of the trip.

We left later that day and headed back for San Francisco.  I had six days between the day we got back to pack up all my stuff and get ready to move out.  Casey and  I just moved into an apartment in the Inner Richmond early last week and are still settling in.  We are making big strides though and hopefully we will be unpacked and free of boxes and bags soon.