Apologies to those who’ve wondered where my chapter-a-day posts were since late last week. I took a few days off to celebrate Christmas with Wendy and her family in Denver. Wendy’s sister, Becky, was kind enough to host us all for the second straight year. We even got to meet Court, the new man in her life. His folks even joined us for brunch on Sunday morning.
Madison’s boyfriend, Kevin, drove up from Mt. Pleasant on Thursday and spent the night here in Pella so we could leave early on Friday. We stopped in Des Moines to pick-up Taylor. It was a long drive, but we enjoyed some great conversation and made it to Denver in the early evening.
Saturday morning was spent shopping with Kevin and the girls. Taylor helped me pick out a few birthday gifts for Wendy, utilizing those skills she’s been honing at her job at J. Crew. Madison and Kevin worked on some gifts for Kevin’s niece and nephew while Madison shopped for some work clothes.
Wendy’s sister, Becky, was a wonderful hostess and we enjoyed hanging out all afternoon and evening. We ate a lot and laughed a lot. Food and conversation were the order of the weekend. I enjoyed coffee and conversation with Wendy’s dad both Saturday and Sunday morning. Taylor got up to join the two of us “morning people” on Sunday morning which was wonderful.
The family gathered around my iPad on Sunday to Skype with Wendy’s brother, Josh who is serving as a dentist in the Army in Germany. It was fun to watch everyone gathered around to visit with Josh who was half a world away. As a Christmas gift to the family, Josh talked his girlfriend into stepping into the camera so everyone could see her.
Taylor brought a party game called Quelf along for the weekend. On Saturday night the five of us played in the hotel room. On Sunday, we made Wendy’s siblings play with us. It’s sort of a zany mash up of trivial pursuit, charades, and truth or dare. We had a lot of fun playing together.
I drove Madison back to Colorado Spings on Monday morning. It was fun to see where she goes to school, to see the house where she lives and to meet her landlord. After a business lunch in Englewood, I headed back to the hotel to pick up Wendy, Taylor and Kevin to begin the trek home. Wendy had been watching the radar and told me that we could expect to drive through snow, ice and rain all the way home as a huge storm front moved north into Nebraska and Iowa. We were extremely thankful as the front seemed to miraculously stay just south of the interstate. At one point the radar showed that it was snowing right where we were, but we didn’t experience one snow flake or rain drop the entire way home. We arrived home in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
We had a ball and enjoyed the time with family.