Twenty-Twenty is here and January is flying by! This month we’ve had a solid balance of relaxation and winter fun. We kicked off the new year with a bang with a hilarious Olympic themed party with friends - it was a blast! A week later we shipped the kids off to Grandma and Grandpas house for a long weekend while we treated ourselves to a fun ski trip in Park City, Utah.
Last year we took on Colorado including Breckenridge and Vail - it was my first real ski trip and loved it. Since, Jeff has suggested that we seek out new destinations each year and this time Park City did not disappoint. We flew into Salt Lake City which was approximately a 45 minute drive into Park City. We rented a great AirBnb that was 5 minutes from town and right on the free bus route which was awesome. Ski rentals were a cinch and the Town Lift was the dream making Ski Apres a daily must.
We hit the slopes everyday at 9am, skied all day stopping only for a bite to eat and a beer. Some of the more notable places we ate/drank in town included No Name Saloon (neat atmosphere, cheap drinks (for Park City) and greasy snacks), High West Distillery where we celebrated Emily’s birthday with dinner (great food!) and Flanagan’s on Main (Ski Apres - get the Reuben Rolls!). We all returned safely to our children and are extremely grateful to the grandparents for gifting us the freedom for a fun filled adult weekend away.
Back in Grand Rapids we signed both Thomas and Natalie up for the 2020 school year. Natalie is excited to attend Kindergarten next year at Grand Rapids Christian, a two block walk from our house, while Thomas will follow in his sisters footsteps for the next two years at Grace Church Preschool. The kids also started swim lessons this week that’ll run through the next 5 weeks. Natalie keeps asking to visit an indoor water park which has, thus far, seemed to work as her learn-to swim-incentive. And hey, if spending the night at a family-friendly indoor water park gets the kids to ditch the swimmies… I’ll take one for the team.
Natalie got her cast off last week and she’s doing awesome. The doctor said her arm healed nicely and there is little risk of a refractor. They let Natalie take her cast home with her and now it sits on her bedroom dresser as the coolest 4-year-old show and tell piece. I’m resisting the urge to hide it, allow her to forget about it and then toss it. I’ll give it a couple weeks.
Jeff started bowling league this month which he wasn’t all that confident was happening this year. Apparently it’s super hard to get into a league in January (they are full or go year round) and they’ve had some changes in team members. Alas, Jeff loves bowling and he was determined to make it happen one way or the other. Last weekend we took the kids bowling with the other families who’s Dads also bowl and had a blast. I’m not a fan of bowling but I enjoyed hanging out and watching nonetheless. Bowling alleys have cheap drinks - so I was happy.
For the first time, Jeff chaperoned Natalie on her school field trip to the planetarium this week. Natalie was thrilled! I’m pretty certain that this will be the one field trip she remembers forever versus the handful I’ve attended with her over the last two years for the simple fact that it was her Dad who went with her. Jeff gets all the glory! Natalie explained that they did not show the stars and planets like she had expected and instead showed a movie that was nothing about outer space. I think she was disappointed because they’ve been talking about space at school this month.
Last weekend we attended our first Ottawa Hills Happy Hour - a monthly event we are totally on board with. It was super fun getting to know some of our new neighbors and hearing some of the history about the neighborhood. I learned that our house used to be painted pink and many reiterated that it was once owned by Steelcase where they used it to host executives and clients. All the conversations have inspired me to visit the archives at the public library to see if I can’t find out more about our house. Stay tuned!