A Weekend in Colorado


We thought we were due to see Lydia and Chelsea. They had been home the week before for Thanksgiving, but we wanted to spend the next weekend in Colorado to see Chelsea's inter squad gymnastics meet. It turned out to be even better.

When we first discussed the trip, Chelsea's meet was Friday and we thought we could ski on that Sunday. Given that we invited Abigail's to come as well to see her sisters and ski in Colorado.  So we scheduled an early flight on Friday and Abigail scheduled a Saturday flight so as not to miss too much school.  In the mean time the meet was moved to Saturday afternoon. And, Bonus!, Lydia's best opportunity to fly the glider solo was going to be Saturday morning. We would be able to experience both events. And Abigail now had a shot too.
Friday
Our flight in went smoothly and Lydia was gracious to come pick us up in Denver. After a salad at Mad Greens on the way, we checked in at the BSU and dropped Lydia off at school for their Christmas dinner. While they ate we went to an episcopal church near the BSU and walked through their light show. It was a Hallmark Christmas Movie moment. Afterward Lydia and Chelsea and we went to see Christmas lights in the city.





Saturday
Lydia's flight training was from 0630 to 1230. She guessed nothing would happen before 0800 so we decided to arrive then until Lydia was "scheduled" for 1030. We went back to bed and crawled back out to head to Third Space Coffee to meet up with Chelsea for coffee and chai. This was the place with coffee flights which... we probably should have tried, but the peppermint and tira misu lattes were yummy. 


Chelsea went on to gymnastics and we went to see Lydia fly. We were a little early and... Lydia was a good bit late. In the mean time Abigail arrived at Denver and took a van to Colorado Springs. We thought she would be dropped off on the north side of the base, well away from us, but she was dropped off five minutes from us just before Lydia finally had her first flight with the instructor pilot at 1200. Everything looked picture perfect from our vantage, and good enough for the instructor. We flew to pick up Abigail and got back with time to spare for all three of us to watch Lydia fly and land the glider all by herself. Then in keeping with tradition, she was thrown into a pool of freezing water in her clothes.






The three of us went to "Heart of Jerusalem" for a delicious Mediterranean meal before heading to the gym to watch the meet.  We saw a lot of gymnastics including Chelsea on the bars. She did a great job even if I'm biased. Lydia arrived just in time after cleanup.




As quick as we could, which wasn't, we packed the Gallaher van, props to Garrett, and headed toward Breckenridge. The room was nice enough for five people but the location was awesome. We could walk 20 feet from the door to the lift. We were all exhausted from a long day and collapsed in bed.
Sunday
Church was on the slopes for us. Just being there and seeing the majestic mountains from the slopes was enough to bring us close to God. We skied from 0930 to 1545 and probably only saw 20% of the slopes. We spent most of the time on groomed slopes but got a good dose of moguls as well. In all aspects it was awesome. There was speed and challenge punctuated with ski lift conversations with the people we simply adore more than any other in the most beautiful surroundings I could have imagined.






The trip home had a little wrench when a multicar accident caused us to sit nearly one hour on the interstate. We could not see it but were very close and we debated over who was the one to blame for delaying our trip fifteen minutes. I can say categorically it was not Tom. We grabbed a bite at MOD pizza before Lydia and Chelsea dropped the rest of us at the hotel. Lydia and Chelsea headed back to school for finals week. It was a precious time spent all together trading time for memories.








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