Christmas Trip: Colorado Portion

I can't believe it's already been 10 days. We've had a great time in Colorado and we are headed to Utah in about 15 minutes for the second part of our trip. Here are the highlights of our trip so far:

(This picture was taken minutes after arriving at my parent's house) Pedro, obviously feeling very comfortable in his new surroundings, got right on making a mess of my mom's bathroom:



They ended up putting up a gate to keep Pedro out of the bathroom.

We got to pick out a real tree this year (Guapo's dream):




Although we were hoping for a white Christmas, it only snowed for about 5 minutes one day. I don't even think you can see the snow falling in this picture, but I promise it was:



We went to a Nuggets game in my dad's office's fancy-shmancy box. They were giving out free reindeer webkinz to all kids and the Nuggets won-so it was pretty much a great night for all involved:



They climbed the wall at the mall:



They got to make fudge and cookies with grandma (I can't tell you what a treat it was NOT to be in charge of these activities!):



(of course, no one wanted to eat Pedro's creations).



The one bad part of the week (and it turned out ok in the end) was that on Christmas Eve day we lost Juan Carlos and Julio for about an hour and a half. Unbeknownst to any adults in the house, they had gone over to a neighbor's to play and were in the basement where no one could here our repeated knocks, so we assumed the neighbors were gone. We frantically searched the nearby park and pond; finally, worrying (well, more like hoping at that moment) that maybe they got lost and wouldn't know the address or phone number of my parents' house, we called the police and they started searching. I'm pretty sure it was the worst hour and a half of my life. I felt like I was suffocating, about to throw up, and pass out all at the same time.

Guapo kept returning to the neighbor's with no luck; then he just felt like he should go inside, so he just opened the front door and he saw their shoes by the stairs (after, the officer joked that he was going to have to charge him with trespassing). They were fine and had no idea they had caused all of us such grief. The nice policeman in charge of the search talked to them about always telling someone where they are and he gave them a sticker:



What an ordeal! I so thankful am it ended happy. The experience served as a very strong reminder of what is really important in life.

That night we did our traditional steamy fondue with the family:



...and later that night Santa visited the house:



We finally joined the 21st century and got a Wii for Christmas. I am a staunch opponent of video games-we'll see how long before I regret the decision. Speaking of the which, please let me know if you can recommend any good, ACTIVE, games for the kids.

And, Guapo and I got a "grown-up" camera. So hopefully the quality of our photos will improve (I'm still scared to use it-so I've got nothing to show you yet.).

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday!