Our Second Day at Vail, Cancelled Flight, Christmas Eve Service, Christmas in Colorado

Sounds like you all had wonderful Christmas vacations! I was able to catch up on most of your blogs - but plan to read more tonight now that i'm back in Atlanta!! Backing up, on Christmas Eve we got up early to discover that our flight had been canceled. Yes, Delta cancelled 500 Christmas-Day flights into Atlanta and ours was one of them. Austin's dad tried to find other options to get us out on Christmas - but that was the ONLY flight from Vail to Atlanta so we were pretty much stuck with having to fly out on the 26th instead. But this meant we had to find another place to stay because the condo was getting new renters the following day. Oy. Paul figured it all out quickly though, we all decided to look on the bright side (Christmas Day skiing, anyone?) and then we hopped on the Turtle Bus and hit up Vail for our second day of skiing there. The day was perfect. Austin felt great and could ski the whole day, we took lots of runs even faster than the day before, we did even more blacks and we gave moguls a whirl - it was an awesome day for sure. We ate lunch on the mountain and kept it up until the lifts closed, then it was back on the turtle bus and back to Beaver Creek. We shopped a bit, no luck, then headed to the condo, showered and had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner at The Golden Eagle Inn Restaurant. I had the salmon with couscous - YUM - probably my fifth fish dinner in Colorado - I can't help but order fish. After dinner we walked over to the chapel for a 10:30 p.m. service. It was lovely - beautiful music, communion and a great service which stressed "not dropping your Jesus." He wove it together with a clever anecdote about a colleague who was putting together the nativity scene and dropped several items, including the baby Jesus. Very cute story, and a great story in general. After church we packed and passed out!

Me and Michelle at diinner

Austin took pics of the restaurant -it was pretty cool and displayed a lot of neat art

Had to get a red bull. I was asleep by 10 p.m. every night so a 10:30 p.m. service required some wings

earlier that day - on the Turtle Bus

Tyler chillin' on the bus

Me, Paul, Tyler and Elliot on the mountain!

The boys on the mountain!

Christmas morning we woke up, finished up packing and put our bags in the lobby - then it was time for our bonus, not planned day of skiing at Beaver Creek. We got a late start, but had a great time again running all over the mountain. At 1:30 we met Austin's mom at the Ritz for another yummy, outdoor lunch with live music - beautiful day! In the afternoon it got cold but we skied until the lifts closed again and I was truly so sad to not have any more skiing! It was just too much fun over the week and I really enjoyed my time with Austin, his bros and his dad who really took so much time to help me improve and be more confident on the mountain. A great end to a great week. We got back to the condo, got in a taxi and were off to a hotel by Eagle airport. After showers we decided to order in Chinese (so very 'A Christmas Story' per Tyler). We had dinner in the lobby and couldn't help but laugh at our Christmas Dinner! It was great! Then me, Austin and his bros watched Christmas Vacation before passing out at 10 p.m. It was a lovely Christmas, regardless of how unplanned it was!

unfortunately we didn't take many pics on Christmas - just enjoyed our last day there! However, Austin did snap this one right before lunch!

Q: How was your Christmas? Did anything go unplanned?

Q: What's your favorite Christmas movie? Austin's is Christmas Vacation - mine is Home Alone, Love Actually or While You Were Sleeping. I can't decide which is a fave!