February 4, 2022 – It’s Definitely Winter!

It’sa freakin’ Winter Wonderland!!!

Well hello all! As you can see from my title It’s Definitely Winter here! We have finally had our very first REAL snow with 12 inches of the powdery stuff and brilliant blue skies as the backdrop – it just took till February to get here! January was a little dreary for me and seemed to last a LONG time.

I hope the snow’s not melted before we get there!!!!!

Anyway, we had a fun little weekend trip for our last January HOORAH and went to Breckenridge for the International Snow Sculpture Championships!  Google Maps showed a two and half hour trip to Breckenridge through Denver but on the other side of Denver traffic slowed big time!  There were so many cars with skis and snowboards on top and others like us, heading to the snow sculpture event, so it took us three and half hours instead.  It was a beautiful drive into the mountains with the sun glinting off the snow covered peaks, so no complaints here😊

How do you practice a snow sculpture in Mexico!?!?!?!?!

We parked on the outskirts of Breckenridge and rode the shuttle bus into downtown (wearing masks, of course).  We set off to see the snow sculptures first.  The Breckenridge Ski Resort brings in snow to build 12 foot, 25 ton blocks of solid snow for the teams to sculpt.  Teams from around the world send in their ideas and nine were picked for this year’s event.  They came from Ecuador, Mexico, Germany, New York, Wisconsin and Colorado.  The teams have a week to carve their sculptures and another week (or until they melt) of viewing.  Many were so intricate in detail, it would have been fun to watch them come to completion!

 

 

 

  

  

After viewing the sculptures, we wandered around downtown a bit.  There are lovely little shops and good places to eat.  The Blue River runs through the middle of Breckenridge and was completely frozen over – it was fun to watch the kids (and some adults) playing in the snow over the river.

Ok, so the build your own cake thing was weird, don’t you think??????????

(So, there was a shop called My Make Studio where you can purchase kits of cupcakes or 6 inch cakes and decorate them.  The kits include everything you need to make fabulous decorated cakes!  Pretty cool!  Check out the website – and the hubs thought it was weird because he didn’t get to have any cake!!!)

We traveled back to Denver for the night, and had to stop at The Tangled Ball for a quick yarn shop visit😁 The shop is located in the Edgewater Public Market which has many trendy shops and restaurants.  The shop was holding a class at the table in the middle of the large room.  Yarn was displayed all around the walls and in bins along the floor.  I was impressed by a sign on the door letting people know that, if they had lost their yarn in the recent fires around Colorado, The Tangled Ball was offering free yarn and notions that had been donated to them.  Even with a class going on, they were welcoming and friendly.  I’m planning on knitting up a scarf with a ball of Noro I purchased!

  

“Hotel”

(Well, Hotel is in ” ” because it was more of a motel with outside entrances, concrete walls (thank goodness) in a bad section of Denver, across from a “club” and unfortunately, two people were murdered on the block next door – the hubs will NOT be choosing our hotels anytime soon…)

Afterwards we went to our hotel and the next morning had breakfast at the famous Denver Biscuit Company and headed back to Fort Collins.  It was great weekend get away!  Next time, I’m planning on going snow tubing in Frisco!

June is right around the corner!!!!!!!

The silver lining in the three and half hour drive one way was the amount of knitting I got done on the oldest’s sweater!  I’m up to 24 inches – only 6 more inches to go before I have to figure out how to manipulate the pattern to make this thing fit!!  So all you knitters out there – send me your good vibes 😉