New Year's Eve 2009 Celebration

What a fun evening we had with our friends!
First we went to watch the fire-works at Golden Peak with Caro and Skip.

Skip, Caro and Chris... freezing their butts off.

Fire-works
(had to take them in black&white, or my camera didn't catch them. Sorry.)

Same thing with the new Water & Fire Fountain in the village.
Finally we saw it working! :)

Then we went warming up with a hot cocoa and teas at the Market Place, while waiting for Cindy and her brother Mike. The two lucky birds went out skiing today and had great time together. :)

Afterwords... we went all together to our place, to wait for the last (but not the least) member of our party: mr. Patrick Cassidy! He was the one who had to work till late today, but was able to get out pretty early to join us for a good dinner at Nozawa's. Yum!

The Fun Group of Friends
with the big sushi boat!
Btw: Pat is known to try the strangest dishes in every restaurant,
so he ordered quite a few and challenged us all to the...
SUSHI CHALLENGE!

Chris taking his first Sushi Challenge...

Mike and Chris "eyes-debating" what to do with the
Sushi Challenge they took together...

Looks like Mike is ready to say... "Not baaad."
But maybe Chris thinks otherwise...

Still trying to swallow it. He-he.

Having fun at our place, while waiting for Midnight and watching... quite a few programs at the same time... Chris and Pat had the remote control in their hands(!). They decided to open a Hooters place somewhere in Eagle-Vail, after watching the International Hooters' Competition. You wouldn't like to hear the comments... of the girls. He-he! ;o)

New Year 2009 is finally hear:
BEST WISHES TO EVERYBODY!!!

Flattops Dec 30

(Green comments are from Sarah)

Wonderful snowmobiling day up on the flattops December 30th. Sludge, Brendon, Chard, Peaches, Ratz and the Italian Tsunamy. We started Monday night with Tsunamy and Ratz digging out the trailer. It was buried. We shoveled for 1.5 hours. [why did Tommy go to Montana??? I missed him and the snow-blower! please come back!!!!!!!]

Tuesday was sunshine for sledding. But before we started Chris had to shovel (again!) off the snow from the top of the trailer. There was probably an additional 600 pounds of snow and it made pulling the trailer difficult.

Shoveling the roof, Brendon gives encouragement

[btw: Tom, ask Ratz about the little window on the trailer's roof]

Up the trail we saw a number of elk. Many stucks, good jumps and plenty of carving in the snow. Brendon hit a big tree well which almost buried him...
[ehm... it's been fun not being the only one rescued by Tom. ThanX Brenny!
I hope you'll come out with us more often!!! hey! I'm not kidding! I DID have a lot of fun with you too. Finally I know why Tom and Ratz like hanging out with you so much!!!]

Chard does a wheelie

Chris does a [too big of a] wheelie and...

...he rolled Tsunamy's sled(!)
[Sled-neck Chick's Lesson#1: never lend your sled to your husband! Brandon! you did much better when you tried it!!! :) ]

Chard jumping a cornice

Chris does cornice
[man! they were like kids... what one was doing... the other one did... & me? taking pics!]

The Italian Tsunamy carving while the guys take a break.
[gossshhh! how many breaks were they taking today. it was almost like being out with Italians, or maybe with German-Irish...they just kept drinking... no. no grappa, nor beer. just vitamin water to keep up with the Energizer Ratz Bunny...]

Brendon falls of snowmobile. Brendon crawls in the snow for 100 yards for 5 minutes to reach snowmobile. Once he gets to his snowmobile...... we show up to help.

Brendon falls of snowmobile. Snowmobile goes downhill without him. Sludge picks him up.
(click for full size)

(click for full size to get the full affect)
Brendon is about to plant the nose of his snowmobile 5 feet into the snow. He slams his body into the handlebars (everyone laughs...).

Brendon checking the snow after a head plant into the snow (everyone laughs)

People carving in the powder! Brendon falls off the snowmobile (again) and (everyone laughs)

Brendon hits another tree well, snowmobile rolls on top of him (Everyone laughs). [yep! there was plentiful of good red-neck (pardon!) sled-neck's laughing today!] Chard applies additional pressure to the snowmobile with his foot so Brendon can't get out. Our friend "Peaches" ponders having a snack [while Ratz... where IS Ratz when we need help?!?! He must be somewhere carving... like that day (Dec.16th Sledding) with Simo...]

Sarah posing for the camera

Sarah stuck for the camera

Stuck, "Sludge come help me"
[...since Ratz is busy taking pics to document our outing for his dad & give him one more chance to have fun making fun of me... he-he-he! ;o) ]

On the way home, all in one piece

Chatting with the groomer on our way out at the end of the day.
[I think everybody was REALLY happy to see this guy. I know I WAS!]

CHRISTMAS DINNER 2008

As usual, we had a very good dinner at Beth & Wag's house for Christmas. Good time and...

LOTS of FUN playing with the twins!!!
BTW: did you know they got a new dog ?

Oh, no! That's just Chris! What is he doing, barking around the house?

Well, I guess Lilly knows how to get her Uncle Chris on... a leash!
(I should maybe take some lessons from her! He-he!)

Chris trying to be Houdini the Magician by disappearing in a box.

...and the Twins are copying him

Yes! You should go first. I show you how you do it...

...to make your little brother disappear
(she must have taken some lessons from my own brother:
he tried to close me in our dining room drawer,
while playing Hiding & Seek as kids.

And I bet she knows she's done smth she shouldn't have. He-he-he!

CHRISTMAS DAY 2008

And this Christmas day (while Chris was working) introduced itself to me with a looong & restfull sleep. Man! I needed it! And with a TON of MORE FUN with our Cute Twins and their family.
Beth, Wag and their Clan came to pick me up to go sledding with them down to Avon.

FUN - FUN - FUN!!!

Beth, Wag, Julia, Lilly, Wag IV (catching a ride from her sister) and Karina hiking up the hill.

The first Dare Devils: Beth and little Wag

Me and Lilly trying to catch them.

First collision: Wag III, Wag IV and Julia.

Julia and little Wag flying down the hill.

Wag showing off his new sliding tactic.

Karina's taking off on the jump.

Julia, Juliana (twin's Brazilian Nanny... it was
her first White Christmas!) and Karina resting.

Hmmm... the snow is gooooddd!!!

Italian-Brazilian Snow Fight
David! ThanXXX for so many years of training with you! :)

Cute Family Pic: Beth, Juliana, Julia, Wag, Karina
and our Cool Duo: Wag & Lilly! :>

CHRISTMAS EVE 2008

There was a time... when The Wife (as Chris loves to call me) decided to go snow-shoeing to "hunt" our Christmas Tree. And Chris has to go with... So, after a hard day of snow-mobiling (yep, check the Dec.17th post), we went to get our tree in sheen deep snow, climbing big mountains, crossing "almost" frozen creeks, daring night animals and... yes! We found it! The perfect one.

Our little but super-duper cute tree!

I guess... with the slow economy, we didn't want to over do it either, or probably we were just very tired and didn't want to haul (again) a big tree back home. Every year we're swearing we won't get a big one, but every time, when we bring it home... it barely fits in our apartment. Chris warns me every single year but still... I can't tell when one is small enough, when it's out in the woods. There it looks so small!!! I'm still not used to the fact that... everything is big in America! :}

So, this is when everything started in my Scatter-Brained-Tsunamy's mind (also Chris' words). It's been years that I wanted a "home-made" tree, so Janina and me got together and made a sweet Christmas tree. We used cookies instead of baloons and marshmallows instead of strings.

The result really IS a Sweet Tree!!!

Janina and me with our Art! :>

And on that same snow-shoe day with Chris, my idea of organizing this year Christmas Eve's Party with a group of friends really realized in my mind. Me and my group of "Silly Aliens" friends like me, have already been talking to have a party all together to get rid of the home-sickness, that gets on all of us during this time of the year. But wasn't sure what & how to do that. The snow-shoeing with my husband helped me out to make something fun of this evening... otherwise... I knew there would be tears coming down on our faces. :(
It ended up that we had quite a few people in our little apartment (still can't believe how many we can fit in here!). And every and each of us had a big smile on her/his face. :>

Iva, Chris, Eze, Caro, Skip, Andrea, Wink,
Tom & Guillermo...
enjoying appetizers that Caro & Mariella made.

Out of 20+ adults, 12 were part of the "Silly Aliens" (Sarah, Caro, Mariella, Claudia, Nazareth, Beate, Julieta, Guillermo, Iva, Anna, Laura & Michele) . The other 7 were holding... or at least trying to hold the American way of celebrating Christmas (Chris, Skip, Todd, Andrea, Wink, Tom & Nate). It was pretty interesting to exchange food and Christmas customs... from Italy to USA, from Argentina to Germany... and all was VERY YUMMY!!! Chrissy, Greg and Nick came over to visit us and got a taste of it too.

Iva, Wink, Mariella, Nazareth and "an Unknown Head" (Claudia's?)...
digging in the main dishes that Iva, Sarah, Andrea,
Caro & the Eagle-Vail Argentinian Girls' Club prepared.

As usually, we had our mascots too. There cannot be fun party without Steele, Ezechiel, Maverick & Michael. If you invite them, laughs are assured! :)

Steele & Mariella
This little-pumpkin, besides being a future Sled-neck,
I think he'll be a future photo-model-guy.
He laughed every time he saw me taking pics of him,
making us laugh our butts off!

Eze and his... unbeatable "I don't know!" style.

Michael showing his home made sled to his brother.
(If you have their dad Todd, a shovel and some padding,
you never know what you end up with, but...
it probably will have to do with FUN!)

I'm sorry I didn't catch Michael harvesting
our Christmas tree,

but I can assure you there are
quite a few less marshmallows!

To Everybody here
& back home:
Have a Sweet Holiday!!!

...Oh! I've almost forgotten. How can I???!!!???!!! The first part of the evening included hiking & sledding in an "undisclosed location", where we've "almost" got busted.