Ice skating in front of the huge Christmas tree on Keystone Lake

This week actually began in Des Moines, Iowa where we awoke on New Years Day to the coldest temperature I think I have ever experienced: -17 degrees. That’s fahrenheit (it would actually be -27 celsius). We packed up the car and drove back to Denver. The temperature slowly climbed as we drove west and when we arrived in Denver it was a relatively balmy 20 degrees.

The kids did not have school this week so the kids had various play dates with school friends during the week. Then on Thursday Jude spent the day at a new school, The International School of Denver, shadowing their sixth grade class. It is very different to Waldorf but Jude reported it was a positive experience. We are looking at various options for Jude for next year as he enters sixth grade, which is the middle school years.

This weekend I drove up on Friday afternoon with Anna in preparation for her ski team on Saturday. We had renters staying at our condo so we had to book a resort room. It was by Keystone Lake and Anna loved it. We went out for dinner and then ice skated on the lake. Then we were up bright and early for ski team on Saturday morning.

Marcy served Jude breakfast in bed for the first time

Meanwhile back in Denver it was just Jude and Marcy. She spoiled him on Saturday morning by giving him breakfast in bed. It looks like he enjoyed it. They also had a fun time with one of the neighbor kids who often comes over. They played this game where you had to see how many marshmallows you could put in your mouth and still say “fluffy bunny”. The answer for both kids was four.

Jude and our neighbor stuffing marshmallows in their mouth

Marcy and Jude came up late on Saturday and we moved back to our condo. Then today Anna and I were up bright and early for her first ever ski race meet. I was the volunteer starter so I was able to see Anna at the start of both her races. She had giant slalom in the morning and slalom in the afternoon. I thought she did really well, she was certainly one of the faster kids for her age but she was disappointed not to get a medal (there were 30 girls in her age group). Still, she enjoyed the experience and is keen to keep racing.

At the medal presentation for the ski race