Christmas/ Jól 2013

   Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all of our friends and family! We Love and miss every single one of you. This year we were blessed to spend it with my brother and mother. We actually just dropped off my mom at the airport a couple hours ago, and Brett is here for about another week. Arni and I both took Christmas week off work and we have had some fun! Skiing, hiking, horseback riding, we've been to the movies, out to dinner, out with friends, we've played games, been to the hot tub, stuffed our faces with delicious food and slept in like we were teenagers! DIVINE! I'm sad to go back to work tomorrow, le sigh.  We have done so many activities over the past couple weeks I've lost count, but I will post pictures and explain as I post.

Brett just arrived, one of the Icelandic Santa Clauses left them a present

Mulled wine

Amanda at girls night

Nina being a dunce 

Caitlyn.........

Icelandic pancake breakfast

Bretts first hike in Colorado

My work Christmas party, brought my husband and my brother

Silver Grill Cafe in Fort Collins has the best sticky buns in the state

Playing in the snow, that's a change from California

We met Smokey the bear

We found the perfect Christmas tree!

Taking a break to enjoy some hot tea

This is actually my first legit snowman I've ever made

Decorating our Clark Griswold Christmas tree

Brett went on a horseback ride with me

Brett's first time skiing, Winter Park, Colorado

Ice beards

Mom has now arrived, we took her to a spa at Devil's Thumb Ranch for Christmas

Her first time seeing snow since she was a little girl

While mom enjoyed her spa day, we enjoyed a day of skiing. Here we are taking a break in a hot hut next to the fireplace.

This is Brett's first time cross country skiing, he catches on quick.

Christmas, this year we did Icelandic Christmas on the 24th.

Brett has been practicing playing his guitar a lot.

Our friend Johan, also a musical genius.

The chef! Arni made traditional Icelandic lamb, Waldorf salad, caramelized potatoes and red cabbage.

A hilarious game a charades

Paul sporting his Christmas present

A very tired us, opening up our presents at midnight, our matching boots my parents gave me.

Another hike

My blue eyed husband, he's so cute (it's my blog I can write stuff like that!)

It's safe to say mom is not a cold weather person, us on the gondola

Winter Park

We got her on skis for a minute, she didn't love it..lol

Mom's first snow angel

Getting creative at UFC night at Amanda and Chris's

Cards Against Humanity, always a good time.

   So that's it for now, if we get into any more adventured while Brett is here I'll be sure to post!

Negative What?!

 Two days and counting and my brother will be here, 13 days and my mom will be here! Now it's time to get in the Christmas spirit. I did a little baking today, Arni and I are going to hang some lights this week and next weekend we will head to Fort Collins to cut down a Christmas tree. Now if the snow would only stick around.... While Arni was in Denmark this past week we actually had a big storm come though bringing snow and freezing temperatures. I think one night got down to -15F/-26C BRRRRR! With highs only reaching about 6-10 degrees during the day its been a pretty frigid week. I actually had to go buy Cracker another blanket, as he was shivering even with his current one on. After three years here I have adapted to the cold pretty well, as have my horses, but days like that are just miserably cold, I don't care where you are from! One thing I can say is I definitely appreciate my husband, because when he is gone I have to dig my own car out of the snow, which sucks. To not have a garage in Colorado is just crazy. The point is, my husband is the best and he does nice things like de-ice my vehicle for me, it's the little things folks. I've attached a few pictures from the last couple weeks.

Our first time at Boulder Dinner Theater, we saw Monty Pythons Spamalot, this is us with the wooden rabbit.

Both of these Icelanders decided to wear their Lopapeysa, I suppose they were feeling very patriotic this night!

Lita loves the snow, Cracker is still a Florida boy.

Staying warm

    

Catilyn and I riding at Flat Irons Vista

A nice spot to stop for lunch

The view we had for lunch

Hey Turkeys!

   Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to my whole 5 followers =) and much love to our family and friends back home we can't be with this holiday. November has been busy as expected. Arni is always busy at work and for me, this is my BUSIEST time of year... gotta get them surgeries in before the end of the year. I try to send out a blanket apology to friends to let them know that, I indeed, did not drop off the face of the earth and I will catch up with them again in January, when work is completely dead.

    Earlier this month the Viking and I kicked off our holiday season by seeing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra live at the Pepsi Center. I wasn't really sure what to expect, and I sure didn't expect what I saw! Dear God there were flame throwers, girls dancing in leather pants, lasers and some aerial guitar solos, with Christmas music. Entertaining to say the least.

    I can't believe it has been a whole year since I last saw my Dad, who was visiting last Thanksgiving, my how the time flies. This year we were invited by Nina and Paul to have dinner with them and a few friends. Eight of us, from literally all over the world, became family to share this day with. Furthermore, the Americans were in the minority, so to share "our" Holiday with our international friends was pretty special. We ate our faces off then finished the night with a few board games and a movie.

All snazzed up

I brought desserts

Mexican Train Dominoes 

Mormon Cheese Heads

     A little blog to update. Last weekend we attended our first ever cheese festival. Thousands upon thousands of cheese samples....drool. We tasted some really delicious cheeses and some really terrible cheeses, and ended up buying some flavored goat cheese. We stayed about a hour, had what we felt was our money's worth and then headed out because the crowd was getting too thick. We decided to go to Left Hand Brewery and have a beer before heading home.
     That evening we drove to Denver to meet up with Arni's coworker Karen, her sister and nephews for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe and then to the Denver Center for Performing Arts to see The Book of Mormon. So, I knew that this was going to be a funny play, and I knew it is written by the creators of South Park, but I still wasn't quite sure what I was in for. I'll tell you what I was in for.... straight hilarity, I mean seriously, pee your pants funny. Inappropriate, wrong on ALL sorts of levels, and worth every penny.
   

One of the goats used to make cheese

Arni enjoying some samples

The goat cheese we bought

Larimier Square looking like Christmas 

DCPA

Fall!

    It's fall here in Colorado and it is lovely! My most favorite season in my most favorite state, is doesn't get much better.

My sweet girl!

  This past week I went on what it probably my last mountain ride for a while with my friend Caitlyn. We heard that Dowdy Draw was reopened, and being it is one of my favorite places to ride we hit the trails. What we weren't expecting was the freezing gusts of wind that turned us into wind-blown Popsicles. That's the thing about Colorado, the weather can be just so unexpected. We decided to cowgirl up anyway and make the most of our ride.

Caitlyn freezing, notice all the ice on the bridge.