I was up too late again and didn’t get up early…I really have to get better about getting to bed at a decent time.

We took a break from school in to visit the doctor and Cannon got his Covid booster shot. None of us are sick at the moment but it feels like that won’t last long.

We came home, finished school then had breakfast burritos for lunch.

We visited the library to add books to our snow/polar book shelves. I really like THIS list if you need more winter/snow/polar books.

And because of my bad life choices I was running on the treadmill in the late afternoon.

Do you have any bad life choices you just keep repeating? One day I will get it together.

We are now back to “normal life” of school, packing snacks, working on reading, writing, math, etc.

Luckily both kids love school and are excited to be back to it.

I was excited to be taking my new boots out, I am loving them!

I loved THIS article on setting Grounded Goals. I really loved the idea of focusing on the process over outcomes. You can only control so much!

Are you setting big goals for 2023?

We are trying to settle back into reality after all the fun/chaos of the holidays.

We spent a lot of time putting the rest of Christmas away and cleaning up after camping. We are enjoying all the snow we still have, often our snow is gone in a day or two.

I miss the twinkle of the Christmas tree lights for my early morning coffee but it’s also nice to have less clutter around.

We have been embracing winter more, and spending more time outside! Also our outdoor Christmas lights might be up for awhile until we dry out a bit.

All of my running has been on the treadmill lately and I have really been meaning to get outside more, I definitely notice that I am happier all day after a morning run especially if it’s outside. But Cory has been working a lot in the office and with this much snow on the ground the kids can’t come out with me on scooters or bikes. I am so grateful to have this treadmill in our house but tomorrow I am running outside!

Do you prefer running on the treadmill or out in the snow?

We almost didn’t make it to our new years trip to Colorado Springs and we had to shorten our trip because of a sick pup and a winter storm.

We spent most of New Years Eve at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, I love this little zoo that is tucked into side of the mountain.

The Africa exhibit is so amazing, we have fed the giraffes and the elephants here.

The weather was nice and warm and comfortable.

The kids always love to find places to play along the way.

There is also a really good coffee shop in the zoo, so that made Cory and I very happy. We both got the blackberry latte, it was so good! The lavender latte is also amazing.

After our time at the zoo, we went back to our campsite to play a bit. Emmy and I took Humphry on a little hike.

Cory and I love kombucha, but these two love it even more and stole ours, they crack me up! Around dinner time we grabbed a piazza and drove into Garden of the Gods.

My phone doesn’t take great pictures but it was so light out even with just half a moon. After eating we went out for a night hike and it was so much fun.

Garden of the Gods is a must visit (and free) anytime we are in Colorado Springs.

Dogs are allowed as well to come with you.

Humphry even allowed us to put his puffer jacket on him.

We had planned on watching the fireworks that are launched from Pikes Peak at 9 PM but both places we were told were great viewing options were a bust. It was also cloudy around the peak so we only saw a few fireworks. We had a great time regardless. We had a Champagne toast back at our campsite, a fake new years countdown and in bed by 10 PM.

On new years morning we were excited to go explore the Cave of the Winds.

We have visited before when Cannon was a tiny baby, I think I was also pregnant with Emmy at the time.

We grabbed some much needed Starbucks because we forgot to bring coffee with us and drove up to the caves.

We did the Discovery Adventure Tour with a tour guide and loved it. He did a great job sharing fun stories and interesting information about the cave.

I have a little bit of claustrophobia so I would never be able to do a cave tour that has you crawling on your belly to get though. This tour was fine for me but hearing about how the tours used to be was crazy, 8 hours of squeezing through tiny spaces, hard no from me!

There is also a haunted lantern tour that is dark and spooky, kids have to be at least eight to participate so that might be fun in the future.

The tour was about an hour and the kids did great not running around or touching the caves. This gives me hope that we can do more tours when traveling abroad.

After the caves we went to Red Rocks Open Space for a hike.

We choose a loop that was around three miles, I am not exactly sure how far because my watch died while we were hiking, I forgot to pack my charging cord.

The hike was really interesting, and the kids liked the section with steps into the rocks.

After our hike we had to go back and pack up camp. There was a winter storm coming in overnight into Monday and I didn’t want to be towing home in bad weather. We got home before the snow and in time to make dinner.

We would have loved more time in Colorado Springs as there is always more fun things to do but we had a great time while we were there.

We were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow but ended up getting around 10 inches overnight so we spent our morning digging out.

Luckily it was a bright sunny morning!

It was a heavy wet snow so it stuck to the trees and made everything so beautiful!

Once we got the sidewalk cleaned off we got ready and joined friends at the sledding hill.

Cory took a little time off work to join us in the fun!

We all had a lot of fun then headed home for lunch.

In the afternoon the kids went in the backyard and played in the snow some more because time outside is the best.

We finally got the kids to come in when it started getting dark. We grabbed Greek food because we have been big slackers on getting to the grocery store. Will need to take care of that tomorrow.

We had planned on camping at Cheyenne Mountain State Park this weekend for New Years but given the amount of snow we got and our dog seeming sick we also might be rethinking that plan as well.

Do you have fun plans for New Years?

Another Day another scooter ride in the morning to get our bodies moving.

We scooted down a pretty steep hill to a playground, both kids rocked it. I am so proud of both of them and they really show me how to take on life and learn new things.

Playground break!

We are loving these scooters that the kids got for Christmas! The box says for 8+ but little four year old Emmy is doing great. It probably helps that she mastered her little three wheel scooter when she was two.

We got home and it was snack time! I am trying to get Christmas taken down but it will probably be up into the new year since we are going camping this weekend. Also we are too busy having fun. FOMO!

We went to the library to exchange our Christmas books/movies for snow themed books.

Then we spent two hours with friends at the pool living our best life!

While at the pool it started raining, it always reminds me of home when it rains.

Then it turned it very beautiful snow, looks like we are going sledding tomorrow!

I threw up our January snow themed books, I love these bookshelves so much.

I am so sad I missed

I am so bummed I didn’t take pictures of June (Ocean themed) or July (camping/mountain themed) but I will be sure to do so this year so I have all 12 months documents.