Christmas Eve

We wouldn't want to risk Santa not showing up because his reindeer didn't have any food to snack on while he was delivering presents.  What we have here is a custom blend of oats, glitter, and a few other things we found in our pantry to keep them nourished throughout the evening.

Santa is also getting some freshly made cookies courtesy of these guys right here.  I believe they were snicker-doodles this year and some tasty fresh milk.

Snow Fort Time!

Another snow storm, another snow fort.  We only had about 3-4 inches of snow in reality, but these guys scraped up all the snow from the entire deck and the whole yard to make a single pile that they could build a snow cave out of.

It looked rather chilly as the sun had mostly gone down by the time they were done.  Somehow, though, I don't think kids sense that freezing pain at all.  We are thankful for the quiet we get from projects like these because they mostly get along when working together outside.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

One of Tara's favorite times of the year is decorating the Christmas tree with the boys.  As soon as Thanksgiving has passed, it is only a matter of days before the questions start being asked about the timing on the Christmas tree.  This year we agreed to get on it a bit sooner than normal, as you can see from the December 11th date on this picture/post.  However, this year's story turned out to be a bit more exciting than most...

Tara found a great "deal" on Groupon (which I am convinced more and more each day is a scam to get you to spend money on things you never would normally) for spending $20 to get a $40 tree at some tree place.  We usually just go to the local King Soopers and pay $25-$30 dollars for a fine tree, but not this year.  The first interesting thing about this special "deal" was that we had to drive almost 45 minutes to this tree spot which was located almost in Golden and meant that whatever we got there had to survive the ride on top of our car all the way back.  The second interesting thing is that once we got there, we realized that most of these trees were around eight dollars a foot and our Groupon required a tree that was at least six feet tall.  There were actually only one or two trees that were six feet tall there and the rest were somewhere between eight and twelve feet.  Trees that tall end up being in the $64 - $96 range.  With our committed $20 dollars from our "deal," we both quickly realized this would turn out to be a pricey endeavor.  

In the end we settled on an eight foot tree, payed the difference (which was still more than what we would normally pay at King Soopers), and headed home licking out wounds.  The best part was that they asked us to fill out a good review for them on Yelp or some other website as we left.  Needless to say, I don't think we would be writing a good review or frequenting their store again...ever.

Leprino Foods Christmas Party

In March of this past year, I left the pharmaceutical world behind and joined the Cheese and Nutrition world at Leprino Foods.  My official position title is Manager, Master Data, and I mostly work in a team of 11 as one of three managers overseeing SAP work.  Leprino has a Christmas party every year, and this year it was down in South Denver at the Hyatt in a grand ballroom.  We had to dust off our finest clothes for the event, but we did our best.  It was a fun party with a nice dinner and several company-wide awards given out.  I would guess that close to 1000 people attended, but it was also a reminder for me of how hard it can be and how much time it takes to get to know people well.  Tara often asked who this person or that person was, and much of the time I either didn't know or barely remembered their names.  Hopefully next year it will feel like a better gathering of people I know.