Snow, Gingerbread and Cardiac Basketball

There was a big storm up in the mountains this weekend, dropping another two feet of snow.   "The mountains" are just one to two hours from here and going there is like going to the beach in our old Maryland neighborhood.  Lots of people go up for the weekend and many have second homes there.  Yesterday when we were out we saw several cars with inches of snow on their roofs, apparently having come down from the high altitudes, and we saw a heavy layer of snow on the mountain peaks in the distance.   We are interested because we are going to spend New Year's up in the mountains and because what happens in the mountains often begins to happen here as the weather moves across the peaks and down the foothills. 

And yes, by yesterday afternoon we had a series of snow showers, some quite like little blizzards, just in time to make the gingerbread house party quite festive.  There was plenty of candy for decorating and I was impressed with the variety of designs that the kids created.

It was a neighborhood party and the invitees were the gang that carpools together to high school plus a ten-year-old younger brother.  My hope was that the teens weren't too old to enjoy this type of thing, and I think they did.  Only one spent most of the time texting; the others seem to get into the spirit of the event, including the sixteen -year-old who made this house to match her blue fingernails and blue hair!

This is one of the beautiful girls in Paul's carpool. Lucky guy, right? Of course she is way older than he is, but still. 

Ben and I spent most of our time refilling the bags of icing, fetching paper towels, getting glasses of water, and doing other adult things, but I also was able to decorate a house all by myself without Paul or another child helping me.  This was a first, and I quite enjoyed it.  I made mine a bit rustic with a roof of shredded wheat and almonds, and some timbers made of pretzel rods.  

I also made a weird gingerbread man.  (Paul took this picture; didn't he do well?)

 The CU Women's Basketball team had another exciting game this weekend, managing to beat the Wyoming Cowgirls (don't you love that name?).  CU was eight points behind at the second half but through an exciting series of plays in the last six minutes of the game they pulled ahead and won by five points.  This was the latest in a series of close games and one of the players said "Sometimes I want to have a heart attack because it's so exciting!"  I feel the same way!  The local newspaper called the team "the cardiac kids from CU" and for good reason! 

The cheerleaders wore Christmas sweaters to this game, which I thought was really cute.  

As I've been writing this post I've had a front-row seat to watch the comings and goings on our street. Walking and driving is tricky due to the ice left by yesterday's snowfall.  A sports car just skidded on the ice and had to spend about five minutes easing across the slick intersection while a racing bike just sped right on through.  Ben says the bike must tires must have had studs while the sports car didn't even have front wheel drive.   But now a truck has come by spreading dirt over the ice, just in time for us to get out and do some pre-Christmas errands.