My Family

The purpose of the trip to Colorado Springs was to see my sister, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. I haven’t seen my sister since we went to Iceland last March, my brother since we were last in CO in January 2010, my sister-in-law since Thanksgiving 2010 and my niece and nephew since August 2010. It has been a lot longer for my dad since he was in Iraq.

Seeing everyone was good, but there were numerous issues and conflicts throughout the trip. I have to admit that I was partly to blame for some of them. I guess the hectic past month along with Christmas coming and the trip really got to me and made me more susceptible to a short-fuse. Of course, that doesn’t mean others weren’t at fault too.

While in CO, we ate at many great places – Red Robin, IHOP, Arbys Edleweiss German Restaurant, a Mexican place, etc. Since we chose places we don’t have here in NH it was a nice change. My parents had a date night where they went to the Melting Pot and my sister and me went to a Chicago Pizza Restaurant and Bar and then met up with a friend from when we lived in Germany (I hadn’t seen her in 15 years) and went to another bar.

That Saturday the women baked breads and cookies while the men (except me) went shooting. I hung out and colored with a 3 year old girl that my sister-in-law babysits for – she so well-behaved and fun.

We also had a whole family portrait done. We hit a snag when the first woman who was supposed to do it - something who takes the pictures for my brother’s unit – turned out to be stupid (she said she didn’t realize we were taking the pictures inside and didn’t have the equipment. Who takes family pictures outside in Colorado in December when it is below freezing?) My parents and sister found another person to take the pictures and the husband and wife team turned out to be very nice and too nice pictures. We are just waiting on the CD so we can make copies.

After our pictures were taken we had Sunday Brunch at a local resort. The food was really good. The only issue there was the waiter couldn’t get my drink order (Sierra Mist) right after two tries. We managed to have a good time together despite that minor issue.

One last thing we did as a family was open Christmas presents. The kids were too busy ripping through to see what they got to even notice if they were opening their gifts or not.

All in all it was nice to see my family and to have everyone together for the first time in years.