Fireside

It’s been a great few days in Breckenridge. It’s snowing lightly outside; I’m sitting by a real wood-burning fireplace, a slight chill in the air but my feet cozy on the hearth. The glowing embers provide the only light in the room, and the crackle and the soft breathing of two worn-out kids on the sofa bed behind me provide the din. We’ve only been here going on three days, but sometimes that’s all you need.

Today was just about perfect. We are here for Matt to attend a meeting, but he really only got busy today. We started the day with a swim. Maggie “tinker bell” jumping and Ian “transforming” in the air before hitting the water. They shared the goggles, and they shared me. We then hung out in the room and played with the limited selection of toys we brought- reminding me that sometimes they have too many choices at home to make a good one. After lunch we shuttled downtown to the Mountain Top Children’s Museum… who knew they had such a thing in a tourist ski town? They do, and it was quite cute. It kept us busy for two hours. They have ski patrol dress-up, rescue sled, helicopter, and a pretend mountain clinic where we took turns as patient, doctor, and pilot. We played in the “Bear Cave” and fished for magnetic trout. We dressed up and built things. When we were tired and hungry we found a rather quirky little French Bakery, with bad coffee and good hot chocolate. The kids didn’t eat their cinnamon sugar crepe! So I had to. We froze our tails off waiting for the shuttle bus. Then, “home” again, we read books while watching the snow fall. No naps and dusk meant we’d better go grab dinner or else one little girl was destined for a far-too late snooze. So off we went to find dinner in this huge resort (Beaver Run, highly recommend it!). We passed up a rowdy apres-ski bar and opted for the unlikely kid-friendly restaurant that actually was. So we dined by candlelight, two kiddos and I. As was promised in return for good dinner behavior, we stopped into the arcade and played a great game of air hockey, my personal favorite. After winning some rubber balls on a snowboard game, Ian started a lively game of “thuck”… which, if said too quickly, does make you chuckle. In thuck, you throw the ball and then chase it yourself, wherever it may go. A few near losses of our newly acquired balls and it was time to turn in. We built this fire, read books til we could no more, and the kids drifted off peacefully. All this, and no fights. It really doesn’t get much better. Unless of course we’d been with Daddy all day. But that is tomorrow!