Back to the daily grind

We're back!
Here are a few highlights from our two week vacation away from cold, ugly, snowy, icy Illinois:

**PUERTO RICO**
- Lots of laying out on the beach.
- BBQ on the beach when Kacey and Bethany arrived.
- Getting a little sun on the skin, but evidently not enough because it's about all gone now. :-(
- Lots of freckles appearing on Katie's face.
- Boogie boarding, reading, bocce ball, football and rafting on the beach.
- Private tour of an old sugarcane plantation that is being restored. It's not open to the public yet, but we were given a tour of the plantation (which was HUGE and so beautiful) and were led to a private beach where they served us an amazing lunch and we went snorkling.
- Shopping in Old San Juan with Marla and Bethany while the guys beached it.
- Sunday night THREE HOUR (or was it four?) church service all in Spanish. It was actually really neat because they sang lots of Christmas carols we could understand.
- Christmas Eve dinner and presents with the Carrs.
- Christmas Day walk on the beach, breakfast and one last trip to the beach.

**OMAHA**
- It took us about 20 minutes to get our car out of the airport parking lot because it was packed in with snow.
- All the drives to Omaha, to Colorado, back to Omaha and back to Chicago were pretty relaxed and easy, which was definitely a blessing.
- We stopped on our way to Omaha at the outlet mall outside of Iowa City (one of my favorite places in the world - Why? Gap Outlet!!) Neither of us (well, more me) could resist spending a little of the Christmas money we got on some new clothes at Gap (for me) and Old Navy (for Kody).
- Finding a great pair of snowpants for Kody in Omaha
- 10th Annual Secret Santa gift exchange with many of my best friends from Omaha (thinking back, I don't think I've missed any of these exchanges, but I did miss the annual picture this year, *tear*).
- Family gift exchange with my immediate family and extended family at my grandparents' house
- Hanging out with all the cousins
- Annual Hearts tournament where Kody and I dominated! The Nichols took home the Queenie trophy (meaning they lost), but we decided to split off because we're the Carrs now. The fam didn't like that very much, but our incredible scores wouldn't have helped them anyway :-)

**WINTER PARK, COLORADO**
- Taking about 80 stops on the way to Colorado (Kody and I normally take one stop between Omaha and Chicago because we need gas)
- The condo was beautiful and had a ski rental place right next to it, with racquetball courts, weight room, and hot tub right there too!
- We skied for three days and took one day off to hang out and supposedly go tubing, but that got nixed. We did a little shopping too.
- Everyone started out a little slow because none of us, except Jonathan, had been skiing in a few years.
- Playing lots of games each night, watching football, cheering Nebraska on from the slopes to win their bowl game!
- Each "couple" made a different dinner each night - Mom and Dad made BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, Todd and Jonathan made chicken parmesan, Chris and Sarah made a Shepherd's Pie type thing and Kody and I made Pasole (a soup recipe from Kody's mom).
- Playing with ELIJAH!
- And to cap it all off -- Kody breaking/fracturing/bruising his rib on the slopes on the second day and it's still hurting him even now :-(

And now it's back to the daily grind. We drove back to Omaha on Friday and then to Chicago on Saturday. Sunday was an amazing day of relaxing and grocery shopping. Back to work for me this week, while Kody gets bored at home because he doesn't start classes until next week and no friends are in town. Last night we broke out our new board game, Ticket to Ride, and played with our neighbors, the Ragos. We also got a little exercise playing our new Wii game, Outdoor Adventure.