Breckenridge Weekend with Courtney & Amber

Friday Courtney arrived at my house and Amber met us there later that afternoon so we could get ourselves up to the condo in Breckenridge for the weekend. 

In all the chaos, there is not a single photo of Friday. 

We got there, I got back to work and started soup while they made a run to the store. We had dinner, girl talk, and all hit the sack, with me setting my alarm for 4:45, a full hour prior to moonset, in the hopes I could get some nice moon behind the mountains shots in the morning. 

But alas, we are REALLY close to the mountains and an hour earlier didn't mean squat. I walked out to see the last sliver disappearing. 

so I had three hours before anyone else stirred and I just enjoyed my quiet time in my favorite spot.

We played Exploding Kittens, watched a movie, and just talked for most of the morning. I took a nap while the able bodied left to check out some of the town for a bit. Then we all set out later in the afternoon, me on crutches, down to Main Street for the annual Christmas Dog Parade, Santa Run, and Christmas Tree lighting. 

The Santa Run itself started from the other direction, and the ones at the front of the pack were serious. They were really running, at least at first. They get to the end and are supposed to head all the way back down, but that hill really gets most of them. No one looked like this on the back half. There were about 700 Santas running this year. 

Then came the more chill center crowd that was just kind of jogging for the most part.

a couple I missed going the first direction...

After that, folks mingled around waiting on the tree lighting.

 our ONE photo we managed all together!

on the walk back to the condo, we passed a little black light installation

and the full moon was mocking me with my wide angle lens unable to really zoom in on it.

so the first thing I did when I got back to the condo was grab the zoom and go back out.

Amber thawing out by the fire before making us some wonderful soup for dinner.

We ended the night with another movie. 

Once again, I set my alarm, this time for TWO hours prior to moonset. Got up, peeked outside, and nothing but clouds. Sigh. The full moon was mocking me.  I went back to bed.

We packed up and had brunch at Blue River Bistro before hitting the road. 

Introduced Courtney to the Hamilton Soundtrack, with Amber and I trying not to belt out all the songs. We didn't quite get through Act II before we got home. So later that evening, I pulled it up and we listened to the rest on my laptop, while Courtney knitted me a new hat (see below).

 

our farewell photo at the light rail, where Aidan and I dropped her off to explore downtown Denver today. She's meeting Amber at another station this evening to stay with her, much closer to the airport. Two years ago she had her first vacation in four years, in 2015. So now she's pretty much committed to making this a bi-annual thing and aiming to for a return trip in 2019. Maybe at that one, I can be walking normally again? One can only hope.