Easter in the beauty of God's creation

So about a year ago a good friend of our's emailed out a great plan to pull together a winter trip to one of the 10th Mountain Division Huts. He was making reservations for March 22 - 24. Brett and I enthusiastically committed ourselves to the trip. Our anniversary is March 20th. With the exception of last year (I was pregnant with Sabrina.) we have taken a trip without children every year around our anniversary. This hut trip was great timing, with good friends and different than our most recent trip. Who would have thought that it was Easter on March 23rd? When I figured this out, I had mixed feelings. Would my parents still be willing to watch the kids for us - even though it was Easter? Did I really want to miss being with my kids for Easter - both the fun of the Easter bunny and the joy of being in church as a family on Easter morning? Going on the hut trip was a really good choice. We had a great time with our friends, in nature, without kids and being together just the two of us.

Now about the trip ... we drove to Leadville to meet our friends who had flown in from LA. We stayed in Uncle Bud's Hut . The treck into the hut was 5.9 miles and climbed about 1800 feet in elevation. Brett (looking for a good work out) brought only skis. I snowshoed into the hut. The weather was fabulous - sunny, warm, little wind. There was another group of five folks also staying at the hut. Our two groups meshed well.

We shared a room with another couple. The picture is just of our half of the room. We have taken one other trip like this to a different hut. In the other hut the bedrooms were below the living area. I enjoyed the fact that in Uncle Bud's hut the bedrooms were above the living area because heat rises, so the bedrooms were plenty warm during the night.
Our "anniversary" picture
Uncle Bud's Hut. The little building to the left of the picture is the outhouse. There aren't flush toliets because there is no running water, but having an outhouse is really nice compared to nothing.
The view out the front of Uncle Bud's hut
I snowshoed into the hut, but my wonderful husband (who was looking for a good work out) carried my skis and boots on his pack. This meant that I could ski out. It was great fun to ski down the trail. It took me a little while to get used to the cross-country ski bindings (loose heals), but I caught on.Dan & Keri, Jennifer & Brett, Pat - back at our cars after skiing/showshoeing out.

Brett and I spent an extra day/night in Leadville. We figured since we had grandparents taking care of the kids, we needed to "milk" for all it is worth. ;-) We checked into our B & B, cleaned up after not showering for three days and hit the town of Leadville. For those of you who haven't ever been to Leadville, well ... it isn't very big. We enjoyed wondering around and then eating dinner in Rosie's Brewpub, the highest brewery in the US. We did come back to reality the next day and we were really glad to see our kids (and my parents & my grandma who had so generously watched our kids for four days.) Our anniversary trip was great fun this year, but I'm working on bigger plans for next year. After all, we'll be celebrating TEN years of wedded bliss.