I finally uploaded my Christmas-vacation-in-Sun-Valley-Idaho pictures, but as you'll see they're in no particular order. I would fix that except that it's late, I'm tired, and I have no patience for cutting and dragging and pasting and accidentally deleting and then re-uploading and cutting and pasting and dragging them into some sort of sensical sequence. Isn't that how all of you do it? Anyway, I've been dying to share with you that we were so lucky to spend Christmas week last year with my in-laws in a breathtakingly beautiful winter wonderland. As I keep telling everyone, Sun Valley was the kind of place where even the street signs were pretty. So here, a few weeks later, is a roundup of randomly sequenced pictures to help illustrate the loveliness of which I speak. Hopefully it's not too confusing!
Isn't this a precious "Children's Menu" (yes, I'm starting with food)? It's from Roundhouse Restaurant situated on the top of Bald Mountain with a history as long as the mountain is high. We ate lunch here towards the end of our stay. Total highlight.
The H and Snook leaving the Roundhouse Restaurant.
Here's Bubs on his first snow day. Poor guy can hardly breathe and I'm making him mug for the camera.
And here are Snook and Bubs outside while snow is actually falling. I love the expression on her face. Neither of them was a huge fan of snow at first (this was their first time ever!), but they eventually warmed up to it, and you should have seen those kids sled. Snook waved to everyone the whole way down, and did some kind of Santa Claus impression. And Bubs just went for it.
One afternoon, we made our way down to a bowling alley in the basement of the Sun Valley Lodge. It only had six lanes and the equipment was original, circa 1952. Even more impressive, my hubby bowled there with Matthew Perry back in the day when he played Carol's boyfriend on
Growing Pains!
Snook would have stayed in our jacuzzi bathtub the whole vacation if we'd let her. I too was tempted.
This was the view of Bald Mountain from our kitchen window.
Bubs loved riding on the free bus around town. These were the cleanest, nicest, newest buses I have ever seen, complete with ski racks on the sides.
That's the gondola we took to get to the Roundhouse Restaurant I spoke of before, and here's the door leading inside. I have a real thing for doors, and this one was so charming.
Look at those beautiful tables and chairs at the base of the mountain.
Here's Dollar Mountain, where the H and I skied one half day. We really only lasted two hours before our feet, knees and backs gave out. It had been about a decade since either of us skied so a lesson was definitely in order, but instead we kind of just went for it. I don't know if and when we'll try again, but it was fun to get a taste of what Sun Valley is known for.
Here's a view of Penny Hill where we went sledding with the kids. What you see there, by the way, is considered crowded. Penny Hill is also where we accidentally parked our minivan in a snowy ditch and had to get help digging ourselves out from a nice stranger with a hockey stick.
Here's the view of Ketchum and Sun Valley from our gondola going down Bald Mountain.
Snook on Christmas morning with her American Girl portrait in her American Girl jammies.
Here she is with her very first snowman outside of our condo.
And here the kids are making snow angels for the first time. They were so excited!
My family, outside the historic movie theater where we saw
Yogi Bear. That was a magical night. We had the whole theater practically to ourselves, the kids loved the movie, and it was snowing all softly and muffledly when we left. We felt like the only people in the world.
The H took this picture of the duck pond in front of the Sun Valley Lodge.
Here's a happy Bubs with a yummy lunch at Gretchen's.
This was the spa pool at the Sun Valley Lodge where people swam outside while snow was falling and steam was rising.
Here I am doing a little ice skating. It was snowing so it was more of a snow rink than an ice rink, which probably made it slower and more forgiving. Good thing since I really can't remember the last time I skated.
This is one of those pretty street signs I was telling you about!
The condo where we stayed for a week. We ate dinner in on about five of the seven nights. It was so warm and comfortable, and much easier to stay home at night with the little ones. Particularly for my 8 1/2-months-pregnant sis-in-law with an active 2 1/2-year-old to chase around!
Snowy Snook.
I loved that even the door knobs had the Sun Valley sun logo on them. I have Sun Valley knobs on my pantry doors now and a shiny gold magnet on my oven. Couldn't get enough of that happy sun.
More Roundhouse Restaurant and gondola pictures. Snook played the according with Tim, aka the Legend of Sun Valley. She was so proud, and he was so friendly. For being famous and all.
Wandering around the quaint Sun Valley Village.
Snook enjoyed ice skating so much that now she wants to ice skate on her birthday!
I loved it too!
All four of us in front of that big awesome sun. It was so nice to go on vacation together, to have the chance to wake up every morning and think about nothing else but what we should do together that day, as a family. We don't do that often enough. We are so thankful.
Isn't this a precious "Children's Menu" (yes, I'm starting with food)? It's from Roundhouse Restaurant situated on the top of Bald Mountain with a history as long as the mountain is high. We ate lunch here towards the end of our stay. Total highlight.
The H and Snook leaving the Roundhouse Restaurant.
Here's Bubs on his first snow day. Poor guy can hardly breathe and I'm making him mug for the camera.
And here are Snook and Bubs outside while snow is actually falling. I love the expression on her face. Neither of them was a huge fan of snow at first (this was their first time ever!), but they eventually warmed up to it, and you should have seen those kids sled. Snook waved to everyone the whole way down, and did some kind of Santa Claus impression. And Bubs just went for it.
One afternoon, we made our way down to a bowling alley in the basement of the Sun Valley Lodge. It only had six lanes and the equipment was original, circa 1952. Even more impressive, my hubby bowled there with Matthew Perry back in the day when he played Carol's boyfriend on Growing Pains!
Snook would have stayed in our jacuzzi bathtub the whole vacation if we'd let her. I too was tempted.
This was the view of Bald Mountain from our kitchen window.
Bubs loved riding on the free bus around town. These were the cleanest, nicest, newest buses I have ever seen, complete with ski racks on the sides.
That's the gondola we took to get to the Roundhouse Restaurant I spoke of before, and here's the door leading inside. I have a real thing for doors, and this one was so charming.
Look at those beautiful tables and chairs at the base of the mountain.
Here's Dollar Mountain, where the H and I skied one half day. We really only lasted two hours before our feet, knees and backs gave out. It had been about a decade since either of us skied so a lesson was definitely in order, but instead we kind of just went for it. I don't know if and when we'll try again, but it was fun to get a taste of what Sun Valley is known for.
Here's a view of Penny Hill where we went sledding with the kids. What you see there, by the way, is considered crowded. Penny Hill is also where we accidentally parked our minivan in a snowy ditch and had to get help digging ourselves out from a nice stranger with a hockey stick.
Here's the view of Ketchum and Sun Valley from our gondola going down Bald Mountain.
Snook on Christmas morning with her American Girl portrait in her American Girl jammies.
Here she is with her very first snowman outside of our condo.
And here the kids are making snow angels for the first time. They were so excited!
My family, outside the historic movie theater where we saw Yogi Bear. That was a magical night. We had the whole theater practically to ourselves, the kids loved the movie, and it was snowing all softly and muffledly when we left. We felt like the only people in the world.
The H took this picture of the duck pond in front of the Sun Valley Lodge.
Here's a happy Bubs with a yummy lunch at Gretchen's.
This was the spa pool at the Sun Valley Lodge where people swam outside while snow was falling and steam was rising.
Here I am doing a little ice skating. It was snowing so it was more of a snow rink than an ice rink, which probably made it slower and more forgiving. Good thing since I really can't remember the last time I skated.
This is one of those pretty street signs I was telling you about!
The condo where we stayed for a week. We ate dinner in on about five of the seven nights. It was so warm and comfortable, and much easier to stay home at night with the little ones. Particularly for my 8 1/2-months-pregnant sis-in-law with an active 2 1/2-year-old to chase around!
Snowy Snook.
I loved that even the door knobs had the Sun Valley sun logo on them. I have Sun Valley knobs on my pantry doors now and a shiny gold magnet on my oven. Couldn't get enough of that happy sun.
More Roundhouse Restaurant and gondola pictures. Snook played the according with Tim, aka the Legend of Sun Valley. She was so proud, and he was so friendly. For being famous and all.
Wandering around the quaint Sun Valley Village.
Snook enjoyed ice skating so much that now she wants to ice skate on her birthday!
I loved it too!
All four of us in front of that big awesome sun. It was so nice to go on vacation together, to have the chance to wake up every morning and think about nothing else but what we should do together that day, as a family. We don't do that often enough. We are so thankful.
I always love seeing LA's skyline for some reason. Los Angeles was where my friend, Eugenia, picked me up, and we drove the rest of the way to Santa Barbara for her work's retreat with a quick pit-stop in Montecito.
Eugenia
We dined on spinach salad, a mushroom and prosciutto turnover and a turkey, brie and cranberry sandwich. Everything was delectable. There was a really good Santa Barbara pinot noir too . . . 
It is a graphic, gruesome, deeply disturbing murder mystery that had me slightly on edge the whole time. Just ask E who remarked on my wide-eyededness more than once. But at least I finished it in time for book club in a couple of Sundays. And I can't remember the last time I read more than 500 pages in two days. I was so engrossed that someone at the pool had to remind me I was missing happy hour. Little did they know, the whole weekend felt like happy hour! I'm so grateful that E let me tag along and that we're BFFs.