Snowshoeing and Pulled Pork Green Chili

It has been quite awhile since I've been Snowshoeing.

I've even had "new" snowshoes since March of 2021 after my original pair fell apart. I've only put these new ones on once in snow and ended up taking them off almost immediately because it didn't seem like there was enough snow to make the snowshoes worth wearing.

This past week, we got a big snow storm on Friday.

This prompted my wife (aka the SheppyBrew Beer Model) to say she wanted to go snowshoeing Saturday.

Not knowing how long we'd be out, I decided to prepare some Pulled Pork Green Chili in the Crock Pot.

Cheesy Bacon Wrapped Meatballs

At some point, I came across this recipe for Cheesy Jalapeno Bacon Wrapped Meatballs.

Cheesy. Jalapeno. Bacon Wrapped. Meatballs.

Sounded good, so I decided to make some.

Sort of.

I actually made Cheesy Bacon Wrapped Meatballs without Jalapenos in them.

Why?

Because I forgot to buy jalapenos when I went to the grocery store.

Oh well.

Of course, I switched up the recipe a bit. As you know if you read this blog very much, I'm not very good at following recipes.

Snowshoeing

It has been awhile since I've shared any wilderness adventure pictures.

As the kids get older, it is harder to get them up in the morning, and so most of my weekend days are wasted waiting for people to get up.

Saturday though, we got the kids up (fairly) early, and drove up to the mountains to do some snowshoeing.

It was nice to get out, and it was a beautiful day.

Here are some pictures from the day:

Snowy Pictures up at Echo Lake

Winter means snow.

Snow means snowshoeing.

Snowshoeing usually means we go up to Echo Lake.

If you've followed this blog at all over the years, you've seen us at Echo Lake in the snow a bunch.... with and without snow shoes.

I guess we're boring that way.

We tend to do the same things over and over.

Anyway ... we went up there again this weekend.

Here are some more pictures of us in the snow up at Echo Lake ...

Some Snowy Pictures

From time to time, we go snowshoeing.

For the most part, snowshoeing means we walk a little. The kids fall to the ground and start playing and/or wrestling for awhile. And then we continue for a bit.

It is not the sort of thing where we cover much ground. But, the kids have fun. And when the kids have fun, the parents are happy.

Here are some snowshoeing pictures from the last time we went ... actually, the boys both decided to not wear snowshoes to aid in their falling, wrestling, and playing.

At the beginning of the "trail"

Snowshoeing in the Mt. Evans Wilderness

 We went snowshoeing in the Mt. Evans wilderness last weekend.

I love snowshoeing. It is so peaceful to be out in the wilderness and there is something about the pure white snow that makes it even more amazing to me. I also really like the opportunity to get exercise. As a bonus, dragging the kids along gets them exercise too.

Weekend in a Yurt

You may remember that it was my birthday last week.

One of the birthday gifts that my loving family got for me was a weekend stay in a yurt. You may be asking yourself, "what is a yurt?" To be honest, I was surprised how many Colorado people didn't know what a yurt was, so don't beat yourself up if you don't know.

Basically, a yurt is a somewhere between a big tent and a small shack. The YMCA of the Rockies ... Snow Mountain Ranch has a campground "village" of them.

These yurts are pretty nice. They don't have heating, but they do have electricity, which means you can bring electric space heaters (which we did). They also have lights, a little refrigerator, and a microwave in each.

Snowshoeing

My kids had all of Thanksgiving week off from school. I also took it off from work. On Wednesday, my wife suggested, "Let's go snowshoeing".

When my wife says something like "Let's go snowshoeing" or "Let's go hiking" or "Let's go for a bike ride", she never has an answer when I ask "where". It is one of the things I find amusing about her.

The "usual" place we go snowshoeing, and anyplace relatively close to our house doesn't really have enough snow in November to justify snowshoeing.

This means it was up to me to come up with the "where".

We ended up going just West of Nederland, Colorado into the Indian Peaks wilderness. We could not drive very far up the forest access road, so we ended up hiking up the road itself.

Snowshoeing

A couple of weeks ago, we went snowshoeing up by Echo Lake. My wife and I used to go showshoeing quite a bit before the kids, and we have gone a few times with the kids, but not very much. This year, my wife decided to buy "real" snowshoes for the kids, so this was their first time with their new shoes.

Here are some pictures:

The snow was pretty good, and the day was perfect. The kids loved "walking on snow". They also liked "falling" and lying in the snow.

Thanksgiving Pictures

We had a good Thanksgiving. The boys and I were up early, getting them fed and then making a "yeast starter" for my Blackhawk Black Ale which I actually mixed up on Black Friday. Then, we did dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, living room, and family room. When Mommy finally got up, we did the vacuuming.

The boys played together (nicely most of the time) and I watched football most of the day. Tyler and I also got in a baseball game in the backyard snow. Mommy cooked a large part of that time, but watched football and played with the boys as well.

Dinner was wonderful (as my wife always makes wonderful dinners). Poor Daddy had to do the dishes again. Finally, we got to watch the Broncos actually win!
Here is a picture of us watching football:

Friday, since I refuse to ever participate in any of the Black Friday sales, we headed up to Echo lake.
Here is a picture of us on the way up:

Connor got to try snow-shoeing for the first time. He giggled pretty much the whole time, which is very cute.
Here is a picture of Connor in his (until Friday, Tyler's) snowshoes:

We spent some time slipping and sliding on the lake. Tyler and Connor also tried to use rocks to bust through the ice. It didn't work.
Here is a picture of Daddy and the Boys on the ice:

And then, we headed down to Idaho Springs to have lunch at TommyKnocker Brew Pub.
Here is a picture of the boys hugging Mommy. Not sure what she is drinking:

And, now here we are in December. Not sure where the entire year went. Time is definitely going faster than it used to.