After finally getting a day on the snow in Breck and a leisurely night in to boot, we were ready to explore the city a bit on Tuesday. We’d prepared the kids with excitement of sledding and skating, but found out accidentally that the sledding hill at Carter Park had closed for the season due to unseasonably warm weather.

The kids were bummed, but cheered up a bit when we found the Mountain Top Children’s Museum within walking distance.  We chilled around the condo then got dressed and headed out.

We have two really amazing and huge children’s museums in the Tampa Bay area, and even the one near Gramma and Grampa’s in LaCrosse is pretty great.  So we were a bit disappointed in the tiny, homemade room that passed as a museum.  After about 45 minutes, the kids were bored and ready to move on.  The price is right ($7/kid) for what it is though, and it entertained the kids enough to fill the space before skating, so I’ll leave it at that.

We enjoyed lunch and hot cocoa at the Mexican restaurant across the street, Mi Casa. It was delicious and the hand-made margaritas?  To die for.

That afternoon, we headed over for the public skate session at the skating center.  Piper was already exhausted, having missed naps for four days running, so we knew we were playing with fire.  We just didn’t know what the spark would be.

We got both kids and ourselves into some skates and waited patiently for the rink to open. When it did, both kids grabbed stabilizers to skate with.  Piper, for the first 15 minutes, refused to even stand on her own.  She was whining, telling me she “can’t do it.” I held her up and pushed her around until I passed Riley and stopped to help him out for a second.  That’s all it took.

Within a minute she was fully skating herself, pushing the stabilizer and flying around the rink.  It was adorable and she was so proud of herself.

She skated happily for about 45 minutes, until one particularly bad fall where she knocked her knees pretty hard. That was it. For the rest of open-skate, she screamed and whined and generally put up a huge fuss about everything on her body being “bunchy” and wanting a snack.  There was no escaping the families watching us; she cried in the lobby, in the rink, in the parking lot.  Sigh.  We were tired and decided to leave.

Back to the condo where we all chilled out and awaited (eagerly) the arrival of our babysitter, Lauren.  I’d hired Lauren off Care.com and am so glad I did.  She was great.  She knocked at 6 with a huge smile and immediately made both kids comfortable.  Adam and I darted out the door for dinner.

After a quick brew at the Breckenridge Brewery (when in Rome…), we decided to hit up Twist because it had amazing reviews on Yelp.

The gist of Twist is this: new, gourmet twists on traditional comfort foods.  Their slogan is comfort food redefined - so we were excited.

The restaurant is in an adorable old, three-story house with amazing views of the ski hill.   This is the view from our table.

We were sort of excited to see the views from the upper floors, but weren’t disappointed with this window on the first level.  The cocktails were also really interesting and delicious.

I decided on the lamb steak – something totally out of my safe zone – and Adam had an elk meatloaf.  Mine was delicious – tender, flavorful – but Adam’s wasn’t great.  We should’ve learned from our meal days prior that elk just isn’t good meat.

The best thing about Twist, I’d have to say, was the view and the drinks.  There are so many great restaurants in Breck that we probably won’t head back there for anything other than happy hour – but it’s worth the short walk for that alone.

After dinner, we headed to Motherloaded Tavern for a few drinks.  We’d booked the sitter until 11 or 12, but at this point (9:15?) we were already exhausted.  The big meal didn’t help, and our old age was wearing on us.

We each had a couple drinks – the second of which was more forced than it needed to be – and decided to head home.  At 10:30.  We are so lame.

We really enjoyed Breckenridge as adults; the city is very walkable and full of great little bars and restaurants.  I’m eager to head back there when the kids are a little older and we can enjoy more time out in the town.