I wonder if you are like me, writing the same New Year's resolution every year: Slow Down! I know this would be really good for me if I could just figure out how to do it. But, life goes faster and faster all the time with more friends, more activities, more high-speed communications, exciting new business goals. Add to that more new classes, new home with new horseback riding opportunities, more pets, more volunteer responsibilities and the list goes on. Aaaaaaaakkkkkkkk! And, I can't even imagine how strapped for time parents must be these days with all the children's activities available.

It sounds so simple, so easy, yet how in the heck do you turn the speed dial to "slow" and still keep up with the important elements of your lives? I don't have the answer. If you do, please let me know.

In the meantime, join us at TallGrass - for a lovely escape from the speedway.

With a heightened focus on customer service and a reminder to our team members that they are equally as important as our guests, we have adopted a new mission statement: To Awe and Inspire Our Guests and Each Other.

Lots of ideas were thrown out at a recent strategic planning meeting and were whittled down to a common theme that everyone can embrace - awe and inspire. Customer service has always been our Number One priority and now we are giving it even bigger focus while we expand our values of caring for our guests to include each other, too.

We invite you to become our fan on Facebook and let us know what awes and inspires you, especially if it's something that invokes your awe at TallGrass. The fan who posts the best response will win a 50-minute Aromatherapy Massage.

Wanting to do something cool on January 1st, folks at TallGrass decided to jump in the lake. Literally. A TallGrass team of eleven participants, led by owner Gail Ridings, took the challenge at high noon on New Year's Day in the Third Annual Evergreen Lake Plunge.

With mud masques on their faces and cucumbers over their eyes, team members were decked out in frosty motif TallGrass t-shirts, as they paraded out to the 6-foot deep area cut out of the ice and fearlessly launched the event by being the first of 200 jumpers.

"It actually was a lot of fun," says Gail, "really cold for a couple of seconds. We were all terrified and that was the whole point - to start the first day of the new year by stepping out into our fear, supporting our community and participating in the quintessential small town event." The polar plunge idea was cooked up by Gail who challenged her team to illustrate the new TallGrass mission statement: To Awe and Inspire Our Guests and Each Other.

The event raised $11,000 to benefit Evergreen Parks and Rec District and Drive Smart Evergreen/Colorado and almost all members of the team are committed for next year!