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Leyda Perez hopped down from the massive black pickup, hustling 5-year-old Bianca and 11-year-old Jonathan into the house. She pulled off her sunglasses and smiled, extending her hand.

"I knew I had a meeting at 1:30 today," she said.

It was a typical rushed day at the Perez home, from which Leyda and her husband, Ernesto, run Perez Cleaning Services. They started the business more than a dozen years ago, Leyda Perez said, and have 40 to 50 clients.

"We're busy - crazy busy," she said, joking that they didn't need any more publicity. The trucks splashed with logos - plus the word spread by her customers - do more than enough to keep her out of breath.

Two computers squat on uncluttered surfaces in her salmon and tan office. Leyda has no formal business training but taught herself a computer bookkeeping program. An accountant comes in each week to check her work, she said.

The Mexico native met Ernesto, a former sheepherder from Peru, when he was visiting Texas, where she lived. She moved to Steamboat Springs to be with him, and they stayed.

Leyda Perez sheepishly admitted that her son, whose voice can be heard in clear English on the business's answering machine, hadn't gotten the best grade in Spanish class.

"It was so embarrassing," she said, doubling over with laughter. "I said, 'You've got to be kidding me!'"

But the kids have had success on Steamboat's slopes.

Lanky Jonathan has won a freestyle skiing competition, and Bianca, a sprightly pigtailed girl with pink cowboy boots, is teaching her mom. After 14 years in snowy Steamboat, Leyda skied for the first time this year.

"I asked Bianca, 'What if I fall or something?'" Leyda Perez said. "She said, 'Don't worry, Mom. Just keep going.'"