Snowmass: Part One

Many pictures were taking on this trip, so I couldn't do it in one post...!

Disclaimer: I do not ski.  I do not enjoy being cold.  I did not want to take a trip out west to ski, but my family did.  I agreed to go, with the expectation that I would read multiple books (I downloaded 4), go to the gym and enjoy the spa-- when not napping in front of our fireplace. 

Okay, so now take all of the above and reverse it. 

This trip was NOTHING like I expected.  We had SO much fun-- and I even liked skiing! Who knew?!?!

I have skied a few times in my life and I wasn't great.  At all.  When Eddie and I lived in Winston, we went with a friend to the mountains to ski and he was soooo not helpful when I fell (I believe his exact words were "why can't you just get up?!") and that day, I refused to ever ski with him again.  He swore to me on this trip he would be MUCH sweeter, and he actually was! (hahahaha).

Let me start at the beginning-- I can already tell this will be a long post.  Sorry!

We flew out Saturday morning early early.  Boys were rolled out of bed and we headed straight to the airport.  Thankfully, they are great little travelers.  

 I packed each boy's carry on with some goodies they hadn't seen yet.  I got a spiral notebook for each one and wrote on it "Andy's/Cal's journal" and they spent so much time writing in each each day....! Who knew?!?! I loved reading what they wrote about.  Andy was HARD at working writing in his on the first flight.  #thattongue

 We had a super quick layover in Dallas where we got to ride the train to the next terminal.  They were all smiles still!

 They discovered candy I stashed in their bag-- but we made them wait until the second flight (you know, 9am.....) to eat it.  Think he was excited??

 We were all excited to see the snow out of the window of the plane! These boys have not seen much snow so this was a big deal to them. 

We landed in Aspen and there was not a drop of snow on the ground....! ha! It was like 50 degrees and super sunny (can you tell by the pic?!?!).  I couldn't believe the lack of snow-- but we knew there would be more as we went up the mountain.  

We got to the hotel, but our room wasn't ready, so we dropped our bags and headed into the Snowmass Village for some lunch.  It was a GORGEOUS day-- the sun was so bright, and it wasn't cold at all! 

 Eddie ordered this pizza for he and Cal to share, not realize how huge it was....y'all.  They ate.it.all.  I couldn't believe it! The name of this place was Slice and it was yummmmm. 

 I mean..... what is Cal even doing? I don't know.  Oh-- someone asked me about the matching gear.... I don't really dress them alike when we travel, although it does make it easier to spot them when we are in a crowded airport if they are matching.... but, I have found, if one wears the grey sweatshirt and I have something else out for the other one to wear, he will inevitably want to wear the same one as the brother-- it makes it easier to just keep it matching.  Less battles at 3:45 in the morning. 

 We walked around the village a bit and watched ski school-- it is about the cutest thing you've ever seen.  There is this little hill and the cutest little kids are zigging and zagging down.  We told the boys they would be there tomorrow....! Little did we know.....

We finally got word that our room was ready, so we dropped bags and while Eddie took a mega nap, I took the boys swimming.  They had such a great time out there.....

We had a dinner that night we had to go to-- there was a real live wolf greeting us when we walked in.  Cal walked right over to it to pet--

 You know how you know when your kids have reached a tired limit? When Andy begged to bring pillow to dinner, I realized we reached ours.  He sat in my lap with his head on pillow on my shoulder-- I ate half of my meal and then took him on upstairs for bed.  This was him in the elevator on the way up:

Everyone slept great the first night-- the early start plus the long travel day plus the fresh mountain air did the trick for all of us!

The next day (Sunday), we had the boys signed up for ski school-- well, snowboard school. Both decided they wanted to board instead of ski.  Andy was always set on that; Cal went back and forth a few times, but settled on snowboarding and I think he is glad he did. 

The gearing up process is exhausting.  This is the hallway in our room-- behind Cal, there are three HUGE closets where we stored all of our snow gear.  To one side of him is a washer and dryer (praise), and to the other is a full sized fridge and kitchen/stove. 

 On our way to snowboarding school-- pretty sure them all bundled up is the cutest thing ever. 

 We rode a little tram each morning up to the village (it was a super short walk, but walking in all the gear with the boards wasn't easy). 

 With my little snow buddies!

 We had to get there early the first day to finish all the registration stuff and get Cal's gear (we got all of ours and Andy's back at our hotel-- but had to get Cal's at the ski school). 

 They could NOT wait to get in the snow.  Literally- they couldn't wait.  They wouldn't stand down on the pathway, they had to stand IN the snow.  Andy kept saying "can I touch it? Like stick my finger in?" Little did they know the amount of snow time they would be getting!

So we left the boys with Allen the snowboard instructor and we got ourselves ready to go.  I think Eddie was extremely nervous about me skiing.  Like, I could tell he was in borderline panic mode.  He kept saying "so you know how to stop, right?? Just remember the wedge...." hahahah

Our hotel was ski in/ski out.  So we got all our goods on and the skis were waiting for us as we walked down the steps- then you just ski down half of a small hill and there is a chair lift waiting to take you up.  If you go straight out of the hotel (and don't turn, just do straight), you go down the side of a hill into apartments-- pretty sure Eddie was terrified I was going to go straight into them.

By the Grace of God, I made it down the hill and almost looked like I knew what I was doing.  Eddie flew down behind me with his mouth open-- he was so proud of me for not eating it....ha! He kept saying how proud of me he was, which totally made me excited (such a kid).

So we hopped on the chair lift and away we went!

 After a few runs on the small-ish hill, i was brave enough to try riding the gondola up to some bigger hills.  See Eddie? Doesn't he look proud? hahaha

By the end of the week, this was our daily hill:

We got to the top of the gondola and it was my favorite place! There is a whole kiddie hill up there along with a restaurant/patio and great slopes.  I looked up as we got off the gondola and spotter this little shredder:

 and this one too!

 They were falling: a lot.  I was worried they were hating it.  They waved hi to us and then they were on their merry way.  They met a little buddy in their group (there was just three of them to one instructor) and the three of them had THE best time together.

So Eddie and I went in the restaurant and grabbed some lunch and beers. It was pretty much awesome. 

 This picture below is from the top of the kiddie hill up at the top of the gondola.  That's the restaurant down there too.  Love the blue skies!

We skied until ski school was over (3:00) and we met the kids at the bottom of the mountain.  They were soaked, but happy!

The lift by our hotel closed each day at 3:30, so we tried to get a few runs in each day with the kids after picking them up from ski school. The first day, we rode the lift up and Cal talked my ear off all about Allen and his new friend, Moose (they each gave each other nicknames and never ever ever called each other by their real names-- the instructor only referred to them by their nicknames too.  Cal was CJ, and Andy was Antman (seriously, no clue). 

 We ended the day in the valet room where we took off our boots each day.  Andy was complaining about his pants being cold-- so he reached into his pocket and pulled out this huge snowball! Apparently he had a good wipe out and the ball formed! burrrrrrrr....

Allen, the instructor, was SO great with the kids-- I mean, amazingly so.  He took pictures and sent them to us each night.  These are some of my favorites from the whole trip!

 The first night, we went into the village to grab some dinner-- holy cow, we were EXHAUSTED! We ate and headed back to the room and I am pretty sure we were all asleep by 8.  Playing that hard is tiring!

Alright! Part TWO is coming up next!