Well, it has taken me a little while to get this post finished and I am still really frustrated with typepad's photo album wizard. I can't seem to get the pics in the order I want them in. Still trying...
Anyway, we had a wonderful time in Colorado. We left the day after Christmas and drove to Denver where we stayed at our favorite hotel. Side note: we have to stay in Denver one night so Maggie can start to get acclimated to the altitude change. We have been staying at the same Embassy Suites in Denver for our last 3 trips. The kids love it and it is becoming quite the little tradition. Anyway, we headed up the mountain on Dec. 27th and settled in to the house that morning. As always, it was absolutely beautiful and relaxing. We unpacked and took Trent sledding while Mags took a nap. The next day we went to church and then went to rent our skis. After we got home, we took both of the kids sledding and they had a blast. Trent got to try out his skis a little in the driveway. He did really well for the 10 minutes that he had them on. He gets pretty frustrated in the skis (and I don't blame him. Ski boots are really uncomfortable) which is why we didn't enroll him in ski school this year. We thought we would take this year to get him used to the skis and see if he's ready next year. Maggie loved sledding and squealed "weeeeeee" all the way down the hill... EVERY TIME. She didn't even mind when her sled tipped over and she landed face first in the snow. She's such a trooper.
The next day, Ryan, my Dad, and I went skiing. We all had a fun day. However, I am in the worst shape of my life and my leg muscles were burning way sooner than they should have been. Anyway, I did some greens in the morning and then blues in the afternoon so I wasn't too disappointed in myself.
Due to the soreness of all of our muscles we took the next day off and took the kids to the sledding hill in town. When we got there we noticed that it was a little busy but no light bulbs went off in anyone's head. This is not a huge sledding hill; in fact, it's for the younger kids so we didn't think anything about it. Big mistake! The first clue should have been when several kids all went down at once with several kids still at the bottom and a couple of them got plowed over. Did this stop us from sending our 3 yr. old and 20 month old down? No! After a couple rides down, Trent got an empty sled in the face and got a nice little scrape under his eye, but he kept going. Maggie tipped over a couple times which didn't make her very happy this time. We finally decided that it was time to leave after Maggie got run into by two much older girls making a train out of their sleds. Let's just say that they crashed into Maggie and she got flipped out of her sled and landed on the not so soft snow. My tough little girl did cry but not for long. I felt awful and we will definitely not be taking them back there until they are a little older. However, you will see from the pictures that it wasn't a complete disaster. There were plenty of smiles.
The next couple of days were spent skiing with very sore leg muscles on very icy slopes. The Winter Park area is in great need of a lot of snow. By the third day of skiing, the slopes had lots of icy patches and some slopes had rocks sticking through. Except for the time Ryan promised me that a certain slope was easier than some I had already done when it most certainly WAS NOT, we had lots of fun and next year I hope that I will be in better shape.
The third day of skiing we took the morning to take Trent up the bunny slope. He did really well and the last couple of times down, he was doing it by himself with us just there to spot him. Maggie was a good lil sis and watched her brother ski, but she isn't one for sitting on the side lines. She wanted to do exactly what brother was doing. So, we put his boots and skis on her (they were much too big) and she got to "ski". She sure thought she was big stuff. By the time she got in the car, she was sooooo tired.
Friday, we took it easy around the house in the morning and then we went on a horse drawn sleigh ride that afternoon. It was so much fun and the scenery was beautiful. After the sleigh ride, we had hot cocoa and roasted marshmallows.
Saturday, we again relaxed for the morning and then spend the evening packing and cleaning up.
Sunday, we spent 16 VERY LONG hours in the van and finally arrived home at 10:30 p.m.
It was, as always, a very fun trip and we made lots of memories. Pictures from our Trip
