Surviving Parenthood One Sleepless Night at a Time: Ski Trip

On Spring Break we went on our annual church ski trip to Crested Butte Colorado. It was a long road trip full of fun. We drove about 8 or 9 hours to Trinidad, Colorado and stayed overnight. Then we drove the rest of the 5 or 6 hours to Crested Butte the next morning. We're lucky to have great travelers so the drive really wasn't too bad. Of course it helps to have tons of electronics!

A stop at Burger King for lunch on the first leg of the trip.

Starting to see some mountains!

We made it to Trinidad and found snow!

Trinidad is a small town with not a lot to do so we went exploring and found a park. The boys had a great time and didn't want to leave but we didn't stay too long because it was so cold!

Me and my man. :-)

The next day we made it to our hotel! We stayed at the Elevation hotel and it was super nice and the best part was that it was ski in/ski out! Which for you non skiers means that we didn't have to drive anywhere to ski, just walked out the back door and walked right to the lifts!

Caleb was fascinated with this ice sculpture outside of the hotel lobby.

Ready for some fun with friends!

While we were waiting for Mondo and Ethan to get their skis, Caleb found this giant mount of snow that kept him entertained.

Another area outside of our hotel.

Right outside the back door of the hotel was a giant mound of snow from where they had plowed the sidewalks. It turned out to be the favorite place for the kids to play! That's all the boys wanted to do was build forts and have snowball fights.

We had kids of all ages there. This is the snuggliest little baby at church. We traded off watching each other's kids which made everything much easier! This baby's mom watched Caleb a lot while I skied. She has a son around his age so they played. It was great!

Caleb was pleased to find "cheesy bowties" on the menu at a restaurant by the hotel.

Ethan begged Mondo to snowboard with him so being the awesome dad he is, he was going to skip skiing (which he LOVES) and try to snowboard. Neither one of them too lessons so it was a bit of a fiasco trying to teach each other.

I tried to teach Caleb how to ski for about 5 seconds and he was done. He took all the gear off and played in the snow. That was the extent of his skiing the entire trip.

Ethan is easily frustrated so it didn't take long for him to be in tears and want to quit. Mondo had a heart to heart with him and they decided to switch to skis. Luckily the ski rental place was accommodating and let them switch without any hassle.

Ethan and Mondo were all smiles after getting some skis. :-)

Caleb was pretending to be a Yeti.

We took the afternoon off from skiing and let Mondo go alone so he could get some real skiing in. We found a coffee shop which was all we needed. :-)

Another big attraction was the indoor pool. It wasn't very big but the kids loved it. Who doesn't love swimming in the winter?!

There was also an outdoor hot tub. Felt great when you were in it...till you got out! It was mainly the kids who were brave enough to get in.

Someone was awfully tired by the end of the day.

Two tired critters waiting to go to dinner.

Woo-hoo! Some couples skiing time! I'm not a huge skier but I like to do it for a few hours. After that I'm tired and my knees hurt. Darn old joints.

At the end of one of the runs we were attacked with a snow storm! We could hardly see in front of us. This picture doesn't do it justice. The worst part was my cheeks getting beaten with snow all the way down. I called it a day after that!

He made a slide on the big snow pile at the back of the hotel.

Cold!!

Someone had the great idea of a game where they had to see who could be still the longest. They didn't move for about 5 minutes...which is really long when you're that young!