Trading the Shoes for boots

Dave's entire family to include his mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, our nephew and niece all flew out to Colorado this past week for a ski trip. Dave's mom and dad flew out a few days early to spend time with us in Littleton and while I had to work the whole time, they had the chance to go to the Denver Mint and to play lots of Wii. I think they had a really good time together.

On Thursday, I had to travel down south for work to give a presentation so I missed the arrival of our niece and nephew (Caroline's first airplane ride!) but it sounds as though it was fairly uneventful. It had begun to snow in the front range about the time we packed the bags to head to Breckenridge-- a precursor for what was to come I suppose! Dave's parent's were extremely generous in renting out a ski-in/ski-out lodge between Peaks 8 and 9 off the Snowflake lift. It was a gorgeous 2-story condo! After settling in on Thursday evening, we headed out to Breck's quaint downtown area for dinner at the Empire Burger. Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to put Jack (3) and Caroline (1) down for bed so that Brian, Ania, Dave and I could go out for drinks after dinner. We don't get very many opportunities to see them, so it was really nice to spend some time just catching up.
Friday morning welcomed us with quite a bit fresh new snow. We all took Jack for his full-day of ski school prior to hitting the slopes. I've never seen a kid so excited to learn to ski! Breckenridge's program sounds pretty nice-- for the 3 year olds, they spend 1 hour one-on-one outside on the slopes in the morning followed by lunch, crafts, and games. They end the afternoon with group time on the slopes.

Jack heading to ski school!

From the sounds of it, Jack had an absolute blast skiing. He kept telling me how much he loved the magic carpets (these are the little carpet-like devices that transport children to the top of the little hill). Brian and Ania were even able to capture video of him skiing. Since he's too young to have the muscle to do the pizza-wedge, it'll be a bit longer before they teach him to do turns and stops. I'm so glad he enjoyed it though! The rest of us had a great morning skiing Peak 9 before eating lunch back at our lodge (it sure was nice to avoid the $40 on-mountain lunch price!). In the afternoon, Dave and I headed over to Peaks 7 and 8.

While we waited for a seat at Erics Downstairs for dinner, we enjoyed a few shops and a few games of pinball with Jack. We capped the evening off with dessert at a local ice cream shop (yumm!).

Jack and I playing pinball

Snow again welcomed us the following morning (I'm now reading they totaled 25 inches this past weekend and I believe it!) and we couldn't wait to show Brian and Ania Peak 7. I think they really enjoyed this peak the best. The conditions were great and it was one of the best times I've had skiing in a very long time!

Brian and Ania at Peak 7

By early afternoon we had to head back in to check out of our lodge and hit the road. It couldn't have been better timing as I had begun to feel really weak and queasy. The long catwalk back to the lodge was too much exertion for me and Dave ended up having to pull me. Shortly after making it back to the lodge, what I assume was altitude sickness commenced as I spent the next few hours over a toilet. Interestingly enough at almost the exact same time, Bob called saying Diane had gotten sick shopping downtown. We realized we needed to expedite the process of getting off the mountain and back down to a mile-high. Needless to say, it was not an enjoyable car ride as Diane and I had to utilize our throw-up buckets numerous times in the car. Of course, being that it was a Saturday, we hit lots of (nearly 3 hrs) traffic getting home. Turns out, Dave (the driver of the non-sickies car) also began getting sick before reaching Georgetown. I'm not sure what caused all 3 of us to suddenly get sick at about the exact same time, but I suspect it was the altitude. (Coincidentally enough, Bob plotted data from NOAA and pointed out that a very low pressure system bottomed out to 29.6 pbar at the nearly exact time Diane and I started to get sick). It's too bad that the 3 of us spent the entire evening and following day in bed. I felt like such horrible hosts! We're all doing better now, but it's definitely a trip we'll remember in many (completely opposite) ways.
It seems like Jack and Caroline do so much growing up between the times we get to see them and we miss them lots. We're so glad everyone could come out and we hope they will return soon!

I also want to thank our friends Daniel and Charity who kindly watched our dogs over the weekend so we could enjoy the time with family. Here's a picture of our girls that their "sitters" took (aren't they cute!):