Nat and Michael and Jack and Leo picked up Halle from Grandma’s house  Thursday and came to Silverthorne to meet us for a Spring Break ski trip.  my good old Sequoia is nearing 250,000 miles.  Well….we got about 2 miles from our freeway exit and started hearing an awful squeaking noise.  We weren’t sure we were gonna make it, but we push on to the condo.  We made it and Rusty started calling local repair shops to see if they could fit us in.  Luckily one of them could on Friday.  Nat and Michael and kids got there a few hours later and it was a sweet reunion for Halle and Dash. We spent the evening at the arcade and at the pool, where once again, Michael proved he was the most fun uncle.  Jack was splashing around and putting water in his mouth and spitting it like a fountain.  It’s a super small pool, so the water was going EVERYWHERE.  Nat asked him to stop a couple of times but he’d start right back up.  Finally she snapped her fingers at him and said in a stern voice, JACK. TWO WORDS.  I was assuming the two words were going to be STOP IT.  But then she said, “BUTT WATER.” Stop putting that in your mouth.  I thought I was going to die of laughter. It was so funny and so unexpected.  We tried to warn Blake that the claw machine was a waste of money, but he proved us wrong by winning not just one, but TWO animals in a single turn.  The next day we tried to get a bit of an early start so we could drop the car off to be repaired.  Well…we were pulling out of the condos and we lost the power steering.  Then, about 5 min later the strange squeaking stopped.  We did not consider these to be good signs.  Halle, Nat and I were going to ride the Summit Stage and then Michael, Rusty and the boys were going to pile in the Bird car after dropping our car at the shop.  Our car completely died at the bus stop.  Michael had to jump us and luckily it worked.  They made it to the repair shop! 

The Summit Stage is awesome!  And we are so grateful for it.  We would have been toast without it.  It made it so we could all get to and from the ski resort without making a million trips.  By the time all was said and done, we were only usually like 5 minutes behind the car.

The ski day started out pretty crusty and cold.  The kids took awhile to find their mojo.  But, they did find it.  We ate lunch on benches in the locker room and everyone was grateful to have a break.  It started snowing pretty hard.  Which was great for the skiing, but not so great for tiny little bodies.  Thank heaven for the new chairlift with a bubble!  It’s a dream come true when it’s snowy and windy.  The kids were pretty fried by the end of the day.  They didn’t even want to hit the hot tub.  Traffic was a NIGHTMARE getting out of Copper.  It took FOREVER. So they all cuddled up in their jammies and played screens to their heart’s content.  The next morning was pancakes and Uncle Rusty the ski boot whisperer.  All 9 of us rode to the bus stop and Blake and I took the Summit Stage.  I bribed Blake to ride with me by telling him he could play my phone the whole ride.  Worked like a charm.

Today was an epic day.  The snow was fresh, it was warmer and the kids had found their confidence.  We had SO MUCH FUN.  We spent the first half of the day at the terrain park and the kids LOVED IT.  They didn’t really master any jump, but no matter, they had a great time trying.  And how awesome is this picture?  We were waiting for Nat and Leo and the kids all fell down in a perfect line.  You can barely see Blake’s little white helmet in the distance. At lunch time Halle and I went to check on cute Dash.  Since the sun was shining, we decided to bring him back with us.  He was the hit of the resort.  Everyone loved stopping to pet him and he loved licking lots of new faces.  But the face he loves to lick most of all is Blake. Blake was so wiped out that he fell asleep right on the concrete.  He stayed that way for about 1/2 hour! It’s my favorite #blakesleeps in quite awhile.  The whole crew:  We had received some bad news about the car.  They didn’t have the right part and they didn’t work over the weekend.  So, the car wouldn’t be ready till Monday.  We had all planned on going home Sunday, but it didn’t take too much convincing to get everyone to stay one more day.  We had no choice, but Nat and Michael  joined the fun.  Since we now had a whole extra day, we decided to leave Halle home with the kids and check out Vinny’s in Frisco for Adult dinner night.  WOW.  It was awesome.  So, so good.  We got 5 dishes and shared everything around the table.  Then we walked to an adorable little fudge shop down the street.  5 stars cute, 3 stars taste.  The kids didn’t have another day of skiing left in them, but Rusty and I still had one more day left on our passes.  We decided to switch off with Nat and Michael and take an adult ski day.  Nat had a purple coat, so I borrowed Halle’s purple coat and we looked almost identical!  So, we’d ski a couple hours, and then Nat and Micheal would take the passes and ski a couple hours.  We went back and forth like that all day.  We got to ski the East Village because we had no kids with us.  Our favorite was the Storm King Tow Rope.  Picture doesn’t do it justice.  Basically a tbar pulls you alllll the way to the tippy top of the mountain.  It was a Bluebird day!  So beautiful.  Rusty took me on some pretty gnarly runs–I’ve become a pretty safe skiier in my adulthood.  It was fun to remember that I could do the hard stuff!  Slowly, but surely.  Lodge time wasn’t so bad either.  And here are the 4 of us in all our twinner glory.  Meanwhile, back at the Condo, the kids were having a great Cousin Day.  They did crafts, made lunch, took Dash on a walk, and had copious amounts of screen time.  Jack said, “If Wifi was reincarnated, it would be part god, part nerd.”  I have never laughed so hard.  Except perhaps later that night when he told this joke: A fish ran into a wall and said, “Damn.”  The wall said, “Dumb Bass.”  He had us all rolling.

After 3 straight days of skiing we were ready to hit the hot tub.  I eagerly ran to put on my suit only to find I didn’t pack one!  Sad day! The kids had all earned some arcade tokens for being nice and obedient while the adults were skiing.  And then they earned more tokens by completing challenges in the pool.  They LOVE doing this!  Of course, they spent most of their money at the claw machine, and of course, Blake once again won TWO stuffies in one turn.  By the end he had 5 and Leo had none.  Josh, out of the goodness of his heart, gave Jack one of the ones he had won. He also gave one to Halle.  He is just so sweet and tender.  I was trying to coax Blake to do the same.  He didn’t want to give one up so I bribed him with a special treat when we got home.  He finally gave in and gave Leo a stuffie.  Later when we were walking back to the condo, he took my hand and said, “Mom, Josh giving the stuffie without a reward was really good right?  Better than being bribed?”  I nodded.  He said, “Wow. That was really nice.”  I asked if he wanted to do the same and not receive a treat.  He said, “Naah…maybe next time.”  Oh how I love that little boy.  He keeps me on my toes!  We ended the evening with Cool Runnings and eating up all our leftovers.  The car was done around 11 the next morning and we headed for home.  We had some bumps, but I’d say all in all it was a pretty spectacular Spring Break trip!