First I hear some of you asking how in the world we afforded this, being too poor to be able to afford our adoption in the first place. Well we paid for this trip a few years ago, and we had to use it up by the end of the year or we lost it. So we are using it....and cooking in our room most of the time to save money on food. All the ski gear we had to buy is going up on ebay when we get back!
The fun began when we planned to fly here using our flight benefits, you know, the whole airline employee thing. But since it was bad weather and flights got cancelled we had to drive here...a nine hour drive in only 11.5 hours! Oh well, road trips are fun and you don't have to pack your life into a quart-sized ziplock bag, or get the 'free massage' as I call it, since I always opt out of the laser zapper privacy breaching machine. We actually ended up having a great time, and the kiddos are FANTASTIC travelers, keeping themselves busy with coloring, reading, or watching a movie on the laptop. And our rental car had Sirius radio - and we found the 90's station. Took us straight back to high school. I think my husband turned to me at least 3 times during the trip and said "this is the best...radio....station...ever!" We had the thing cranked up going down I-70 for at least 5 hours of the trip. I mean cranked up, and we were all dancing like dorks to "Tootsie Roll", and "I Like to Move It, Move It". We literally knew the words (all the words) to about 28 out of 30 songs, it was ridiculous. I wish I could have heard some of the other people in the cars we passed as they saw my husband doing the sprinkler in the passenger seat. Lol. Oh....and now the kids know some of the words to songs they probably shouldn't repeat...but oh well. We always have the radio tuned to Christian radio at home, so this was a crazy adventure for us. Ha!
Kansas is a great place to drive across if you want to see the biggest things in the world. World's Largest Ball of Twine. World's Largest Wind Farm. World's Largest Porch Swing (which is actually kind of neat, this old man who lives in an apartment across the street saw me taking pictures last time I stopped and came and brought me a pin with a picture of the swing and told me all about it. Creepy, but cool.) World's Largest Hand Dug Well, World's Largest Tractor "Big Bertha", World's Largest Prairie Dog. There's even a museum with the Smallest versions of the World's Largest Things in Kansas, lol. Now I REALLY actually wanted to stop and see the Prairie Dog on this trip....and we drove right past where it was!! I was so close to checking this off my bucket list!! Hubby just looked over at me and gave me side-eye and enunciated "Its. Not. Real. The fact that they advertise this as a stop is absolutely ridiculous." And on he drove. Sad face. Oh, and random fact I never knew...between Kansas and Colorado there is actually a place called Kanorado? Ha.
All was well until we passed Denver and commenced to drive for an hour and a half on the scariest stretch of interstate imaginable, into the Rocky Mountains. It was dark, and the roads were wet, and a little slippery, and my knuckles were white as speed racer raced around the curves and following too close for my taste. Semi trucks covered the roads, and we saw at least 5 runaway truck ramps...and signs that said things like "Truckers: Don't Be Fooled. 8 More Miles of Steep Grades!", and then signs with a big moose on it...and then after fearing for my life for 45 minutes a sign with a big black skull on it, with snow covering the words. What the heck did that mean!!!??? Time to close my eyes and pray until we got there.
We got here alive. I opened my eyes to evergreen trees all covered with snow and covered with Christmas Lights. Quaint little trendy buildings everywhere covered with Christmas lights, and everything covered with 6 inches of snow, it feels like we are driving around in a magazine. So beautiful! We checked in to our nice little resort that has a Subway onsite, 4 hot tubs, 2 pools, ski rental in the lobby, and within walking distance of tons of cute little restaurants. We snuggled in for the night.
Time for skiing!! Nope. We spent the next day all hopped up on Excedrin and Children's Tylenol because we all had headaches and upset tummies due to the high elevation. Maybe tomorrow.
Time for skiing!! Nope. It's 7 below zero and I'm really not interested in losing digits to frostbite. We spent the day getting all of our cold-gear ready, and getting fitted for skis. Coats, snow pants, wool socks, long underwear, ski goggles, ski masks, gloves, glove liners, hats, sunscreen, chapstick. Rented skis, boots, poles, helmets...well we're broke again. Ramen noodles for the next 3 months. But hey, we get to go skiing!!!
Time for skiing!! Yep! We take the free shuttle that stops right outside of our lobby to Beaver Creek Ski Resort to go buy our tickets. Small snafoo with the skis, the boy got two left boots. An hour later we were dressed like astronauts and waddled our way up to the snow. Snapped the boots on and were ready to go! Except the kids were already annoyed, cold, and whiny and couldn't stand up. Boy, we were in for a fun day. We got on the gondola, which they enjoyed a lot and got up to the beginners area. The boy figured things out pretty fast, and started going down the practice slopes. Gianna was not quite as coordinated and I ended up taking my skis off and walking beside her holding her up. After practicing for a bit, hubby took the boy down the green slope and I took her. We thought we could at least get down the Green slope together! Not so much. The ski rescue team had to guide the boy down, and we ended up having to wait for the rescue sled to get the girl down the rest of the mountain, in tears. Not the ski experience I had dreamed of. After a break at Starbucks we decided to take them back up to the practice area and just stay there, and not try to get DOWN the mountain again. I went up and down the 'magic carpet' practice area, that had a belt that took you back to the top for the rest of the day with the kiddos. Now we started to have fun...and by the end of the day the boy was zooming down the practice slope without poles like a little expert, and Gianna would go down the same one with me holding her hand and learned to snowplow and turn and not fall at all. We were having a blast finally, and then it was 4:00 and the gondola was closing. We had to catch that thing to get down! We got back and waited for daddy...who had been going down the green slope by himself, and had gotten brave and gone down the blue slopes twice. He said it was a lot steeper than he had imagined, and at one point he was going backward and was on his back! He came back with snow all over his goggles and coat like he had rolled down the hill a few times, lol. Glad he got some adventure in though.
Next day, we had planned to go skiing again. But after this fun day of whining at the practice area and not getting to do anything else, we decided it wouldn't be worth paying for it again. Sad face. But we did get to ski, and the kids did learn how, so it was all good. AND I relished the refund that we got back since we never made it past the green slopes; that was a warm fuzzy feeling. Overall the four of us skied for a day for $98, not too bad!
So...what else to do? We are in snowy paradise, let's make the best of it.
1. Go eat at Loaded Joe's and Montana's Steakhouse
2. Sit in the hot tub
3. Suit up in snow gear and play in the snow behind the resort
4. Do the scavenger hunt around the resort for prizes. We won!
5. Sit in the hot tub
6. Drive around some more on I-70 and stop on the scenic lookouts
7. Drive over to Vail to walk around the amazing shops...but for $25 parking we won't be doing that again.
8. Watch some movies
9. Play ping pong
10. Sit in the hot tub
11. Ice skating at Beaver Creek Resort!
12. Horse drawn carriage to dinner on the ranch, with smores over the fire afterward - Friday!
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| Loaded Joe's Cafe for lunch |
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| Warming by the fire by the ice rink |
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| One of the beautiful views of the mountains |
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| Learning how to play Solitaire in our room |
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| Ice skating for the first time |
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| Right before I ran into Chris on the ice rink |
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| "Look mom, I haven't even fallen yet! ....oops, now I did." |
We are having fun relaxing together, away from school, work, and chores...and it's fun. Beautiful snowy fun. It's a great time to concentrate on getting Gianna to talk. That's our biggest struggle right now is getting her to talk...and when she does getting her to not just whisper. I know she has a voice because when it's tickle time she can really yell "daddy! tickles!!" and is always laughing loud with the boy. So we play games like 'you are the leader' and make her tell us all what to do, like get us to the hot tub, so she has to think and tell us to get dressed, and get the key, and lead us to the hot tub. She has a hard time thinking for herself, so hopefully games like this and Simon Says will help her be able to think for herself instead of just waiting to be told what to do all the time. We don't accept one word replies anymore...we say "I don't understand" if she gives us one word. She is forced to think of the other words in the sentence and talk, and slowly she is getting better and better. Slowly.
The other thing we are working on is affection. Affection is getting more natural for her at least with daddy. He's a warm cuddle bug so she initiates hugs and 'good morning' and 'hi daddy' when he walks in the door, and always goes and sits by him and cuddles, and gives him kisses. I'm honestly jealous, because any affection I give her is unreciprocated, and she doesn't talk to me hardly at all unless daddy is around and he tells her to ask mommy when she goes to him. We have fun cooking and doing crafts together, and she's comfortable with me, and when I'm gone she tells daddy she misses me. But as of yet we are still working on our attachment...and it's a little painful to try to lavish love on someone who is stiff and doesn't look you in the eye. I'm just making a point to show her I love her, and I pray that someday she loves me back.
Tomorrow we head back to real life!
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