Ski Trip Day 3: The Best Day Yet!

Today we woke up to this:

SUNSHINE!!!

So we ate a quick breakfast, threw on our gear, and headed out to the slopes!

This is Callie showing how much snowfall we got the day before.

This was my partner for the chairlift.
Yes, she is adorable!

The storm had passed and the Lord was just showing off by giving us the most beautiful blue sky.

It was an incredible contrast to the bright white snow.

I love the beach, but I seriously think the Lord did his most creative work on the mountains.

Above the clouds

My precious family starting their descent down the mountain.

Callie striking a pose

Here comes Lucy with Justin close behind

Noah making it look easy

It took us forever to get ourselves lined up for this picture.  Justin had to take off his skis and help us out!
Not my best idea!  But I wanted a bit of photo evidence that I was on this trip!

My snow-bunnies!

After skiing all morning we headed back to the hotel to eat some lunch.  Our hotel had a children's room where younger kids could play, do crafts, etc.  Basically a babysitter.  We had gone up to look at the room on our first evening with the expectation of dropping Lucy off there the following afternoon(s).  But, of course, it snowed all day so she didn't go.  For some reason she was so excited to get to go to her own special kids' room.  So, after lunch, we dropped her off.  Then we hit the slopes again with the big kids!

Towards the end of the day we ended up here:

Notice how you can basically see the ledge and then not the run?  Well... yeah.  It was that steep!  Pictures don't do it justice!

We ended up taking the kids down a black (very advanced) run!  YIKES!  Things are not marked as well here and there are very few maps.  But, once we were at the top there was only one way to go...

DOWN!!!

The kids had a bit of a panic.  Justin and I did, too.  But we are much better at hiding our emotions while lying to encouraging the kids that they could do it.  I was talking to Jesus, that is for sure!

Callie, chief Drama Queen, threw a fit and decided to just slide down on her bottom. Meanwhile, I was working with Noah to teach him how to carefully go back and forth, easing his way down the steep slope.  By the time he got the hang of it and built his confidence a bit, Callie had reached us.  So I let Noah work his way down and began to teach Callie the same thing.  She also got the hang of it quickly and did a great job going down the rest of the slope on her skis, not her bottom!!

They realized that on this steep of a slope, falling was no big deal... if you fall backwards!  The hill was so steep that you were still practically standing up even if you had fallen.  So it was easy to just get back up and try again!

Here are Noah and Callie after they conquered the huge slope behind them.

The picture doesn't do it justice.  It was quite a challenge.  But we were all so pumped when we arrived at the bottom alive and in tact!

We skied until they closed the lifts.  Then of course we picked up Lucy, found ourselves a spot in the lobby, and started on the hot chocolates.  We played a few games of Skip-Bo (Thank you Jennifer!) until dinner.

This was one of my favorite days with my family.  We all had a good time doing something together.  The older kids conquered some major fears and by the end of the day we were all wiped out!