We were finally able to get in on a Family Retreat that the Army puts on. They put you up in a place to stay for 2 nights and feed you, but they don't tell you when you sign up where it's going to be. We lucked out and got Crested Butte. Sean had just been there last month learning to ski, so it was fun to see where he was!
Crested Butte is beautiful!! My pictures aren't going to do it justice. The drive there was just as gorgeous. We did have to pull over at one point. A large rock rolled right in front of us and we had no choice but to hit it. Guess those "Watch For Falling Rock" signs really mean it. Luckily we had no damage (from what we can tell)... The Springs is at about 6,000 feet and Crested Butte was over 9,000 ft and close roughly 10,000 ft when you go to the top of the mountain. It's amazing how much more water you need with only an additional 3,000 ft.
We had a great time on our little get-away! We enrolled Cullen in ski school for all day Saturday. He enjoyed it and it was so cute to watch him ski. He'd ride up this flat escalator looking thing and then ski down the hill. When I went to pick him up, I was able to watch him do one more "run"... it was so cute two little ones in front of him collided and he was able to turn and stop, then ski past them. He passed level one, if we had enrolled him for a second day he would've been on the ski lift and skiing down the mountain. That's a scary thought. (But that's what I was doing in ski school at age 3!)
We took little Finn-Finn to an all day nursery. He can't start ski school until he's 2. He did fine there and didn't shed a tear all day. He was the only one NOT tired, he got a 2+ hour nap!
Sean and I hit the slopes right after dropping off the boys. I was really nervous, the last time I skied was 11 years ago (our senior class spring break trip). Wouldn't you know, Sean got me on the lift and off we went. No warm ups down the bunny hill. Surprisingly I picked it back up fast and did fine. By the afternoon Sean and I were doing some challenging runs and I was keeping up with him w/o him having to slow down for me. It was amazing, neither of us fell at all!
After 5 hours of skiing we were ready to call it a day, we were exhausted and our legs were tired. So we decided to do one more run on our favorite (not challenging) run. About 1/2 way down the mountain a little boy started coming straight at me, but I had no where to go. I was already right at the treeline. So to avoid crashing with an eight year old, I went into the unpacked treeline, hit a tiny tree ( a sprouting branch, really) and wiped out! Sean and I couldn't stop laughing, he saw the whole thing. The whole day, no falls, and then boom... last run b/c I was trying to avoid crashing into a kid. :) I got up, got my skis back on and then, down the next hill wiped out again. That time Sean didn't see it and went on and I couldn't get my blessed ski back on! I finally figured out how to adjust it and met Sean waiting for me around the bend. We laughed some more about my luck on this LAST run! Then he said his famous last words... "I'll see you at the bottom." B/c we were almost done.... Then on the next to last hill he wiped out bigger than you know what! It was a bad fall and some old lady had to bring him his ski. That one I saw in it's entirety. It took him a while to get his skis on, etc. Meanwhile I can't stop laughing... what luck we had! When he met up with me he was laughing pretty hard too. He said thank goodness he was wearing a helmet b/c even with it on, he saw stars! Then I felt bad for laughing... So I can say, we did one run too many Saturday!! We probably did about 12 runs in all.
Overall it was an amazing trip! We can't wait to take the boys skiing again. Especially when Finn's old enough to be in ski school too.
