Vacation

S and I were together a long time before we had kids. During that time we went skiing probably 3 or 4 times.  On those trips there were always a few adorable kids who caught on to skiing right away and we always said when we had kids we'd take them skiing when they were old enough. With a 7 year old and a 3 year old, we thought that time was probably now. S hadn't been able to get away from work for more than a couple of days since Ez was 1but finally the stars aligned. We booked a place back in September and looked forward to it very much.  Probably at the beginning of December I started to have a few doubts. The kids fight all the time. They aren't particularly good at road trips and this would be 15 or so hours away. They aren't used to cold weather. They've never tried skiing before. What if this was a disaster?

I'm happy to report that the kids did great. We had a few minor meltdowns on the slopes (realizing you really have to pee and are on top of a mountain is pretty tough for a kiddo, but we  made it in the nick of time). Ez was a tad too young for the ski school so that morning I watched some YouTube videos of teaching toddlers to ski and we just did our best. :)  For the most part he loved it. In one day of Ski School Eliza learned a lot.  The 2nd day she skied with us and really took off.  It was thrilling and also terrifying to watch your kids careen down a mountain.

We also made time to stop at the ABQ aquarium and spent New Year's Eve in Roswell looking for aliens. On the way home we got stuck in Abilene due to some major ice but all in all everyone was a trooper.  We got used to hotel breakfasts and being surrounded by snow.  It was also really good to get home. 

We didn't make it back in time for the annual NYE tea party so Papa and Grammy recreated it on the 3rd, complete with Papa wearing a scarf and playing the previously recorded NYC count down and ball drop.

Waking up so early was a bit of a feat this morning but the kids were so excited to see their friends and Ez was particularly excited to show off his bell from the Polar Express (which was awesome) and his Darth Vader shoes that sound like him breathing.  Eliza was excited to show off another tooth she'd lost (that makes 7!) and tell her friends how she learned to ski.