Conquering the Snow

I love the mountains.  They are so beautiful. 

And skiiing is so much fun.  Since we have gone several years in a row, the four oldest can free ski with mom and dad.  Also, since we have gone to Keystone every time, we all know the runs and have our favorites.  Its fun to see that runs that were really steep last year aren't as intimidating this year.  This trip, it snowed both days we skiied, but the second day was the coldest by far.  It was zero degrees on the top, and even though my face was pretty cold by the end, there was a gondola we could take up.  That gondola was so nice and warm and protected from the icy, bitter wind!  I will say, because we go during the week, there are no lines for the lifts, anyone who goes to ski school gets a private lesson, and we get way more time to ski.

I loved this sign!

 

Elizabeth

 

At the condo

My other highlight was tubing.  There are these hills with different lanes that you snow tube down.  You can hook up with other tubes which makes you go faster and farther.  Dad hung out with John Caleb in the lodge, but the rest of us trekked up the hill and slid down again and again.  Definitely a must try if you go to the mountains. 

 

One of my friends is convinced we cannot go on a trip without having something major go wrong.  No way, I said!  Well, maybe she is right.  We've had to relocate because of hurricanes, leave early because of blizzards, have our grandparents drive up and drive us back because our Sprinter wouldn't start (hey, it was negetive 40.  I learned later that I should've thrown a cup of coffee outside and see it freeze in midair!  I will always regret that misseds opportunity.)  Anyway, we have had some mini crisises, but we have always made it home.  Well, this trip, nothing happened.  There were no avalanches, no car breakdowns, no screaming children.  That was at least until we got home.  Our house is located as such that there is this one place on the driveway that drifts.  And this drift was blocking us from getting into the house.  Well, we could bring the minivan to the other side of the drift and load it up or try to drive through.  Mom decided we had nothing to lose and . . . we got stuck.  So we spent half an hour digging out the Sprinter in the dark.  If you have seen our Sprinter, you know its tall.  Like, really tall.  And when we opened the side door, we stepped up onto the snow, not down into it.  Yep, we were stuck.  But we dug out the wheels and gave it a couple good shoves from behind and finally drove the last hundred feet home.  It was really fun, except for the fact I was wearing leggings.  Thankfully, we had all our gloves and boots packed in a duffel, so we were somewhat dressed for the task.

We not only "conquered" the snow in Colorado, we also conquered the snow here in Kansas as well! :)