Ski Trip (Days 1 and 2)

Well, we are about 4 weeks behind on the blog, but as you will see from the next few posts we've been very busy!

In the first week of February we had a group of friends up for a ski trip to Peak n Peek. Will drove up that Friday followed by Brandy, Shane, and Michelle who flew up on Saturday. On Sunday morning we all caravaned to The Peak.

Our first day of skiing was beautiful, if a little busy. Shane and Rach played on the bunny hill while Rach practiced her ski instructing skills as it was Shane's first time skiing. Susie and Will took Brandy up to the first green slope since she had only skied a time or two before. They did have a funny moment when Brandy didn't manage to get off the lift at the top of the hill and she tripped the emergency stop gate, shutting down the lift and having to jump down the back side of the exit ramp. Good times.

That evening we got checked into our cabin in Canterbury Woods. As you can see from the picture above it is in a primo location right between two good slopes and with access to two different lifts. It had a full kitchen, a fire place, three bedrooms and a loft. Michelle, who is not a skier, graciously played best babysitter ever to Jackson while the rest of us hit the slopes.

On the second day at the Peak most of us headed off to school. Susie was the only one of us without need of a lesson, so she took off on her own for the morning while Shane took a ski lesson and Rach, Will, and Brandy gave snowboarding a try. Here is Rach getting a few tips from Keri the snowboard instructor.

Snowboarding is hard work! We had all secretly hoped that we would be total studs on the board, and while we got better by midday, those first few hours were spent mostly rolling around in the snow. To make matters more interesting it was almost 60 degrees that day, so we were in short sleeves, which led to some killer snow burn on our arms when we fell. Here is a shot of Rach's ski attire that morning.

The downside to the warm weather was that the snow started to melt, which made it feel like we were snowboarding on mashed potatoes. The upside was that since it got so warm Jackie got to come out on the deck and watch us ski for a little bit. Here he is with Michelle.

He was very intrigued by the snow and all of the funny clothes the mommies where wearing. Here is out first family portrait on the slopes. We imagine there will be many more like this as the years go on.

The snowboarding resumed after lunch with much more falling. Here are Will and Brandy in our standard position for the day: struggling to get back up

Actually by mid afternoon we were all doing all right on the boards, meaning we could make it down the learner area. Here is Will showing classic form.

Here is one of Rach's better runs down the bunny hill.



After that Rach took a major fall and sustained a possible concussion and spent the rest of the afternoon nursing her wounds (but not sleeping!). Will switched to skis and joined Susie in hitting up some advance trails. They hit several black diamond runs and even managed to look good doing them. Here is a cute picture of them on the lift.

More on the ski trip tomorrow!