road trip-day three

All dressed and ready for our first day on the slopes...

Brooke even brought along a little friend.

The parking lot was iced over, which made walking a little bit treacherous. (But apparently, it was also quite fun!)

It took several trips up and down the stairs to get all our equipment in the car, but thankfully our hotel room was near the stairwell, which opened into the parking lot. 

We headed over to Red River and I was happy that we all remembered how to ski.  We only needed to go down the bunny hill a few times before feeling like we could head down the mountain.

We took a break to warm up and have a snack before heading to the back side of the mountain.

Watching these two ride the lift together was super sweet.  Brooke's arm instinctively went around her little brother as soon as they sat down.  These two definitely get on each other's nerves, but I love their deep bond. 

We had to ride multiple lifts to get to the top, and I could feel the temps dropping as we went higher and higher up the mountain. It was only 17 degrees at the top, but with the wind chill "felt like 4". Our neck warmers/face masks were our saving grace.

At one point, Brooke said she couldn't feel her toes, so her and I took a little cocoa break in the restaurant at the top of the mountain.  She was getting kind of grouchy because she was in pain, so I knew I would need to be patient in my attempts at helping her.  I told her about the one time I tried snowboarding and cried because my toes hurt so badly.  I think she felt seen and knew that I understood what she was going through.  I rubbed her toes with hand warmers and hoped and prayed that she would feel ready to get back out there and enjoy the rest of our day.

 Thankfully, my prayers were answered and the cocoa and chat did the trick.  So when the boys joined us back in the restaurant, we told them we were ready to get back out there.

Colby was a little shaky starting out, but he quickly became a little speed skier.  He was super confident and fun to watch. 

I wanted to take pictures of everything because the mountain was so beautiful and the whole experience was magical, but every time I took off my gloves to take a pic, my hand felt like ice.  Next time, I'm buying gloves that work with a touchscreen! 

But here are the pictures I did take... 

Chilly, but cute.  He didn't love to cover his face, so I told him he couldn't complain to me when he was wind chapped.

  Colby and I had quite the chair lift experiences today. On the four person lift, he somehow missed the seat and was knocked down. I panicked and didn't want to leave him, so I like jumped off the lift. They stopped it, but as I was trying to get back my ski back on, they started it again and I barely had time to grab my ski before the chair smashed into me and took off. They just made some comment that they would stop it at the top, but I wasn't convinced.  Colby said,"Mom, you can just ski off with one ski." I told him that wouldn't work and he said, "The snowboarders do it." Thankfully, they did stop it at the top and I survived.

But later that afternoon, Colby cut me off as we exited the lift and again, I fell.  We both struggled getting up and the worker helped us both and made a comment that "kids need turn signals" because she saw the whole thing play out. It was not funny at the time, but is somewhat funny now. 

After we skied the back side of the mountain (mostly greens still), we took "The Easy Way Down" to get back to where we started.  Kevin had issued a family challenge to ski down that slope twice before calling it a day, so we rushed back over to the chair lift.  Thankfully, Brooke was no longer complaining about cold toes (after we put warmers in her socks), and although Colby wasn't super thrilled about doing it again, he had a great attitude and we completed the challenge. We were nearly the last people on the mountain, but it was so amazing to ski as a family down the whole mountain and see the kids progressing in their skills. 

We were all exhausted after a long day, but the kids were dying to try out their new sleds, and since we were the only ones left at Red River, we made the most of their sledding hill.  SO many laughs together...