new mexico-day 5

Prepare for a major photo dump!!  It was a chilly 24 degrees, but we were excited to start our day. 

We got suckered into getting professional pics of the kids before we headed over to the bunny hill, and I'm so glad we did :)

Ready for Kevin's first run down the bunny hill...

And since I didn't want to pay for professional family pics as well, I asked one of the employees to take our picture at the bottom :)

We went down the bunny hill 4 or 5 times, then headed over to ride the chair lift for the first time. I asked Kevin to be in charge of keeping Colby safe (since he's more of a wild card), and I was in charge of Brooke (since she's cautious). 

We all made it off successfully, then caught a glimpse of the Gold Rush Slope.  It was steeper than I thought it was from the bottom, but I knew we could do it.   Brooke wasn't as sure, and although she started out on her first cross path, she quickly sat down and said she couldn't do it.  I tried to be so patient and encouraging, but her absolute refusal to try was quite frustrating.  After working with her for a while, I asked Kevin to take over.  We switched places, and Colby and I carefully headed down the slope.  On our second time down the hill, we stopped near Kevin and Brooke and tried to encourage her.  She was being super stubborn, but Kevin remained patient and told her that we had made a family commitment to do this together and she needed to keep her commitment.  I was losing patience and told her that we had just spent $500 to go skiing as a family, so she needed to get up and actually try.  I was 100% confident that she could ski this slope safely and carefully, but she didn't believe it.  

I had to laugh as I snapped this picture of Brooke sitting on the mountain with her ever-patient daddy.

While all that was going down with Brooke, Colby and I skied down about 7 more times.  On the third run, Colby got going pretty fast near the bottom and despite my shouts for him to slow down, he ran into the net at the bottom which caused his skis to pop off.  It scared him, but thankfully it served a purpose because he was a bit more cautious after that. 

Brooke eventually got up and was able to ski down successfully.  And guess what?  She wanted to go right back up again. 

Brooke is lucky to have such a patient daddy!!

While we waited for Brooke and Kevin to go down a few more times, Colby made angels and convinced me to buy him some ginger ale. 

This kid cracks me up.

We switched up our ski partners until we were very confident on the Gold Rush :)

Then it was time to ski over to the huge chair lift that would take us to the top of the mountain. Thankfully it was pretty flat and wide because those drop off made me nervous!

Of course there was one steep section before getting to the base of the chair lift, but we all made it, even if my legs were burning from doing "pizza" the whole way down, haha!

It was amazing how quickly the temperature dropped as we got closer to the top of the mountain, but it was so peaceful and serene up there!

We enjoyed a hot lunch at the top, and then it started snowing the tiniest little flurries.  I honestly couldn't have asked for a more magical moment as we left the restaurant.  

The mountain was so quiet except for a few men in their 80's who were kind enough to take our picture outside the restaurant. They asked if we were home schoolers since we were vacationing during school, but I told them we were just taking advantage of the ability to skip school while our kids were little. 

We skied lots of trails on the back side of the mountain, and to my relief, the steeper portions were wider, so it all worked out. I loved being among all the snow covered trees and beautifully tall aspens.  And I especially loved how peaceful and serene it was!

We took The Easy Way Down to get back to the front side of the mountain and my legs were BURNING by the time we got back to where it all started!  We skied down this slope probably 3 times together and it was amazing how easy it seemed when only that morning it had felt very daunting.  

Our kids are so big!!  Colby told me he wanted to ride the chair lift all by himself, but when he realized that he wouldn't have anyone's hand to hold at the dismount, he begged Brooke to go with him.  He just wanted to feel grown up, I guess?  Brooke wasn't excited about the idea, but eventually said yes, and Kevin and I adored sitting behind them. 

I loved seeing Kevin's excitement to do something new with our family, and his desire to help us all be successful was so sweet. And I always knew where he was with those sweet blue pants he found on Facebook Marketplace, haha!

After I took a solo pic of Kevin, he thought I needed a solo pic as well :)

Ended the day snuggled up to watch The Goblet of Fire.  It was the perfect way to unwind after a physically demanding day.