Thursday evening we drove the 7 hours to Big Sky, MT. We arrived in late and were happy to have coffee and see everyone in the morning.
charlie was excited to see the presents set out.
the beautiful view of Lone Peak from their house.
C – all ready to go skiing for the first time in 2 years!
all excited!
Ellie all ready to go.
Claire.
a little pep talk with Bill before the start. we had some tired kids and the tears were flowing at the start.
it was 40 degrees and sunny – it was beautiful (but what they really needed was snow!).
we hit up the magic carpet for awhile and then went up to the top for a few runs. g. pops and nana with the girls on the chairlift.
overall, the first day went great. it was sunny and hot out and the kids were enjoying themselves. charlie was the most apprehensive and was scared to push himself again (sort of a theme for him), but after LOTS of encouragement from Bill, seeing he could actually go down the hill successfully - he made great progress. The girls were pretty quick to pick up on it again and it was mostly getting them to remember how to turn back and forth.
G pops skiing with Ellie.
so fun to ride up on the chairlift with adults.
Ellie wrapping up the day carrying her skis like a big girl.
LOVE ellie’s natural smile – so beautiful!
Claire playing with the nativity back at the house.
nana brought up the playmobil toys and legos. they were a hit.
I love watching E&C pretend play together and they are MAJORLY into it right now.
Suz & Bill chillin.
Grant is always a champ at putting up with 3 kids on his lap drinking eggnog.
Ellie is always secretly feeding the dogs under the table.
Claire loved getting a book read to her from uncle tom.
Ellie skiing with her dad.
G pops and Claire and Ellie and Bill. For awhile ellie would ski forward and then look backwards and yell “let me go! let me go!” to Bill – then she would crash or fall over from twisting around. Bill had a hard time making her realize she wasn’t going to be freed any faster by yelling.
Magic carpet ride!
Nana and I snuck away and took the dogs for a snowshoeing hike after one day of skiing. So much fun!
auntie suz painting nails!
Ellie – the littlest goofer!
Claire so proud of her stickers.
Sisters with sisters. Love this picture!
We opened gifts Saturday evening after another great day of skiing. The kids were super excited.
lots of dress up.
lulu pants all around!
my dad got an awesome pair of heated gloves – I can’t wait to see how these work.
uncle tom gave charlie a box of flies.
hand tied by Tom himself.
ornaments for Ellie from Auntie Suz – gumboots for 2013 and an owl for 2014.
sweet tight hugs from E.
the ponies from nana were a HIT as I predicted.
Claire watching Uncle Tom mount a pair of skis.
Sunday we skied in the morning and the kids were doing awesome! We could actually ski alone if we needed too (which would not have happened with out the help of my fam – it really takes a village). We went up and down the Explorer lift at Big Sky and there was just enough snow covering the run (big sky is behind on snow this year and there were rocks everywhere). the kids even had a bit of fresh powder to ski through which is perfect because it slows them down just a bit.
we headed back about noon so we could drive through a few of the passes in daylight and get home around bedtime. what a wonderful weekend we had! we really missed Dan, Meg & Nolan though!
