mollmeister
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
So my in-laws came out from the east coast to enjoy their grandchildren and to help us with drop-offs and pick-ups and little people dinner wrangling, and we were therefore able to spend a week in the mountains. 
We could have made things easier on ourselves and stayed in a single place for the week, but we wanted to have a few days in Aspen. And Aspen has just gotten so expensive in the winter (we love it in October and May, for cost and quietness) that we couldn't justify the cost of a place big enough for feeding (gotta have a kitchen of some sort) and entertaining very small children for a week. So we spent three nights in Aspen and then four nights in Minturn, which is an old mining town between Beaver Creek and Vail, off of I-70.
This was not an uneventful trip. At all. So strap yourselves in, and come along for the ride.
We're off! Saturday, March 8, we piled an absurd amount of stuff in the car and took off. Our older son, who never sleeps in the car anymore (he's four), looked like this:
This was a BAAAAAD sign, but we didn't know it yet.
Sunday was our first ski day in Aspen. We skied at Snowmass, because that's where son #1 was in ski school. Father-in-law skied about half the day with us. Excuse his *gaper* outfit.
(At the top of Elk Camp)
FIL gives gapers a good name. He may be wearing a hat that matched my favorite jacket from 1984 and a jacket that would have gone well with my pants from 1987 and a pair of *surprising* baggy snowboarder pants, but he is enthusiastic and excited and fun ALL THE TIME that he's outside. He lives in the south and only gets to experience winter every once in a while, and hasn't skied even semi-regularly for more than a decade, but he embraces the whole experience of being in the mountains (views, weather, snow, feel of sliding down the hill) more than almost anyone I have ever met. (High Alpine)
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So you see that the first ski day (3/8) was sunny and gorgeous. It was a shortish day, given that we forgot about Daylight Savings Time (oops) and Son # 1 was late to ski school, etc., etc., but we skied some fun stuff off of High Alpine (great snow below the chute on Baby Ruth), and should have skied Cirque Headwall, because the next day (3/10) was cloudy and socked in and sometimes snowing, with very low visibility.
At the end of the second ski day, we met son #1 at the bottom of the hill so that I could ski with him. He had been battling bad kiddie, er, stopped-up-ness, for the first time ever (ick) and complaining of ear pain (sigh), so we kept him out of ski school. But he wanted to ride the small gondola/Skittles with me and ski down, so we met up for that.
Complaining about having his boots put on:
Fresh out of the Skittles:
Telling me that (oops) he hadn't skied the *big hill* without an edgie wedgie.
Mommy having to basically carry him down after the no-edgie-wedgie *problem,* while he pointed out *exciting* things about the scenery.
Once we got to the true baby-bunny-hill at the bottom, he was fine and showed me his stuff. The only problem was that the magic carpet was finished for the day, so I kept having to skate back up the hill while his Daddy pushed him up, so he could show us more.
More in next post. . .
We could have made things easier on ourselves and stayed in a single place for the week, but we wanted to have a few days in Aspen. And Aspen has just gotten so expensive in the winter (we love it in October and May, for cost and quietness) that we couldn't justify the cost of a place big enough for feeding (gotta have a kitchen of some sort) and entertaining very small children for a week. So we spent three nights in Aspen and then four nights in Minturn, which is an old mining town between Beaver Creek and Vail, off of I-70.
This was not an uneventful trip. At all. So strap yourselves in, and come along for the ride.
We're off! Saturday, March 8, we piled an absurd amount of stuff in the car and took off. Our older son, who never sleeps in the car anymore (he's four), looked like this:
This was a BAAAAAD sign, but we didn't know it yet.
Sunday was our first ski day in Aspen. We skied at Snowmass, because that's where son #1 was in ski school. Father-in-law skied about half the day with us. Excuse his *gaper* outfit.
(At the top of Elk Camp)
FIL gives gapers a good name. He may be wearing a hat that matched my favorite jacket from 1984 and a jacket that would have gone well with my pants from 1987 and a pair of *surprising* baggy snowboarder pants, but he is enthusiastic and excited and fun ALL THE TIME that he's outside. He lives in the south and only gets to experience winter every once in a while, and hasn't skied even semi-regularly for more than a decade, but he embraces the whole experience of being in the mountains (views, weather, snow, feel of sliding down the hill) more than almost anyone I have ever met. (High Alpine)
So you see that the first ski day (3/8) was sunny and gorgeous. It was a shortish day, given that we forgot about Daylight Savings Time (oops) and Son # 1 was late to ski school, etc., etc., but we skied some fun stuff off of High Alpine (great snow below the chute on Baby Ruth), and should have skied Cirque Headwall, because the next day (3/10) was cloudy and socked in and sometimes snowing, with very low visibility.
At the end of the second ski day, we met son #1 at the bottom of the hill so that I could ski with him. He had been battling bad kiddie, er, stopped-up-ness, for the first time ever (ick) and complaining of ear pain (sigh), so we kept him out of ski school. But he wanted to ride the small gondola/Skittles with me and ski down, so we met up for that.
Complaining about having his boots put on:
Fresh out of the Skittles:
Telling me that (oops) he hadn't skied the *big hill* without an edgie wedgie.
Mommy having to basically carry him down after the no-edgie-wedgie *problem,* while he pointed out *exciting* things about the scenery.
Once we got to the true baby-bunny-hill at the bottom, he was fine and showed me his stuff. The only problem was that the magic carpet was finished for the day, so I kept having to skate back up the hill while his Daddy pushed him up, so he could show us more.
More in next post. . .
, an activity of which I have no photos. 
DH and FIL and I skied a blustery, mostly cloudy, very crunchy, crusty day. Lots of groomers and no good photos.
Let's hope not.
