The McCarthy Family: Skiing 2015

January 30th - Travel

Here we go!

Fletcher sharing his headphones with PopPop bear

dinner at Uno's

January 31 - Driving from Denver to Snowmass

And then passing out. Elevation really takes it out of you.

February 1st - Skiing, Day 1

Dropping Graham at ski school

Maroon Bells in the background

Snowmass ski school has daily activities for an hour after ski school is over for the day. On Monday, the activity was a magician and Graham was picked to be his assistant!

Then the magician had us all gather back inside for balloon animals.

The little girl in the middle is Ruby and she and Graham got to be really good buds.

The balloon animals all the boys requested were...wait for it...light sabers.

Happy 4th Birthday Fletcher!

Nonni got Fletcher the Memory game and taught the boys to play.

Fletcher is "working" on the iPad...don't interrupt me mommy!

February 2 - Skiing, Day 2

trying to catch snowflakes

Graham knows the trick to this - wear your ski goggles

That's Fletcher down there in the red coat and black helmet behind the little girl in the pink helmet just to the right of my ski.

waiting for his instructor and the rest of the class

The after ski school activity today was a sing-along slopeside at the Westin with s'mores by the fire.

Fletcher wanted to know how he made the guitar make sounds

After singing and s'mores we hit the pool. They really don't seem to mind that its winter and the pool, although heated, is outside. They also discovered the glorious hot tubs...so that may have had something to do with it.

February 3 - Skiing, Day 3

Someone built a snowman...no, it wasn't our boys.

Fletcher leading his class!

Aspens

We skipped the after ski school activity today and instead took the boys up to Adams' Avenue on the "police car gondola".

Graham being silly

Fletcher couldn't quite make it down the one steep part of the slope. Thankfully, Nonni is very experienced at teaching kids to ski and held him in front of her the rest of the way down. We were the last ones off the slopes that day. But we still had to go swimming when we got back to the condo.

Fixing a ripped glove.

Cleaning the sink

February 4 - Skiing, Day 4

Reid arrived last night!

Above the clouds and away from the crowds!

We picked Fletcher up mid-day and took him out on the green slopes he had skied early in the day with his class and he did really really well!

Cuddle puddle of boys and their PopPop bears

February 5 - Skiing, Day 5

Today is Graham's first race and he couldn't be more excited! It also turned out to be a beautiful day, helped by the snowfall last night.

Maroon Bells

Mt. Sopra

Ski selfie at the top of Elk Camp

Graham's Race!!

His competitor pin

February 6 - Skiing, Day 6

Graham skiing with Nonni and me

Ski selfie with Fletcher

Fridays at Snowmass are Ullr Nights. You take the gondola to the middle of the mountain and they have all kinds of activities for the kids, a bonfire with s'mores, tubing, and more. The bar is open and they have live music for the adults which we hope to be able to enjoy in a few years when the boys are old enough.

Ullr the snow god. This giant snow pile hid 2 snow tunnel slides.

The tubing area was too dark to get any photos and the boys aren't old enough or coordinated enough to participate in ski biking yet. But the bonfire was nice and warm.

February 7 - Travel

After dropping Reid at the Aspen airport, Nonni, the boys, and I drove to Denver with plans to go spend a couple of hours at the Denver Nature and Science Museum. Unfortunately, we didn't know that it was "Free Day at the Zoo" which is next door to the Nature and Science Museum and spent a lot of time stuck in traffic. We did eventually make it to the museum and thanks to our Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum membership and ran around for FREE for 45 minutes (not nearly enough time to see a fraction of what was there). We chose to visit two exhibits - the dinosaurs and the whales.