Preparing for Holt's first day of Ski School and his first Gondola ride (the Gondola ride was his favorite part of the whole trip).
Happy Boys!
Adorable (adj) : (1) worthy of being adored (2) extremely charming
Examples of adorable: Four year olds in ski suits
That's Holt just before he ran into the instructor. I think they are used to it.
This was Holt's favorite part of Ski School, the Magic Carpet Ride.
Our first day of ski school looks to have been a success.
On day two, Holt went to ski school in the morning and then we took the shuttle into Aspen after lunch to check out the rec center, which we heard had an indoor pool and a hill for sledding. Well, it was not unlike being invited over for dinner and expecting burgers and chips and instead getting prime rib. You see, the pool had a three story water slide, giant water guns and a lazy river. To say Holt was in heaven would be an understatement.
You can see the slide in the background
Jonathan and Holt were two happy tired boys when we left the rec. center
This would be the lazy river. Holt spent a good half hour just floating around in this part of the pool.
We also did some sledding at the rec center. This was my favorite part. Although it is a whole lot of work climbing the hill, especially for folks used to levelland, for about 15 seconds of wind in your face. It was worth the wheezing and wooziness this out of shape mama experienced to hear Holt's howls of laughter as he and Jonathan raced me down the hill.
He was born ready.
The key is to get to the highest point on the hill
Much easier this way. I needed this kind of assistance.
It really is beautiful up there. Cold, but beautiful.
I wish I had caught the look on Holt's face just as they were picking up speed. His eyes were so wide I thought the wind might damage them in some way.
He's so brave he can manage a wave while on his way downhill.
They hadn't even come to a complete stop before Holt said, "Let's go again."
When I count my blessings at night, this memory is among them.
We were wearing down.
Jonathan, I mean.
Day 3 he was ready for ski school.
Jonathan and I got to do some skiing too.
Jenna was trying to talk Robert and Jonathan into going down the "hard" way.
Yep, that would be Jonathan behind that cloud of snow. I guess she talked him into it.
All the lifts had "reasons" why you should take ski school on them as advertisements. This one was inspired by Jonathan and Me: reason #6: Lessons are expensive: if the alternative is learning from your spouse, remember that our rates are really cheap compared to divorce (we've saved more relationships than most counselors)
The only fall I took the whole trip and it was captured in digital form. The worst part was losing my skis at the top and having to climb up to get them. Fortunately a good Samaritan came to my rescue. Jonathan fell out of sympathy, who says he's not a gentleman.
Can you tell we took ski school our first time on the slopes.
Another day in the books! All's well that end's well!
Meanwhile, back in Cleveland...it took my mom 3 days to figure out that when Harper Ann brings her little bassinet to you it's because she wants to get in it and be carried around. Sorry I didn't share this info before we left.
Holt, his DS and Keebler cookies, what more could a boy ask for?
Headed out for a day of exploration or to rob a bank.
Silly boys.
Our last afternoon in Colorado (or so we thought), we took the shuttle into Aspen and went shopping and did some ice skating at the town rink. Holt's practice at the Memphis zoo seems to have helped.
All smiles. He even took the falls like a champ. He was one happy kid.
I'm not sure who is doing the holding and who is doing the falling.
Thank goodness for giant yellow cones.
Holt saw this and had to take a picture with it for Wiffie (Lovey/Cindy). At first he thought we should buy it for her, but when I explained it would be a little hard to get it onto the airplane, he said he understood and that we would just take a picture instead.
Aspen at night. It was only a few moments later that Holt was sound asleep on the bus on the way back to Snowmass.
Holt had fun exploring the historic Hotel Jerome.
Our last morning in Colorado (or so we thought). Holt is a pretty great photographer, no?
The trip went off without a hitch, that is until we got ready to leave. Our flight home was supposed to leave aspen at 8:00 Sunday morning. We had heard that there was a chance of snow at home and were hoping that the Memphis' airport wouldn't cause any delays. We packed up Saturday night. Sunday morning Jonathan and I were up at 4:30 showering and getting ready to go. We let Holt sleep until 5:30 then we caught the bus to the airport. It was snowing some on the way there, but by the time we were ready to board the plane it was an all out blizzard.
Jonathan and Holt walking to our snowed in plane. Little did I know when taking this picture that we would be deplaning 30 minutes later because there "weren't going to be any planes leaving for a very long time."
We deplaned and headed back to the terminal. For a long time our flight status was delayed, but as we watched more and more flights getting canceled, we realized that we would have to come up with a plan b. After hours of changing flights only to have them canceled or at one point having Holt on one flight while we were on another (I'm still not sure how this one happened), we and two of Jonathan's co-workers and their families decided to rent a shuttle from Aspen to Denver and catch a flight out the next morning at 6. The earliest flight we could get into Memphis was by way of Phoenix, AZ. The shuttle ride was pretty terrifying, made more so by the shuttle driver who came up to me during a gas station break handing me a five hour energy saying, "could you tell my if the directions say if I can have more than one at a time, I can't see well enough to read that fine print?" Because of the snow on the roads lots of passes were closed down and driving was slow, so it took about 8 hours to get to Denver from Aspen. Around 12:30 Monday morning we rolled into the redroof inn at the airport. Holt fell asleep just as we were pulling into Denver and I ended up carrying him into the hotel. It's been awhile since I have carried a sleeping Holt. It was actually kind of nice. We had to be up at 4 to catch the shuttle to the airport. The whole experience, although tiring, is actually a sweet memory. The best part of our little detour was while we were re-arranging flights in Aspen. Holt couldn't have been more of a trooper, or had a better attitude about the whole ordeal and he sure did enjoy playing in the 3 feet of newly fallen snow at the airport.
The snowball maker we purchased our last day sure came in handy
We made a stop in Phoenix, on the date of the National Championship game between Oregon and Auburn (boo hiss). In the airport there was lots of talk of all the Auburn fans who had purchased tickets but were unable to get to the game because of snow in the southeast. Poor, poor, poor Auburn fans. This somehow made our ordeal seem not so bad. When we finally landed in Memphis mid-afternoon on Monday we had spent 36 hours in the same clothes and gone the same amount of time without showers, we had slept a total of 3 hours, and had been in airports a total of 24 hours. We arrived to a thick blanket of newly fallen snow. I enjoyed our little adventure and detour, but it sure was nice to be back in the south (even a wintry south). And, boy did it feel good to hug and kiss that sweet little girl waiting in the driveway for us.
We may have been a little haggard from our experience as road warriors, but we caught our second wind when we saw Harper Ann.
Holt told us on the plane, "I sure do miss our little girl." I'm glad they have each other to miss.
She wasn't so sure about the snowman
To borrow a line from Dorothy, "There's no place like home."If only I had packed my ruby slippers perhaps we would have been a little less stinky when we got home. Oh well, our adventure was sweet in its own right.
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