Roberts Family Blog

Let me just tell you all that I spent over an hour last night updating this blog, and something went wrong and I LOST it all!! So frustrating. I don't really have time to update today, but I'm going to try so I don't let all my memories from the trip fade into oblivion....

Let me start with the day before we were scheduled to leave for the trip. On Friday I took Pierce back to the doctor to get the all clear on his health. The doctor had indicated on Tuesday that if Pierce didn't improve (wheezing and ear infection), that it might not be safe to travel on a plane. Well....honestly Friday rolled around and he was in great spirits and seemed much improved. So the doctor's appointment seemed a mere formality. Not so. Raging ear infection still, and a wheezy chest. WHAT?!?!

Immediately I knew that air travel was NOT going to happen for our little sick man, and at that point I went into super planner mode, trying to figure out how we were all going to get to Colorado safely. Talk about throwing a wrench in the plans!

To be on the safe side, I dragged little Hayden into the doctor an hour later to have his ears checked, figuring that if the antibiotics weren't working for Pierce, that perhaps they also weren't working for Hayden. Bingo - he still had a raging ear infection as well. Futhermore, his chest sounded wheezy!! That poor little boy has been dreaming and talking about going on an airplane for a MONTH now, and I had to try to explain why that was no longer going to happen.

So by now it is 3 pm on Friday afternoon, and it is clear that we are NOT going to be on our noon flight the next day. American Airlines, after a lot of negotiating, was willing to waive the change fees for our flights, which I changed from roundtrips to one-ways home. Then Nate got online and booked a rental car one-way from Dallas to Denver to the tune of a very high and unpleasant price. By 7 pm we were in the car with two little boys and were on our way to Denver - ROAD TRIP!

Let me just say, I don't think I have EVER stayed up all night before. Not fun. Also, we had conveniently blocked out the fact that there was a major winterstorm and ice storm that had just hit Oklahoma, and 2 hours into our trip we were down to 20 mph and driving on a complete sheet of ice. Terrifying. For literally about 150 miles we moved at a maximum of 40 mph, and poor Nate white-knuckled that steering wheel through some very trecherous road conditions. We passed into Kansas onto the tollway at about 2 am, and although the weather conditions had not improved, the road conditions luckily had, and we were able to move safely at a reasonably high speed. Thank god! Otherwise I think we probably would have thrown in the towel and pulled over to a hotel.

Well after a long overnight of listening to Dr. Laura on satellite radio, and drinking about 8 redbulls, we finally pulled up to Denver International Airport to pick up my parents (who took the flight we were supposed to be on!).  We actually beat them, so Hayden was able to watch airplanes take-off and land for about an hour, which was a total bonus   Then off we went to the mountains. As usual, pulling up to Grand Timber Lodge was thrilling, knowing that our week ahead would be full of great family memories and fun snowy experiences, and the unit we got this year was the best ever, with a great view of snow-capped peaks and trees. Nate and I kept thinking of how wonderful it would be to wake up to that view out your bedroom window each morning!

Even though we were there a whole week, it just seems like it flew by! Some of the best memories were made with our friends and family who came up to visit. Since we used to live in Fort Collins, and Nate's entire family lives in the Denver area, we always have a lot of people we want to spend time with, and my parents are generous enough to share their time and space! This year we had two of our good friends and their significant others up to ski with us for a few days, which was AWESOME! And as luck would have it, Nate's mom and sister and our nephew were able to come spend an evening with us too. Hayden just loved playing with his cousin Liam who is a year younger, especially after a whole week with no friends around - just adults! And he was literally so excited to see his mammaw that he was like dancing a jig and smiling so big I thought his smile would crack his face!  He was just THRILLED!!  He wouldn't let her out of his sight, and I'm pretty sure she got enoug hide and seek in to last a lifetime LOL.  So good times all around.

However, for me the absolute highlight of the trip was seeing Hayden ski for the first time, and be as passionate about the sport as I am at such an early age. It thrilled me and gave me a glimpse into the future and all the fun we will have as a family on the mountain. It also gave me a glimpse into my past LOL in that I never had any idea how hard my parents worked to get us on the slopes! As you can imagine, a child is fairly incapable of literally walking in ski boots, let alone carrying gear! It was exhausting, but totally worth it.

We started out by just taking Hayden to the ski rental shop to see if he even wanted to try some gear on. You never know with him, and we certainly did not want to force the issue at 2 1/2 years old. But I should never have doubted him. He was the absolute life of the ski shop that morning - telling everyone how he was going to go on the chairlift and ski down the mountain, complete with hand motions showing him wooshing down the slope LOL. And sure enough as soon as we got his gear all fitted, he wanted to immediately try it out, so we set him up in a snow bank next to our condo to give it a shot. LOVED IT! Cried when we took the skis off. He demonstrated a pretty keen ability to balance in the skis, so later that afternoon we took him to practice on a gentle sloping run near our condo. We were all hooked up with one of the those "wee-ones" child harness systems, and off we went! "Faster daddy faster" was all we heard the whole first time down the hill....while I trudged along with a camera and Pierce on my back in the baby-backpack. Well we got to the bottle of the hill and he was just buzzing with excitement, telling us "let's ski again mommy!". Thus began our arduous journey back to our condo (via shuttle since I was scared to put him on the lift so soon). Obviously, because why not, Hayden needed to go potty before our next run, so the clothes ALL had to come off, and back on again, while Pierce tried to patiently wait in his hot snowsuit in the backpack. Ugh. But we eventually made it back out for a second run where I skied this time and Nate lugged the big babykins along on his back LOL. Tons of work. Super fun!!

In fact, it was so successful that we hesitantly decided to take him on the real slopes on our last day in Breckenridge. I was super scared about the lift, but we found the beginner section of the mountain, and although it was a high-speed 6 person lift, it boarded so slowly that it would have been impossible to mess it up. Thus we were off, all the while with Hayden exclaiming that we were flying, and his daddy and I clinging to him for dear life! But he didn't wiggle at all, and seemed to understand that it was important to sit still on the lift. It was actually smooth sailing on and off! We did the whole route twice around, with his cruising down the hill like a pro and constantly telling me to go faster LOL. He continued to balance well on the skis, although he clearly had no concept of turning or stopping - those skills he will hopefully learn next year when he is old enough to attend ski school. But let me tell you, Nate and I were both beyond proud of that little man, who braved the cold and wind, and uncomfortable ski boots and googles and helmets, all with a complete smile and sense of adventure. I cannot wait to see what all he accomplishes next year, and I'm fairly certain he'll be hitting the double blacks with Nate and I before we know it LOL. And I'm sure he'll ski them better than his out-of-practice/shape parents

In addition to skiing for the first time, Hayden and Pierce both loved the free gondola that "flew" from town up to peaks 7 and 8 on the mountain. My mom generously offered to watch the kids so I could ski, and this was their daily activity - brave woman to do it alone!! We also did a ton of delicious cooking, some hot-tubbing and swimming, and had a few nights on the town (although these were few and far between given the fact that I do have a 10 month old and 2 1/2 year old LOL).

Pierce seemed to grow up on this vacation - completely perfecting his fledgeling skills of clapping, waving, and crawling. Additionally, he learned the phrase "uh oh" from my friend Stacey, and can't get enough of it (while repeatedly dropping something from his high chair to the floor of course). And now since we've been home for two nights he's been playing peekabo with us using blankets, towels, and hiding behind furniture and then popping out. SO CUTE! He's like a little toddler now instead of a baby. Of course we managed to have our camera stolen out of our un-locked car in the driveway just before our trip so I have NO VIDEO of all these cute behaviors...but hopefully we'll fix that soon by getting a new camera.

And as a final note to end this post, I'd like to thank my parents for hosting us for this trip.  As always, it was our favorite week of the year, and I can't thank them enough for their generosity and their absolute devotion to their grandchildren so that Nate I could enjoy ourselves on the slopes and in the hot-tub, and with our friends who came to visit.  I'm fairly certain that my kids are in grandparent withdrawl now that they are home, after all the fabulous attention they got all week.  So big kisses and thank you!

Well this post has turned into a doozy! I have so much more to write about Hayden and potty training (total success lately), and Pierce's feats of growing up, but I'm going to have to call it a day.