Keystone

I have a hard time with Colorado winters.  They are so beautiful and sunshine filled that sometimes I don't remember that there is snow in those mountains I can see out my front windows.  When I don't think there's snow, I don't think to go skiing.  This means my girls have only been once this entire season, and that was in Utah!  Time to change that.  We booked a condo up in Keystone for a couple of days over spring break and it was perfect.  My mom wanted to come out to see the kids, and it was sooo nice having her here to watch Daxton while Jeremy and I took out the kids.  She kept Daxton happy, she brought us our lunch, and she had dinner waiting for us when we came back tired and hungry.  It was amazing!  We stayed in the Wild Irishman condos up near the resort.  There is a shuttle that runs from that front door to the bottom of the lift.  It was so slick.  Sometimes we had to wait a few minutes for it to come, but my kids didn't seem to mind too much.  

Checking out the snow pile near the shuttle stop on our first day exploring.

Daxton loved smashing the "snowmen" on the condo pathways.

The first day Jeremy took the girls while I took Kelton to the magic carpet to teach him how to ski.  There was a lot of falling involved.  He started getting tired around 10:30, but a few snacks gave him the sugar boost he needed to keep going.  He didn't want to stop for lunch, which was actually not a bad thing because he finally started getting the hang of it.  I had told him at the beginning of the day that if he could go down the entire bunny hill by himself then we would go somewhere new.  I really didn't think we would be going to the main mountain this trip at all and felt pretty safe saying that.  Leave it to my determined kids to prove me wrong.  By lunch he made it down the bunny hill and confidently said it was time to go with his sisters to see something new.  All right, let's give it a shot.  The most terrifying part for me was the chair lift.  He's so little and slippery!  Luckily the drop bars had a bar that fit snugly between his legs for some added reassurance.  

On our first run down he was still getting the hang of it and fell a lot.  His sisters decided to take off and go on their own.  (Unfortunately they got lost and it took us over an hour to find them, but that's another story).  Meanwhile Kelton was doing his best.  The trickiest part was when the hill sloped towards the side because he would just slip that way.  He is a strong kid though and by the end of the day was going through the mini terrain park, through the boxes, across a box rail, over jumps, and in a baby half pipe.  I had a huge smile on my face.  

So did this kid!  This was all going very, very well.  

We spent a quiet night at the condo swimming and watching a bedtime movie before hitting the slopes again the next day.  We didn't even hit the magic carpet this time because Kelton was feeling so confident.  The girls showed me a terrain park they really liked with a half pipe that had four foot walls.  I've never actually been in a half pipe before so that was fun.  We spent the whole day exploring new terrain.  I have decided that I love Keystone.  It is so family friendly!  There are learning zones all over the mountain so Kelton always had something he could do.  There were so many ski lessons that I never felt like I was inconveniencing anyone with my kids.  There were kid adventure zones that were just the right size like the mini terrain parks, tree runs, jumps, and a dog house village to ski through.  My kids love things like that. 

 

Three happy kiddos

A covered magic carpet ride up at the summit.

One of the tunnels the kids loved skiing through.

Kelton's first terrain park trick-skiing through the box.  He only stopped because he wasn't going fast enough about half the time.

My mom and Daxton met us at the top of the Gondola for lunch.  While Jeremy, Cambrie and I did a couple of harder runs, the rest of the kids played in a snow fort and went on gondola rides.  

My mom told us of the fun they had down at the base, including playgrounds, wagons to haul gear through the village, and an indoor play place that was completely free.  

I'm sold.  If we are ever able to afford a condo I think Keystone just might be the perfect place for us.  

Our kids pink sunburned faces and their more frequent crashes informed us that it was probably time to call it a day.  They had skied hard two days in a row and while they were absolute rockstars, they were still getting tired.  It took us nearly two more days back at home to recover from our adventure.  Those kids were wiped out!  I hope they have enough energy for one more ski day on Monday before they close the slopes!  

Spoiler alert, they did. We went one more day and I love my kids.  Kelton was even more confident before.  McKenzie is working on her parallel skiing, and Cambrie just wants to do what the adults are doing.  It was another fabulous day.

Burst mode crazies

Kelton managed to snag my mom's phone during church.  Saw these pictures after the meeting and it answered the question why he was so quiet.  I'm pretty impressed that each face is completely different.  However, my mom had to sort through nearly 1000 photos that he took....thanks burst mode.

St. Patrick's Day

The girls love it when Potsy the Leprechaun comes to visit.  Kelton wanted to trap him, but he is much too clever.  Potsy kept his mischief small, but clever this year.  He hid our shoes all over the house in strange places, like in the toaster, on the counter, hanging off of walls, or balancing on the fridge.  

He also scattered Jeremy's hats all over the house.  I didn't know Jeremy had so many hats!  

Lastly, he left little frosting shamrocks everywhere....and I mean everywhere!  We found them in the silverware drawer, on our cups, on Puzzle's tank, on the computer mouse, on the toilet seat (it was a very sticky situation), on door handles, on faucets and lights switches, and even on our family picture.  What a mischievous little guy!  

He wrote nice letters to the girls and before I saw the chaos thought that he might take it easy on us this year.  I guess not!  The kids didn't mind though, because they love the gold coins he leaves behind.

Sunshine and Frisbees

It's beginning to feel like spring!  I bought a new Frisbee since ours has apparently disappeared and the boys and I went out to throw it around.  After many failed attempts, Daxton gave up trying to throw it and came up with his own way of getting it to his brother.  I was pretty impressed with the kid.  

And I just thought this picture was pretty cool.  Daxton and I were waiting for Kelton to finish up with preschool and went to the park.  My kids are definitely loving soaking in this sunshine.

Racing girls

For activity days the girls were each able to design and build their own Pinewood Derby cars.  They've been talking about it, and planning their designs for a month!  As soon as McKenzie learned what a Pinewood Derby car was, she knew immediately that she wanted one of her hedgehogs to ride in her car.  Jeremy helped her hollow out a seat, and even gave Fuzzy Wuzzy a seatbelt to keep her safe.  

Here are all of the girls' cars.  Some of the designs were fabulous.  

When it was finally time to race, the girls were rather nervous.  Cambrie was going for gold.  McKenzie was just excited that her hedgehog was having a good time.  Daxton spent the entire night trying to grab all of the racing cars off the track.  He really want one.  Cambrie's car did really well.  The timing system had a little glitch, so we weren't positive about who won.  However, she won all but one of her heats and definitely placed in the top three.  She's pretty sure that she would have taken first place.  

Jeremy with the girls.  

Kelton doesn't have that many more years until it's his turn to race!  

Look at all those amazing girls.  They are going to have one great young women class in a couple years.

"Kelton's" bike park

The city built a new bike park across the street.  Kelton is convinced that it is his bike park.  While it was under construction he'd keep asking, "When is my bike park going to be done?"  Well, good news, it's done!  The kids have been over with Jeremy a couple of times but since it's still technically winter we have to wait for good weather to ride.  I decided to accompany them on their most recent trip.  The kids were doing great.  They are pretty familiar now with what routes they like to ride.  

Kelton is practicing keeping his momentum up while he's going back up the hills, and is pretty proud of himself that he's learning how to stand up on his pedals.  

Daxton really wanted to participate too.  I took him over to the little kid section and he rode his baby strider around for a bit.  The problem is that when I'd try to pull him out of the way of another kid he would just fight me and it became a power struggle.  I had to take a very grumpy kid away from the bike park.  Poor Daxton is going to be very sad for awhile as he watches his older siblings ride away.  

However, the bigger kids absolutely love the new park and I think they will be over there a lot.

Crazy Hair

Spirit Week took me completely by surprise because I was still mentally in vacation mode.  The girls gave me a heads-up that it was crazy hair day the night before and even had ideas of what they wanted.  They've never really requested anything before so this was a bit of a surprise.  McKenzie wanted Who hair, and Cambrie wanted a cupcake.  They both turned out fabulous.  As they left for school I crossed my fingers that everything would stay together during the day and it wouldn't drive them crazy!  Well, I received half my wish.  Apparently McKenzie's hair started falling out of the back and she tried doing all of her school work with just one hand.  Her teacher took pity on her and found a hair clip to keep it all contained.  It was pretty fun!