Breckenridge, CO Family Ski Trip 2010

Leaving Austin on Wednesday, Sydney likes to watch the airplanes "park" at the gate. She saw our plane pull up and went over to wave to the pilot. Then said "he waved to me mom!"
Then as we were boarding, we were told that the cute little blond girl was invited into the cock pit. As charming as her Daddy.

She was ready to fly us to Denver!

Just a quick lesson first.

I said "okay, we're gonna get our seatbelts on. be careful flying the plane!" and she turned serious and said "no I can't! I'm too little to fly yet!"

Back in our seats, she carefully reviewed the safety information (again. she does this on every flight)

We met Wendy & Chris in Denver, got a van and began our drive to Breckenridge. Wendy taught Sydney Sudoku.

Thursday morning Sydney had her first lesson. Look at her! Only on her 2nd hour on skis and she's just moseying around like it's no big deal. Like, yeah, I ski. So what.

Downhill. No poles. She's a pro.
Lindsay Vonn-Schmonn.
(I was in the middle of MY ski lesson when taking these pictures from the other side of the run. My instructor quickly reminded me that if I didn't line up I was about to ski backwards. Camera back in pocket for the rest of the day)

I was too cool for ski lessons, so I went back to the hotel at noon. This was the view, it was really nice. Snowing lightly. My feet were freeeeeeeeeezing. I was pretty sure that when I took off my socks, I'd be able to flick my toes OFF, they were so frozen. Mission: new ski socks. $67 later accomplished. WHAT kind of crap is that?)

That night we went into town for dinner. Sydney was loooooving all the extra Aunty-Uncle attention she got on this trip. Totally hamming it up. Wouldn't even sit next to me on the bus.

The town itself looked like a Thomas Kinkade painting. It was really cute.

There are Chris & Wendy. The most amazing people on earth.
(according to Sydney)

Since I became such a "pro" with 4 hours of ski lessons, I decided to go up the mountain on Friday with Andy. Didn't look so hard. See? Barely a hill.
Negative.
I made myself fall like 3x because I was going too fast for my own comfort. I got the hang of it pretty fast though, and went up for 3 more runs.

It was really cold.

My brother-in-law's vacation reading.
(nerd)

why is this picture here?

Andy is the fire expert. The trick is; you have to literally crawl INTO the fireplace in order to get it started. There's a technique.

we tried to make postcard-ish photos... but Wendy is a bad photographer.

Bad use of flash & I realize I can never wear these sweats again bc I look about 20lbs heavier.

Sydney finally pays attention to me when I offer to read a story.
It's not like I'm her Mom or anything.
Wendy & Chris are awesome. I get it.
I'll just sit over here and eat worms.

Saturday morning breakfast, Sydney finishes first (no kidding) so needs something to devour her time and attention. So I made her a glass piano... and she put on a concert for us. Which still interrupted our meal because we were instructed 100x "now you can clap"..."Mom, you have to clap now"

The lodge had this indoor playroom with a bunch of cheesey games. Sydney is *not* good at putt putt.

You could milk the cow for .75 though. Very anti-climactic game bc all it did was have one udder light up red and you had to milk it and the cow would make extremely inappropriate noises... then... GAME OVER.
I can just see the employees at Beaver Run Resort getting drunk after hours and playing this over and over with their iPhones snapping pictures.

I'll comment later.

I had to beg Sydney to take this picture with me because she was so busy playing with Aunt Amazing.

We spent Saturday shopping downtown and Sydney got to play in the snow.

...and eat it.

She found a treasure in the snow. A bouncey ball that became her pet for the day. We later lost it (actually SHE...) in a t-shirt shop and all four adults acted like fools crawling on hands and knees because Sydney was SO sad about it.

Picture says 1001 words. Hello!

We found a wine bar. I noticed there was a costume up front that looked like the fruit of the loom guys. The owner of the wine bar said I could be a part of their hall of fame.
Well... shoot.
HALL OF FAME???
say no more!

Welllll then tourists mistook me for some crazy advertising person and needed a picture with me. (oh garsh...:::blush:::)
I must say, I do make a fine wine.

Alright, back inside pretending to be a part of normal, civilized socialization.
D'vine Wine happens to have a tasting room here in Austin as well, we find out.

Sydney was SO well behaved sitting there while we all sipped and tasted wine and chatted for a couple hours.

She did get some behavioral modification motivation if you know what I'm sayin'...
(say that really fast)

Chris kept asking her if she wanted to go pet the dog up at the front. Like over and over. She didn't want to at first but finally gave in. I think Chris was the one who really wanted to see the doggie... but didn't want to be the creepy older guy going up to a couple women "hi, can I pet your dog?"... so he used Sydney as a cover.

His name was Jetson and she took him for a little walk around the wine tasting room.
Here's what we noticed in Colorado.
People just walk their pets in and out of places on the street like no big deal. Hi, I'd like a hot chocolate and english muffin and oh, yeah here's my dog. No big.

For behaving so well, we took Sydney to a fancy toy shop. Which had a little play center in the back. She was in Heaven! Then we found out what it must be like for a 4yo to sit around a table watching grown-ups drink wine.... because we sat there like o...m...g... this is sooooo boring, can we pleeeeeease go find a t-shirt shop or something... killlllll me now.
But she deserved it.

She played with everything.
and I mean everything.
totally got even with us.

This sign was in every store window on Main Street.
I'm slightly offended. I wanted to walk in there and be like "ummm... so who said I need PERMISSION to buy your crap!!?"
(the wine talking)

Because all of the good restaurants were booked solid, we reserved a table back at the wine place and they let us order food to be delivered there. It was really awesome and turned out great because they had live music there that night. Sydney did her new mazes she got at the toy store... and then got up and sang the Dora song with "Naked Pete" the musician. (I really do not know of any time we've gone to live music where Sydney did not get on stage. Seriously)

Um. Remember that chocolate place we went to earlier.
Apparently some of the chocolate wasn't all that great....

HI. Chocolate covered bacon? Are you serious?

As if Wendy wasn't grossed out enough for the evening, I used one of my little pets I bought at the toy store and stuck it in her drink. (She is the BIGGEST germaphobe/bug-aphobe you will ever meet... so obviously this was hilarious)

I really liked both of these wines and will need to find out where I can find them in Austin!
They're both reds, but not too bitter or hard. Sort of sweet but not too sweet. Good!

As a rule, every time we travel I have to get an ornament from that place. So Andy found this Christmas store and we had this one made. It has all of us on there. Kelli didn't make this ski trip (she came down with ear infection and chest infection the day before we left, so she stayed with my mom)... incase you're wondering why we left out Kelli. It's not because "if you didn't actually ski, you weren't cool enough to be on our ornament". Though.. maybe.
Next year she will!

Ewps. Wendy found the bee.
What. Bees make honey. Honey is sweet. Right.
Don't go throwing non-verbals at me woman.
(ooooooh the best one was when we got back to the hotel and I snuck a fake- yet giant- beetle into her bathroom and placed it next to the toilet. SOOOO funny. She almost died...it was fun.)
Oh come on. This is soft in comparison to how other younger siblings get even with the older tormentor in their adult life. So soft.

This is Naked Pete... who is not naked. Thank God. But the name still had me a little on the edge of my chair when Sydney went up there and taught him to sing the Dora song.

Our food was delivered, I had the salmon (because you wanted to know) and it was good!

Sydney trying her first blush.

Yes, we all got matching sweatshirts.
Because that is how we rollllllllllllll.

Right on.
See, don't be jealous of this amazing family photo.

Suddenly, Sydney cannot let anyone take a picture without her in it. The day before I was begging her for a picture with me. Oh wait....

I had to forcably obtain her and restrain her for this picture. Nevermind.

We got this smile because Aunt Amazing said she'd read her a story and snuggle if she posed and smiled with me.

Sunday morning we leave Breckenridge and drive back to Denver to catch our planes.

Got stuck in traffic and snow. I had to pee sooooooo bad but kept holding it because Wendy & Chris were cutting it close to missing their flight. But man, every time I saw a sign like "Colorado Springs" or "Water drain" I'm just like "oooooooh my gawwwwd.... springs.... water....drain...peeeee". It was bad.

Was kind of wishing my pee would freeze like this frozen waterfall. Then maybe I'd get to sit comfortably or reach down for something without worrying about tinkling my pants. Halfway there Sydney asks "Mommy? Did you pee your pants?"
She must have been reading my face.

Well! Wendy & Chris DID miss their flight anyway!!!! Holding my bladder was all in vain!! They had to book another flight for 8pm (we got there at 1:30) and couldn't check in until 4pm, so they actually had to sit at the coffee shop on the top floor for 4 hours before checking in, then another 4 hours before their flight left... then 2.5 more hours before being home... and another hour from the airport to their house. Whew!! So glad WE caught our flight!!!! Barely, though. Security was crazy, and the traffic held us up, then you have to take trains to your terminal and we missed the first one and had to wait.

Watching our plane be de-iced. I didn't like this at all... made me unsettled. But Sydney thought it was cool. Basically they are UNfreezing the plane? Uh, thanks, wish I hadn't known that.

But the flight was good and we got home and I was SO happy to get back to the house and see KELLI!!!!!! It was the first time I'd left her and I missed her ridiculously bad. I'm surprised I did as well as I did on vacation without her, and Mom said she was really good (no issues, took her medicine, slept through the night, ate good etc). Her teeth grew in some more while I was gone so you can see full-on tooth smiles now, which is adorable.

Back to the grind!
Vegas in two weeks!