​We hit it hard this morning and got first tracks on what we think is the best combination of runs. Silver Queen lift to Keystone to Upper Park to Lower Twister to the bottom. There were practically no lines at the Silver Queen lift all day. We usually try to avoid going all the way to the bottom of the mountain but today there were no lines, so we did this combination of runs several times. This combo run went from black to blue to green. It was absolutely epic! We did hit the Paradise Bowl later but found the snow to be just ok and headed back over to our favorite run combo. Besides, the Paradise lift ended up being sort of crowded. Overall, we had another awesome day on the mountain!!

We woke up to snowy conditions and low visibility on the mountain. It made for harder than normal skiing and skiing blind for most of the morning. Our legs got worked. Then the sun came out for a bit and the fog cleared for a better afternoon of skiing. We had to take a midafternoon break with Madeline. She and I headed to the Paradise Warming House and got a few treats. We got some chocolate to share and some sour patch watermelon candies. Those treats perked her right up! The last run of the day with the girls was the best. We headed back up to the Paradise bowl but then took a sharp left after the first bowl section and headed on Yellow Brick Road over to Upper Park. We cruised the entire way down and the snow was actually better on this part of the mountain. Mike and I loved it so much that we headed up to do it again while Abby took Madeline back to the condo. Instead of skiing back to the Paradise bowl we headed down on Upper Keystone from Silver Queen Road. That small black section had the best powder of the day. We were able to drop right into Yellow Brick Road and head down Upper Park again. We were so happy we found such an amazing from the top to take the girls on tomorrow. We wish Emma could’ve been with us this trip, but she stayed home to race in an indoor track meet. 

Today’s ski day was the best! Mike and I skied on demo skis. We tried the Nordica Santa Ana 93 for me and the Enforcer 94 for Mike. All I can say is I skied so well today. These skis were 100 times better than my decade old Vokls. That coupled with my new Nordica Speed machine boots and today was a dream even on the mountain that desperately needs more snow. We spent most of our time on Northwoods and Northstar and we even taught Madeline to parallel turn on the easier runs. We did make our way down the backside of the mountain on the Poppyfields run but it was not that great. I forgot how angled the bottom of that run gets. There were also some bare patches near the bottom. It’s no wonder why Blue-Sky Basin was closed. In all, it was another great day skiing with the family and when we were done I headed back to Christy's to purchase the Nordica Santa Ana 93 skis. 

​It was another great day on the slopes. It felt like there were even less people skiing today. We ventured to some of the black runs today off the Timberline Face. Northstar was groomed so we all made our way down that run to the bottom of the Northwoods Express lift. Madeline loved skiing North Star with us so much that she wanted to do it again. We decided to do it a few more times before heading over to the easier runs on Sourdough before lunch. We ate lunch at our normal spot at the Two Elk Lodge. Then we headed down Boomer to the bottom and did another black run off the Timberline Face. This time we all did the Northwoods run. Since Blue Sky Basin was closed we decided to head over to the middle of the mountain where we did the Lodgepole run and then took the Avanti express up and eventually made our way back to the Eagle Bahn gondola to complete our second day of skiing. ​Mike and I headed back out to the village again in the evening and looked at new boots for me. I ended up getting the same boots as Mike and then we set up to rent demo skis for our last day of skiing. 

​We were so excited to try out a new to us condo that we found on VRBO. The place ended up being better than we could’ve expected with updated furnishings, indoor garage parking where we plugged in Mike’s truck, and ski lockers and boot warmers with an exit right out the back of the building. It was only a short 800m walk to the Eagle Bahn gondola. Our first morning was great with pretty good snow for the early season. There were plenty of good runs and fairly light crowds which made for a fun first day. Madeline graduated to bigger skis this year and figured them out fairly quickly. We headed over to the eastern side of the mountain where we spent most of our time on some of the easier runs off the Sourdough Express Lift. We also did Flapjack several times all the way to the Northwoods Express lift. We decided to finish early to save our legs for the next few days. After getting the girls all settled back at the condo Mike and I headed back to the village to look at boots at Christy's sports. Mike found some new boots and both of us got some new inserts for our boots. On our way out we saw the lamp from the Christmas Story movie. It was hilarious!

​Dionne and I had such a blast skiing together today. I gave Dionne a tour of all 5 peaks at Breckenridge! The powder on Peak 7 and Peak 6 were amazing today. I introduced her to Bliss and she went down that run twice with me. We got a little bit of sun coming down Bliss and some on Peak 9. Most of the day was cloudy but we were plenty warm. I really enjoyed being on the mountain with one of my best friends and hope we can continue doing this every season!

​I let Madeline ditch school today so that we could head up to the mountains to ski together! My legs were a little tired from working out hard this week, so I was happy to go Madeline’s pace for the day (which isn’t all that slow it turns out). We parked at the south gondola garage so that we could charge the Tesla while we skied. It ended up only costing $7 to charge for 5 hours which was awesome. We had a great time skiing all of our favorite runs while trying to avoid the crowds. I took Madeline on 4 of the 5 peaks today. We started on Peak 7 and made our way to Peak 6 to ski Bliss a few times. Then we headed back to Peak 7 to eat lunch before making our way to Peak 8 and Peak 9. We skipped skiing the blacks off Peak 10 since the weather was starting to turn colder. We hit all of the fun little kid zones in the tree sections. Madeline could’ve skied those all day and been happy! 

​I took the girls skiing up to Breckenridge during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Emma wasn’t able to come as she is preparing for an indoor track meet at UW. For me it was a bit overwhelming since I haven't really skied Breckenridge and so it's always hard to plan when you don't know what to expect. Luckily, I planned well, and we all had a great time! The drive early in the morning getting past Woodland Park was kind of a mess but the Tesla did quite well. We decided to park at the north gondola parking lot and take the gondola up to Peak 7 since I knew Peak 9 would be a mass of people during the holiday. Although the runs off of Peak 7 were supposed to be groomed, it must have snowed early that morning because nothing, and I mean nothing, was groomed at all. I was a little worried as Madeline has only ever skied on groomed runs. We took it one run at a time and went slow and she did really well. We did several of those runs before hopping on the lift to ski Peak 6 later that morning. When we got to the top of Peak 6 it was windy and the only run that was open that wasn’t a black was Bliss. From the top it did not look like a blue at all, but I knew we were already committed so I just told Madeline to follow my turns around the powdery moguls. Madeline made it down that first steep section just fine and had fun doing it. She said that she wanted to do that run again. After lunch we did it two more times. It wasn’t long after that run that we needed to rest at the Pioneer Lodge for Madeline. Abby did two more runs by herself and then we headed down to the bottom and called it a day!

​By the third day of skiing, we were all getting a little tired but the sun for the first few runs was a nice way to start the day. Then the clouds came in and the sun went away, and we immediately felt the coldness. Still, there was fresh powder on the runs this morning which was amazing. We ventured all over the place but stuck to most of the same stuff we had been skiing the past two days. I headed back over to the East River Express with the older kids and did the black mogul Resurrection run with Emma and then the Black Eagle mogul run with Abby, Andrew, and Emma. At one point we thought we saw Madeline by herself going down a run when we were on the lift, so we waited at the top for Mike and when we didn’t see them Andrew and I flew down Lower Treasury to make sure she wasn’t at the bottom by herself. Turns out that we had just missed seeing Mike because Madeline was so fast. That Lower Treasury run was amazing and the fastest I skied all day. Even on tired legs I skied more today than I did the past two days. That was probably because Emma wanted to go back to the top after getting to the bottom with Madeline. Abby had lost her ski pass, so she and Mike were getting another copy. Andrew was tired so he took Madeline back to the condo and Emma and I went back up Silver Queen to the top and skied the Paradise bowl again. After doing that once we realized that we were also tired, so we headed back to the bottom and called it a day. We skied 14 runs with over 17 miles and 16,772 vertical ft. 

​Today was another great day on the slopes with the family. It was a tad warmer than yesterday but overall, the weather was about the same with the cold temps but nice sun in the sky. We did mostly the Paradise Bowl again today but went over to do some harder runs off the East River Lift later in the morning. Andrew, Emma, and I did a black run called Double Top Glades. The tree section is definitely my favorite before it drops off into some very steep black moguls. I made it down just fine, but it wasn’t always the prettiest watching me get through the deep mogul section. I definitely need work on learning how to navigate those better. Then we made it back up to the top and met up with Mike, Abby and Madeline who skied Lower Treasury. We all headed back to the Paradise Lodge for some lunch. We have figured out the best things to bring for lunch and it was nice that there were three of us with backpacks to share the load in carrying all the food. The favorites were the chicken salad sandwiches on croissants, snap pea crisps, clementines, and of course, the Oreos and other little treats we brought. After fueling up we did more of the Paradise Bowl before heading back down and doing one run off the Red Lady Express lift. We ended up skiing 10 runs with 13.5 miles and over 13,000 vertical ft. 

Push up challenge for Emma's running club

Just because Andrew was crazy...he got back in the hot tub really fast

​We were a little delayed getting on the slopes this morning but that was ok. Andrew needed to demo some skis and we realized that we had brought one correct boot and one incorrect boot for Madeline, so we rented boots for her. The sun was shining on the slopes at Crested Butte which was good because the temperature read 7F with a real feel of -5F. With the sun we were perfectly warm riding up Silver Queen Express lift. One of the coolest things about this lift is the view of Mt. Crested Butte right before you get off the lift. Madeline was more nervous than other years to go skiing but she did really well on that first sketchy cat trail like run to get to the Paradise bowl. We spent a good deal of the day going down the Paradise Bowl. The snow tended to be the best on this section of the mountain because we were as high up as you could go. None of the black back bowls were open so we all stuck together and skied with Madeline the entire day. Before lunch we ventured over to East River Express lift to try some of the blues over there, but it was kind of icy getting down there, so we took the lift and then headed straight back over to the Paradise lodge to eat lunch. After lunch we just hit the Paradise Bowl several more times before heading down to the bottom to try some of those runs. One of my favorite things Madeline said after finishing another run down the Paradise Bowl and the Lower Forest Queen run was, “We crushed it.” She truly did crush all of those runs and had no problems on the steeper sections. Crested Butte was practically empty today and we never had to wait in any lift lines longer than 1 minute except for when we went all the way to the bottom and had to wait in the Red Lady Express lift with all the inexperienced skiers. It was kind of a mistake to try and get on that lift, but Madeline did enjoy skiing some of those green runs, so we went up once and then called it a day. We ended up skiing a total of 11 runs with over 14 miles and 13, 776 vertical ft. 

Today was our last ski day and we lucked out with good weather again today. It was already 20F when we got on the lift and although the sun was hiding behind the clouds, it peaked its way out after our first run down the Paradise Bowl. We did the Paradise Bowl a few times with Abby and Madeline while the boys took Emma down the black Crystal run. Then we met up with Emma so that the boys could hike up to the top of Headwall and ski down that double black run. They had so much fun hiking up and being able to put their skis on their awesome backpacks and then killing it down the powder steepness. The rest of us skied down Paradise to Yellow Brick Road and down the blue Upper Park run to Lower Twister. Then we took the Silver Queen Express back to the top and skied all the way down to the Paradise hut for lunch. After lunch we ran into some friends (some of the Richin kids) and showed them the runs on the East River Express lift. The oldest two kids (Lizzy and Andrew) went with the Andrew, Peter, Emma, and I down Double Top Glades while the youngest (Sarah) hung with Abby, Madeline, and Mike. We spent an hour over there before heading back to the Paradise lift where we did another run before heading back down the mountain. Later that night we had some the Borg family over to the cabin for some dessert and games. It was a fun way to end our ski trip at Crested Butte.

​Today was an epic day on the mountain with the kids. Everyone except the boys left around 9:30am and walked over to the Red Lady Express lift. We decided to start the day with an easy green run. We headed down Peanut to Lower Twister. After that almost too easy run headed up the Silver Queen Express lift and took the catwalk to the Paradise Bowl. The boys met us there and we skied down the Paradise Bowl to Lower Forest Queen to the bottom of the Paradise Express lift. The snow was awesome, so we decided to do that run a couple of more times before heading over to the East River Express Lift. Once at the top of the East River Express lift the boys and Emma went down the black Double Top Glades tree and mogul run while Mike, Abby, Madeline, and I went down the ungroomed blue Black Eagle run. We didn’t realize the run wasn’t groomed until we came to some moguls. It wasn’t the most ideal run for Madeline, but I just had her follow my line through the moguls and she got down without any problems. When I asked her what she thought of moguls she said she liked them. I can’t believe this little girl doesn’t have any fear. After meeting the boys and Emma back up at the top, I separated from Mike and the younger girls and went off with the boys and Emma down the Double Top Glades run. I loved the first part of this run which was a ton of powder through the trees. Once out of the trees we dropped right onto the main part of the run which was covered with rather deep moguls. I am not the best at deep moguls, but I did my best to get down. Then it was back in some trees to the bottom. This was probably my favorite run so far this season. We all met up and headed back to the Paradise hut for lunch. After lunch we skied down the Paradise bowl runs for the rest of the afternoon and then headed down the mountain to the Painter Boy lift and did a blue on the other side and then headed to the bottom to end our fun day. Back at the house we snacked, relaxed, ate dinner, watched a movie, and started a 1000-piece puzzle together. It was a fabulous day!

We woke up to amazingly cold temperatures and no water running in the house. Apparently, the pipes froze overnight and the gasket on the water meter outside burst. After calling the emergency maintenance line, we just chilled in our warm cabin and waited for the repair men to come out and fix it. Luckily, it was a rather easy fix and water was soon running in the cabin. Hallelujah! We ate lunch at the cabin and then got our ski gear on to hit a few afternoon runs. The weather had finally warmed up to the teens and the sun was shining so we knew we would be ok. The walk down to the lifts wasn’t that long and we all managed just fine. We headed up on the Red Lady Express Lift and headed toward the Lower Ruby Chief run. We went up the Paradise Lift and skied down the Paradise Bowl. The snow was a bit chopped up already, but Madeline seemed to manage just fine over the “bumps” on the once groomed runs. We didn’t love that run so we decided to skip the Paradise Express Lift and skied down the Middle and Lower Gallowich run to the East River Express lift. The snow was much better on this side of the mountain, so we decided to head up the lift and do the Lower Treasury run twice. Then we made our way back to the Paradise Bowl and took the lift to the top so we could head down Houston’s access to the bottom of the resort. It was a rather short day on the slopes, but we still had some fun and spent time getting reacquainted with this ski resort. Back at the cabin we all spent time outside the cabin playing in the snow. Andrew carved out a nice little sled hill and we used cardboard boxes we already had to make little sleds. It’s amazing how the kids can have just as much fun sledding and playing in the snow as they do skiing on the mountain. 
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​After staying up way past midnight we all slept in and then packed for our Crested Butte ski trip. We divided all the stuff between two cars again and headed out in the snow for our long drive. The road conditions weren’t that great, but we all made it to the cabin in Crested Butte without too many problems. As we entered the town of Crested Butte the sun was still shining but the temperature was dropping fast. It’s a good thing we could pull both cars into the garage to unpack all our gear. It’s nice to have big kids to help with that part. The cabin we are staying at this year is quite spacious and really cool inside. Since we bought all our food ahead of time we threw in a quick dinner and enjoyed relaxing and being together. 

​Today we decided that since the Northwoods run was so much fun the day before, we wanted to go down that one again. While Andrew and Peter took Emma on a black tree run, Mike and I took Abby and Madeline down Northwoods. Madeline did an even better job than she did the day before. It was nice to do that run first since there weren’t a ton of people on the mountain yet. The second time I took Madeline down the catwalk and flapjack while Mike and Abby went down Northwoods. Madeline flew down the entire run, and I clocked her going 24mph. I had to work to keep up with her. We all met at the bottom at the Northwoods Express Lift. The third time I went down Northwoods by myself while Mike, Abby and Madeline went down the catwalk and Flapjack. I had so much fun flying down that run. Mike was so amazed at how fast Madeline was skiing today. The line was so long at Northwoods Express Lift, so we decided to wait for the older kids at the top. We headed over to grab a quick snack at the Buffalo hut. Once we met up with the older kids, we headed down the catwalk and did a run down the Sourdough Lift before heading to lunch. After lunch we knew the lines at Northwoods Express lift would be crazy, so we only did flapjack to the bottom once and then we headed over to do the Swingsville and the Cappuccino run. Cappuccino was a little steeper and icy in some sections but overall wasn’t a bad run. We did Hunky Dory twice and then headed back down the gondola. 

​Day 2 of skiing at Vail was just as much fun as the first day. The weather was beautiful with sunny skies and warmer temps. We were surprised that the groomed runs were still soft and not crunchy or icy. Instead of taking Madeline down the Timberline catwalk for the first run we decided to head down the steeper blue Northwoods run with her. At first Madeline looked down the run and wasn’t too sure she wanted to do it but I told her I would lead and so she followed me. She destroyed that run and went down it with amazing control. Then we went and did more of the same runs we did the day before. We ate lunch at Two Elk Lodge again, and then skied for just a little bit longer since the lines were crazy long at the Northwoods Express lift and the Mountain Top Express Lift after lunch. With only so many lifts open we ended up waiting at least 20 min every time we wanted to go up those lifts. Andrew, Peter, and Emma decided they wanted to ski down the entire mountain to the bottom instead of taking the gondola, so we parted ways with them. Abby wasn’t quite done yet, so I went down Hunky Dory with her twice while Mike took Madeline back down the mountain on the gondola. 
 

​Everyone was really excited about our ski trip to Vail this year. Even though the mountains didn’t have as much snow this time of year as in other years, we just wanted to ski together and have fun. We ended up driving two cars this year since we knew it would be too hard to fit the ski stuff, suitcases, and food for seven people into one car. It turned out well to give the kids more room to spread out between the two cars. We spent the first real day unpacking the cars and settling into our little condo right in the middle of Vail Village next to Gondola One. Our first day of skiing was a ton of fun and we discovered that the snow wasn’t all that bad. Only the front side of the mountain was open, so we headed over the Timberline Catwalk and did a few runs off the Sourdough Express lift. It only took Madeline one run plus the catwalk to remember how to ski. After doing a fair amount of runs in the morning, we headed to Two Elk Lodge to make our 11:45 reservation to eat inside. It’s a good thing we are all vaccinated because only vaccinated people are allowed to eat inside the lodge this season. Throughout the day we skied Boomer, Tin Pants, Flap Jack, Swingsville and Hunky Dory and we all stayed together the entire time which was a ton of fun. By 3:00pm Madeline was finished, so Mike and I took her back down on the gondola while the older kids did a few more runs.