Ski Trip to Angel Fire, NM!

For Christmas this year my mom and David took us all to Angel Fire, New Mexico! It has been almost ten years since I've been skiing, and I was super excited to get back out on the slopes! Also, Randy has only been skiing once and never with me, so that was exciting too. We were pumped about getting to take the girls to the snow. I collected snow stuff for all of us and Kendall kept getting more and more excited. We left early in the morning on the 26th and made it all the way to Angel Fire in one day! I figured we would have to stop halfway and spend the night in a hotel beause I didn't think the girls would be able to be in the car that long, but they did so great! Even after making the drive up from Lake Jackson just two days before, they were great car-riders and we were thankful to be able to have an extra day of skiing that we hadn't planned on.

Tuesday morning before we went to get our gear and get on the mountain, we dressed the girls up and played out in the snow for awhile. Kendall was great at making snow angels!

So cute in her snow gear! She's wearing Michael Pickering's Aggie hat here. Love it!

There was a great sledding hill right at our front door. Alden sled with Kendall a few times!

Cooper didn't really enjoy putting on the snow gear too much! We dressed her up completely, bibs, coat and all, and she just cried. We took her outside for a little bit, but she must preferred to just play in the house..and on the stairs a bunch!

Mom stayed at the house with the girls on Tuesday and Wednesday while we all went skiing. I picked it right back up ten years and two babies later and it was so much fun! I was sad at first because Kendall was too young for ski school. They start at 4 and she is still 3 for another month. I did keep seeing parents skiing with their kids though, even younger than Kendall, and wondered if maybe she would ski with me. Our house was right on one of the runs (totally ski-in, ski-out - so nice!) and she had watched us ski off one morning and said she wanted to do that. By the end of the second day I thought it might be worth trying getting her some skis for the last day. We asked her if she wanted to ski and she said yes! So that night we went down to the ski shop and had her fitted!
David's daughter and son-in-law Angie and Matt went with us with their two sons, Dylan and Logan. The boys had been in ski school for two days and were getting ready to go skiing with their mom and dad for the third day. Kendall loved playing with them so much on the trip and was excited to be getting to ski like them!

Such a big girl!

Thursday morning we started about halfway down the run with Kendall. The plan was to let her ski down the run to the bottom of the mountain, and then if she didn't like it, David was going to pick her up and take her back to the house. I got a little worried when we got started - she was all ready to go but then when we got ready, she started getting scared and saying she didn't want to. We got her skiis on her, though, and got started...and she loved it!! I skiied with her right between my legs and she just giggled and lauged - so much fun! Randy skiied next to us and she just thought it was the most fun thing. We got to the bottom of the mountain and she said she wanted to ski some more!

I was so nervous about taking her on the lift. The workers there do this all the time, though, and they were ready for her! We got her up to where the seat was, they picked her up and sat her on the chair! She was a little scared at first as we started going higher and higher, but she ended up being able to enjoy it! Randy and I, however, just kept thinking and praying about the end of the lift...getting off..the hardest part! I wasn't sure how it would go, but I called out to the workers again to give them a heads up, they got her off the seat, told us to get off ourselves, and then just pushed her to us! She did so great!! After that, she said she wanted to do the "ride" again.

We skiied on down the run until we got to where our house was. She did so great skiing with me and we never got tangled up or fell down. I was worn out! A few times, Randy would get ahead of us and I would let Kendall ski to him by herself. She loved that and kept asking to "ski to Daddy!" By the time we got to our house, it was lunchtime and we were ready for a break. She stayed in after that and took a great nap! I'm just so thankful she was able to try it and that she has good memories of it so she will want to try again in the future!

Randy was able to take a lot of videos while we were skiing - I'll put those here at the bottom. She is such a good skiier!!

We were able to spend Friday at the house just us - everyone else left Friday morning. We rested and played games and watched movies. We got ready slowly on Saturday morning and then left around lunch, during halftime of the Aggie bowl game. That afternoon we drove to Amarillo and spent the night in a hotel there. Sunday morning we finished the drive on into Ft. Worth. The girls really did so well in the car and we had such a great vacation!

Thanks, Mom and David for a wonderful trip! It was great to be able to ski again and share that with our family. Seeing Kendall ski was one of the best things either of us have ever seen - love it! We loved our time together as a family and then as just our family on the weekend. Such a wondeful getaway!