snowy holiday retreat

We returned yesterday afternoon from our holiday weekend in Midway. It's kind of funny that Marc didn't end up joining us for a vacation with his family, but he got passes to the Sundance Film Festival for the first time, thus fulfilling a (nearly) lifelong dream.


Marc's parents are wonderful to vacation with -- their only goal is for everyone to have a great time. They enabled me to enjoy myself by spending a lot of time playing with Eva, which meant that I could play board games, go tubing with my boys, and even get some much-needed sleep after Eva woke up at 4:45 (!@**!) on Saturday morning.

We stayed in this cute little Swiss-style chalet.

It had the craziest icicles any of us have ever seen!

There are many photos I wish I could have taken.

We went tubing on Saturday at Soldier Hollow, and it was so fun! My natural instinct was to avoid it -- I offered to stay behind with Eva, but Marc's parents insisted that they would do that so I could participate -- and I'm glad I did, it made me feel like a kid again. Lucas was feeling really nervous at first and didn't think he wanted to try it, but I forced him to go down one run before deciding. We linked our tubes and careened down the hill together. As I suspected, he loved it and was totally on board. In fact, when our two hours were over, he was wishing we could stay longer! I was afraid I was going to be freezing, since I didn't have snow pants or boots, but we were all totally comfortable. I was shocked to find out later that it was only 18 degrees... apparently we're getting used to the cold or something.

We also went swimming several times, which involved bundling up over our bathing suits and braving the snow to get to the clubhouse. It felt so strange to be going out in the snow in our swimsuits! Grandma was a great sport to come with us.

Other than that, we stayed inside and played lots of games and watched many movies. The kids all loved being able to go next door to Grandma & Grandpa's or across the hall to see their cousins. (Lucas even slept over with his grandparents.)

Max & Grandpa kibbutzing about the game (Scotland Yard).

Max and Lucas demonstrating the depth of the snow.

This was the view from my bedroom window early Monday morning.
We woke up to a foot of fresh snow!

Eva discovered the beauty of fry sauce.
(It was a good thing she had her own cup, as she was triple dipping.)

Lucas and Kristen at the Dairy Keen. Aren't cousins great?

It was a bit of a white-knuckle drive coming home -- visibility was not great because of the snow, and my Odyssey's defroster wasn't working well, either. I had to keep wiping the windshield with my hand and crouch down to see out of the bottom 1/4 of the window. I was so relieved to get home safely!

{Just for laughs: this is Marc's sister Michelle, doing an imitation of one of the little boys who comes to her Little Gym. (He flutters around on his tiptoes, saying that he's a little girl with ponytails. He won't respond unless the teachers preface his name with "little girl"!) She cracked us all up -- and had everyone doing it, too.}