our week at Snowbird

I meant to fire off a little post explaining that I would be gone for a week for our annual family trip to Snowbird, but it's one of the things I didn't get to before leaving on Saturday.


Marc's parents have a timeshare at Snowbird and they invite our family and Marc's sister Michelle's family for a week shortly after school gets out for summer. The funny thing is, Marc hardly ever goes. He is either traveling for work or just feels like he can't miss that much work -- so I go on a vacation with his family without him (he came up with us for the first day only). Good thing I love his family!

I was a bit concerned about how it was all going to work out, since my kids and I would all be sleeping in the same room. The boys were very good about staying out of our room while Eva was napping or when she had to go to bed earlier than the rest of us (although they did sneak in there a few times to retrieve forgotten necessities, such as swim trunks). The first night we were there, Max and Lucas and I crept in to quietly brush our teeth and get into bed, and we heard Eva's little voice pipe up: "Let's talk in the night!" and I had to persuade her that it was sleeping time, not talking time. All in all, it was better than I expected.

Here are some of the highlights of our week:

we ate well, thanks to Mim and Bob

It's always a good time to look over your yearbook.

Grandma and Eva played their own version of Mexican Train dominoes. (I believe the dominoes were characters in their game.)

Lucas helping his sister to feel secure in the hot tub. Her brothers are so good to her.

Success! I finally got a self-portrait with Bob and Mim! (I tried one on our trip to Midway earlier this year, but it was truly awful.)

the kids went to the game room several times, mostly using their own money for tokens

It snowed 3 inches on Wednesday! Yep, snow on June 11th. I know we were in the mountains, but... crazy.

there was a lot of art going on

a pleasing sight

Lucas, Kristen and Max went to a craft class for kids where they got to color these t-shirts. They were all very creative. Lucas is showing off his snail puppet that he bought at the gift shop. Missing from the photo is Eva's new little raccoon finger puppet, Racky.

Max and Nicole swinging Eva on our way to the pool. All the kids were so great about including Eva and not complaining about having a toddler always tagging along.

On our last two nights, I took the kids down for a night swim after Eva was in bed. The first night I was shaking because of the cold. The second night I checked the outside temperature before we went down: 37 degrees!! That time I wised up and took a blanket to snuggle up in. Luckily the water temperature was 82 degrees.

And to keep with tradition, here are some of my mental pictures -- unphotographable (or simply unphotographed) moments that I don't want to forget:

• Attending church in a big room with huge windows overlooking the beautiful scenery. In the past, there have only been about 10 people in sacrament meeting, but last Sunday I'd say there were about 80! They had a keyboard for music, and the tiny paperback hymnals. A return missionary gave a wonderful talk about fathers teaching their children. And we saw many squirrels and marmots on our way to and from church.

• Michelle and I going to the steam room several times. We both had coughs and her parents convinced us that the steam room would really help. I was quite reluctant, because I hate being hot and sweaty, and I feared I might feel claustrophobic, as if I couldn't breathe. I was shocked by how much I really enjoyed it. We would sit in there for about 15 minutes and talk, and when the steam really got going and we couldn't hear each other, we just sat and breathed deeply. Then we went and cooled off in the solarium and talked some more while looking out at the mountains and trees. It was so relaxing.

• Eva playing air hockey! She so wanted to play video games in the game room, and mostly contented herself by sitting in the driving games, pretending to play. But once she tried air hockey, ooh baby! She played me, Lucas, and Max and never wanted to stop. She was pretty good at hitting the puck, but would sometimes also allow it to go into her goal just because she liked retrieving it. Oh yeah, she's a real competitor.

• Taking the kids to the Marco Polo store and watching them ooh and ahh over the exotic offerings. (giant geodes, expensive Persian rugs, art, etc.) Also, the one-of-a-kind stuffed keychains of ugly little animals with birthdates and mottoes.

• Lucas always wanting to make a whirlpool in the hot tub. And telling me that he was anti-social and would only go in one of the three hot tubs surrounding the pool if it was unoccupied by strangers. (Lucas anti-social, ha!)

• Swimming on the last day, when Eva finally got brave enough to get out of her floatie and let me take her all around the pool. She practiced blowing bubbles and floating (she even had me sing the Little Mermaid theme when she was lying on her back -- just like in the tub), and she jumped off the edge into my arms about 100 times! (or a billion, if you ask her) Hooray!

• Playing innumerable hands of cards, Contract Rummy and Speed. Max is totally into cards right now, and I am all too willing to join in. We taught Nicole and Kristen to play, too, so we had rousing games going.

It was a pretty great week.

I took this picture while driving down the mountain. (shhh!) I just pointed the camera out my side window without looking so I could keep my eyes on the road. Not bad, eh? (Right after that, a deer ran right in front of us, so it was a good thing I was looking where I was going. I tried to take a picture of it, but it was too quick for me.)