Whistler for Spring Break - Part 3

Lily was still a little unsure about ski school.  She is loud and crazy but super nervous in new situations with people she doesn't know.
The first day, when I picked her up, her teacher told me that they had 9 kids and 7 of them didn't speak English!  I am not sure how he made it through the day but I understood Lily's frustration from the day because she couldn't even communicate with 7 of the kids in her class.  The second day she was moved to a higher level halfway through and spent half the day doing exactly what she did the day before.  I am not sure if this was bad communication between us and the teacher or she was just put somewhere because we were a little late.  Either way, she just wanted to ski with Daddy the rest of the trip.  Ski school can be great but in my opinion it is really just day care most of the day and they take them out to learn for little spurts at a time.  It was good for her to spend a couple of days being instructed by someone other than her Daddy though.  I think Lily would have done better in private lessons, which are more expensive of course if you have just 1 kid taking them.  If you have a few kids who are close to the same level, this might be a good option because for the same price you can have up to 4 people in the private lesson and it turns out to be less than putting each one in ski school.

Thursday morning we dropped the guys off, like we did every morning, and then took a walk through the woods back to the condo.

I like to meet the skiers on the mountain, if I can, at least once during the trip because I love seeing the mountain and getting to see Luke ski a little.  Since Lily just wanted to ski a little in the afternoon, we decided to take the gondola up to meet them for lunch and then Brett would ski with her in the afternoon.  We packed up all her ski stuff and headed to town.

Gondola ride  :)

We enjoyed lunch together and then headed out for some photo ops with the beautiful mountain and Olympic rings.

Practicing for when he wins his Olympic metal in skiing.  :)

The rings needed a little sass.  :)

I love to get a good family picture during our trips and I have taken a picture of Brett and Luke every year since Luke started skiing.  I love that they share a passion for skiing and get to spend so much time together on these trips.

On a side note: When you buy a gondola ticket, you also get to ride the Peak to Peak gondola which travels between the 2 mountains.  We have done this a few times and it is absolutely beautiful!  They even have a few gondolas with glass floors.  If you head up Whistler mountain, you should do the Peak to Peak and take in all the beauty of the mountains.  Here's a view of the valley between the mountains that we took 5 years ago.

We discovered that there are some magic carpets that are open for anyone to use right by the ski school on Whistler.  Brett skied down while we rode the gondola to meet him.  Lily had fun watching him ski under us and kept saying, "Daddy is the best skier ever!  I can't wait for him to teach me to ski!"  She sure loves her Daddy!  :)

Watching her Daddy

Beautiful!

We met at the gondola stop and they headed up to the magic carpets.  Brett changed into his tennis shoes so he could stay with her a little better and she wouldn't rely on him holding her.

Something you should know about Lily - she is very particular about how things fit.  She does not like things tight so tight ski boots made her miserable.  She threw a fit about them every time we put them on and screamed about how she didn't want to ski.  Then, once we convinced her to just try for a little and she got them on and went out, she had a blast.

He sent her down the first run and she squealed all the way down!  Can you see her mouth open squealing?!

Brett initially ran down behind her in case she needed help but she didn't need help.  I would help her get back to the carpet and then he would her get started at the top and stayed in case she needed him.  She acted like she was a pro and had fun skiing, turning all the way down.  She did much better than either of us expected.

She had so much fun!  Waving at her Momma as she skied past.

I stood outside for hours in the cold as it snowed on me but I would have stayed there all day!  She went up and down at least 30 times and LOVED every minute of it.  She loved the one on one attention and praises from her Daddy too.  I think it really built up her confidence.

They closed the carpets at 4 so we headed down to give her a chance to ski with Brett on a longer run.

We got down the mountain and met back up with Luke, who had been skiing with Poppa, Uncle Trent and Aunt Carrie.  They went up the lift that I told you about a couple of days ago, where you can ski down closer to our condo, and I walked over to watch my girl ski.

This little lift stays open until 5 and once she gained the confidence she needed to know she could do it, she didn't want to stop.  They skied until this lift closed - they actually got on at 5 as it was closing and made one last run.  :)

I was completely soaked by the snow and frozen from being outside for 4 hours but I love watching this little man in his element.

Lily did this when she finally got all her ski gear off.  :)

Me too girl, me too!

I am so glad that she had a great day skiing with her Daddy!  Tomorrow I am going to concentrate a little more on Luke and talk about our last day skiing.

Whistler for Spring Break - Part 2

On our ski trips, the skiers usually ski for 5 days and take a break for a day in the middle.  Wednesday was our break day this trip so we slept in a little and relaxed around the condo in the morning.  The kids immediately wanted to go outside and play in the snow so they ate a quick breakfast and headed out.  The back of our condo was a wooded area so I let them go out together with instructions to stay where I could see them from the window.  They LOVED playing in the snow!

Then we headed to town for lunch and to do a little shopping.  One of Lily's snow gloves ripped open so we needed to find her a new pair and we always let the kids buy a little souvenir so walked to town.

We made the kids wear their snow gear because the night before we discovered that they shovel all the snow into giant piles in the streets so the kids wanted to climb every one they saw and slide down.  It was hard to do that in their jeans/leggings, plus they were freezing afterwards, so the snow gear was a must.  Since this was our day to relax, we let them climb and have fun!  They also had to make snowballs everywhere we went!  Luke built a BB-8 and Lily just has a giant snowball.  :)  Y'all, these poor Texas kids could not get enough of the snow!

We ate lunch at Avalanche Pizza.  If you want some great pizza in Whistler, this place delivers or you can go into their little store in the village.

We walked into just about every store looking for gloves for Lily but everything was either crazy expensive or she hated them.  We walked all the way through the village on our search and found the Olympic rings.

We went to the Olympics in 2010 when Luke was 2 and I love this sweet little picture of him with his flag in front of the same rings.

In the Roots store, Lily found this sweet little puppy who she of course wanted to take home.

Then we had an impromptu snowball fight.  :)

The kids found a couple of souvenirs as we continued the search for the perfect gloves.   We eventually walked into a hardware store and bought a sewing kit so I could just sew them back together and wait until next year to get her a new pair.

At this point it was close to dinner time so we headed to one of our favorite restaurants, Earl's.  It has been a few years since we've been to Whistler, and we were a little disappointed that their menu had changed.  We loved the spinach dip they used to have and it was no longer on the menu along with some other things we loved.  We still enjoyed dinner though and loved getting to spend the time together laughing and having fun!

On the walk home these two found a giant "ice plate", as they called it, so they could easily carry their snowballs.  They seriously could not get enough of the snow!

When we got home, this sweet boy brought me this book and read it to me.  Cue the tears!

I read this book to him when he was little and every night when I tuck him in to bed I say in his ear, "I'll love you forever. I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."  He may be 9 but he will always be my sweet little boy who loves his Momma!

It was a great day off from skiing and we had a fun day together just walking around and of course, playing in the snow!

Tomorrow I will share how Lily found a love of skiing!  :)

Whistler for Spring Break - Part 1

Spring Break 2017 - Part 1

We went to Whistler, B.C. for Spring break this year.  Whistler is one of out favorite places to ski and we love the sweet little village.

This year we flew into Seattle and drove up.  Lily worked on the iPad studying letters and sounds while Luke sat with Grammy and Poppa and did sudoku with Poppa.

Our flight left at 10:30 but with the time change we arrived in Seattle around lunch time.  We found a fun little pizza place and the kids were super surprised to find that it was Comic Con day.  Y'all, we saw some pretty questionable outfits and got this amazing picture.

They actually weren't making faces at the people dressed up but this picture cracks me up!!

It's about a 4 hour drive to Whistler from Seattle.  Thankfully the kids had lots of books to read and movies to watch on the iPad.

When we got to Whistler, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things for breakfast and some lunch stuff.  We finally got to our condo around 9 pm so we unloaded and quickly got ready for bed.  We had to be up early to get to the shop to rent our skis.

Lily was very unsure about skiing.  Last year we went to Breckenridge, CO and the whole week the temperatures were in the negatives or single digits, during the day.  She took one day of school and then didn't want to leave our hotel for the rest of the trip.  I don't really blame her because it was bitterly cold and pretty miserable but Brett really wanted to her to at least learn to ski, even if it's not something she loves.  She wasn't sure about getting boots and skis but we convinced her that it would be fun.

There are 2 mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb, with about a 10 minute walk between them.  Our condo was just down from the Blackcomb side so we rented skis there and tried to get her signed up for ski school but the Blackcomb school was full.  We had to go to the Whistler school so we had to rush over to get here there.  This school is up on the mountain so you drop your kids off with the teacher and they take them partially up the mountain on the gondola where they have a building and lots of magic carpets.  Lily was super sad to leave me and nervous so she cried when we got there.  They brought out what they called the "sad child advocate" to help ease her anxiety.  She was AMAZING!  She helped Lily get her boots on and had her laughing within minutes and then took her up the mountain.  Here she is all ready to go!

After we finally got Lily off to school, the boys headed up.

This sweet boy of mine was born to ski!  He loves it and I LOVE this picture Brett took of Luke on the mountain!  Brett and Poppa took him to do some super fun runs this trip.  One of the things Brett loves about Whistler/Blackcomb is that the mountains are so big!  It gets a little crowded at the bottom but the mountain doesn't feel crowded when you are up skiing.

Ski school gets out around 3:30 so I picked Lily up and met Brett and Luke at the bottom of Whistler so he could take Lily up and ski with her.  There is a small lift that takes you to a point where you can either ski down the Whistler side or the Blackcomb side.  Since our condo was closer to Blackcomb, I walked over while Brett and Luke skied down with Lily.  Here they are heading to the lift.

She was pretty exhausted when they got down so we stored our skis for the night and headed back to the condo to get ready for dinner.

We signed Lily up to do another day of ski school and she went kind of reluctantly again but I promised her I would bring her doll (who has her own ski gear of course) when I picked her up.  I am pretty sure people thought I was a crazy lady walking through the town like this:

Lily was excited to see her doll but completely exhausted from the past few days so she didn't want to ski with Brett that afternoon.

We opted for an early evening in and made spaghetti at the condo.

Tuesday Lily decided she wanted to take a break from skiing so we hung out around our condo, did some laundry, watched a movie, ate lunch and took a nap.  Our condo was across the street from Blackcomb mountain so every morning I would walk with the skiers to get their skis and then put all their boots/shoes in boot bags and bring it back to the condo.  That meant that every afternoon I would meet them at the bottom of the mountain with their boot bags so they could store their skis and walk back to the condo.  Lily joined me, with her doll of course, to meet everyone.

We decided to go on an adventure and walk the back way to our condo which the kids loved!  They got to explore the snow by our place and build a snowman under the trees.

Brett's birthday is March 2nd so we celebrated a few days late with his family at the Mongolia Grill.  If you take a trip to Whistler, this is one of our favorite places to eat.

One thing I love about little villages like Whistler is that it is so easy to walk from place to place.  Living in Texas, it's hard to walk around.  We can't just leave our house and walk to dinner.  The hard part though - the kids wanted to stop and play in EVERY snow pile they saw!  haha

Always a little bit of sass!

My sweet girl had to have a purse like Mommy's and of course we had to bring along her puppy.  :)  Side note: Yes, my 5 year old has a Victoria's Secret purse.  Yes, I know it is a little inappropriate.  She wanted one that was the same shape as mine and it was the only thing I had so we went with it.  She loved it and loved being just like Mommy!

Of course on our walk home we had to stop at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!  :)

Tomorrow I will share about our day together when the boys took a break from skiing.