The Ski-less Ski Trip of 2014

Last weekend we went on our annual ski trip with the Ranelles to Beaver Creek.  I'm not sure where to even start sharing about this trip other than to say that we probably should have just stayed home and never even boarded the plane on Wednesday!  It seemed like everything that could have gone wrong on the trip did go wrong.   

 

It all started when we realized that Cory's luggage (with all of his ski clothes, regular clothes, and MS medical supplies) never made it onto the plane in DFW.  We tried to make the best of it, especially after they assured us that they would deliver it to us the next day.  The airlines gave us $200 for our troubles, so our first stops after we ate dinner were Walgreens for a few toiletries/medical supplies and Sports Authority for some gloves. 

 

We also learned shortly after landing that the earlier flight coming into Eagle/Vail that Lynn (Dr. Ranelle's wife) was on had been delayed two hours because the flight attendant had a heart attack during boarding.  Just one more reason why we should have turned right back around and headed home! 

It started snowing in the middle of the night on Wednesday and didn't stop until Saturday night before we left.  In all, Beaver Creek got over 30 inches of snow while we were there.  Because of all the snow, the airport in Eagle/Vail completely shut down, cancelling all flights including the one that was supposed to bring Cory's luggage and the one that Dr. Ranelle was coming in on.  Luckily, he got a last minute flight into Denver on Friday morning and was able to join us for the rest of the trip.  The airport not only shut down on Thursday but Friday as well.  We knew at that point that there was little to no chance that Cory's bag was going to ever show up on this trip so we headed to Wal-Mart to get him some clothing staples like socks, underwear and pajama pants.  And just to prove that everything really did go wrong on this trip... when we got back to condo, I realized that someone had wrongly placed boys underwear in the men's section and, you guessed it... I accidentally bought Cory boy's underwear.  So much for him looking forward to putting on a clean pair!  

Thank goodness all the snow was so beautiful!  It momentarily took our minds off of the fact that things were not going our way on this trip!

Since we spent most of Thursday getting Cory settled, we decided to try and have fun on Friday.  Skiing was out due to the fact that he had no ski clothes so we decided to try snowmobiling.  It is something we have always wanted to try and we were both very excited about experiencing something new.

The first 15 minutes of the 3 hour tour were great!  And then the extreme snow conditions came into play and our fun level started dropping.  There were no trails due to all the new snowfall so our guide was making the trails and we had to follow exactly in his trail or our snowmobile would fall over.  Needless to say, we turned our machine over three times in the first 30 minutes.  One of these times, my leg got pinned under the snowmobile and I couldn't move until Cory and a couple other girls lifted it off of me.  I know that we had some of the most extreme conditions that they only see a few days during the entire winter, but that plus several other things that happened during the tour made me never want to get on another snowmobile again. Our tour was full of adventure but it was definitely not what either one of us expected for our fun day out!

Even though it seemed like everything went wrong on this trip, the one thing that was consistently good every night was the food.  The Ranelles appreciate good food and always make sure we get to enjoy a lot of it!  The last night of our trip, we took a sleigh ride up the mountain and enjoyed a five course meal at Beano's.  It was a fun way to end a trip full of unexpected adventures!

And for those of you who are wondering if Cory ever got his luggage... this is what was waiting on us when we got back from dinner on the last night:

It took the entire trip, but it finally came!  On a positive note, at least I didn't have a lot of laundry to do when we got home! 

Our trip was not what we had planned, but as always, we are so grateful to the Ranelles for hosting us at their beautiful home in Beaver Creek.  Their hospitality is greatly appreciated!  Even though it was nice to get away for a few days, I don't think I have ever been more thankful to get back home to my sweet kiddos.  There was definitely a lot of snuggling on the couch after we got home on Sunday!