Mini-Vacation

Our long weekend started with a day off for Elise, and warm weather. We ate out on the porch (again!) and Elise made another of her luncheon creations. This one didn't really have a name, but it was a sad face, so I am told.

Thursday brought us a day off for both kids, parent teacher conferences (my kids are brilliant), and a day at the pool. We swam at Golden Rec Center, which is not close, but it is inexpensive, and mega fun. Owen made a chart listing all of our available pools, the amenities we care about (lazy river, slide, water depth, fun quotient) and put pluses or minuses for each. Golden won out. (Did I mention how brilliant my children are?) After that was ski rentals and ballet, then mom was off to a Mother Blessing (also know as a blessingway) for a friend who is expecting a baby. We hennaed her belly, and ourselves, lit some candles, told some stories, ate wonderful food. I don't have a pic of her belly (if I get one, I'll post it later!) but here is the henna on my arm:

I got home late Thursday evening, then we left bright and early on Friday for the ski slopes. We chose to go to Solvista for the first time, since it has been frequently recommended to us for kids. Owen and Elise did ski school all day on Friday, while John and I skied hard. We did most of the runs, except for a few black diamond runs that had bumps. For the most part, the blacks are like difficult blues at most of our favorite places, and the blues are like difficult greens. We still had a good time, and I was able to do many black runs that day (you can call me "Dragon Lady" now). The kids got lunch at ski school, while John and I tried out the cafeteria at Solvista. I thought I would be safe with the "special of the day", but apparently not. We vowed to bring our lunch next time. Friday was dinner at the condo, breakfast burritos.

Saturday was a day off for us, we spent time in our condo relaxing, watching movies, playing games, doing puzzles. We had planned to go sledding, but the blizzard-like conditions convinced us otherwise. We ate lunch in Winter Park at a nice cafe called the Mountain Rose Cafe. I had the best veggie-nut burger. Need to learn how to make that one myself. Everyone else's food was wonderful. Had dinner at the condo, soup, bread and cheese.
The condo had an outdoor hot tub, everyone (except for me) was looking forward to sitting in the hot tub in the snow, but by the time we were ready to go, it had stopped snowing and was actually sunny.

Sunday morning it was back to the slopes. Solvista is nice in that for $10, you can ski on just the Milestone lift and beginner slopes. Elise and I got those tickets, while John and Owen got tickets for the rest of the mountain. (Even regular lift tickets are only a fraction of the cost of the bigger more fancy resorts.) We mostly skied in the Milestone area, but Owen and John went up on some bigger green runs twice. That was enough for O :-) and Elise had a chance to go on those once and did fine.

Here are some pics of our day:

Owen picked up sking pretty quickly, he actually did pretty well when we went last year to Copper Mountain's Green Acres (another $10 lift ticket place). This year he learned how to turn and stop :-) (O is in the orange jacket.)

Here are Elise and John skiing together:

At first John helped Elise by lettingher hold on to his pole, but she quickly graduated to sking alone :-)

Riding the lift:

My big kid:

The view from below:

Here we are at lunch:

The kids riding up alone!

And finally, dinner at Beau Jo's on the way home!