Hello again...from Beaver Creek Colorado

I don't think I've ever gone two months without posting! I hope a few of you are still checking in.

Regardless of my absence, I'm back with a list of posts to write about the end of our summer.

We had some fun in July and August, starting with a trip to Colorado/Wyoming with the two girls right after the July 4th weekend.  Because the hubby is flying again, we can go to two of our favorite places in the same weekend--Jackson, WY and Beaver Creek Colorado.  The two boys had plans, so Byron flew us girls out west for a long weekend.

Peace out Iowa!

The first leg of our trip was to Colorado.  We landed in Eagle.
The views from the air were fabulous. By car or by air, my eyes never tire of the Rocky Mountains.
And landing on a runway with a mountain at the end is super cool!  (That weird line is the propeller.)


Our personal pilot  :)

Beaver Creek -- beautiful in summer or winter.  The sisters love this place!

The next day we headed out for Jackson, WY and that deserves a post of its own.
(too many pictures!!!)
Check back tomorrow for some pictures of our favorite place on Earth.

Friday Five--Colorado Ski Trip 2013

1. We went to Beaver Creek in Avon, Colorado, last weekend and had a great time. Last year's trip was cancelled due to lack of snow, so everyone was excited to hit the slopes this year.
I see less and less of the family now, compared to when we started going to Beaver Creek in 2007. Don't worry--we have plenty of bonding time while we drive there and back! Speaking of which...who wears shorts to go to Colorado in January?

The first few years we went,  I had to help get kids to and from ski school each morning and afternoon.  This meant carrying the little kids' skis for them and taking boots to change into later, so they could walk back to our condo. I would pack a bag to haul ski gear in afterwards, another bag with extra gloves, boots, snacks, money for hot chocolate, stuff to do, and then I would sit in an easily accessible location for them to come warm up periodically.

Hot chocolate break with mom -- Jan 2007

I got in a lot of reading by cozy fires while I waited during those trips. I would also take lots pictures and occasionally see them get on the lifts or ski down to the base. We juggled kids around a lot more, because of differing abilities and endurance.

Now they leave in the morning, show up for lunch, and then drag in at the end of the day when the lifts close. They are hungry, cold and/or sweaty and tired. They don't want their pictures taken. We still have a great time...I do more of my own thing and feed them, and they do more serious skiing than ever before. The younger kids keep up with the older ones! I am thankful that Ellyn gets some pictures with her camera or phone on the tops of mountains. :)
We have tons of pictures from other years, right?

2. While I was killing time and the others were skiing, I made a tree skirt, recopied all my breakfast recipes, started an online class, started thinking about out how to relocate my craft room/supplies, read a couple of magazines, cooked some food, did some laundry, and enjoyed a hot chocolate break at Starbucks with some of the skiers. We also enjoyed our traditional meal at Blue Moose Pizza. Not a bad way to spend three days!

3. During the two days spent driving to and from Colorado, I didn't drive one minute.
We have four licensed drivers and one with a permit. Five out of six people could legally drive! Thanks for letting me off the hook, family!

4. We had a hilarious conversation about our genealogy over supper one night. It even included a phone call to my mom to clarify some names/relationships. Brandon quickly wrote out a family tree, showing several generations in linear form to help Meg understand which generation of cousins she lined up with. Rather than writing out all four Carson kid names, he quickly wrote "allofus" which equals "all of us" if you include spaces in the correct places. Ryan took the chart and reviewed all the names of relatives going back several generations. Then said, "Wait a minute...who's Allofus?" Brandon explained that it was actually supposed to say "all of us" and we all died laughing. Ellyn suggested we destroy this piece of paper, in case it became an official family record down the line causing someone else to think there was once a Carson kid named "Allofus".

5. It never gets old going to Beaver Creek. We were there this summer too, and I didn't mind one bit!

Wordless Wednesday -- Beaver Creek Colorado 2013

Jan 2013

Jan 2011

Jan 2010

Jan 2009

Jan 2008

Jan 2007

Wordless Wednesday

July--Colorado vacation

It has been a good month, with lots of stuff going on. We enjoyed a vacation to Colorado--our first family trip to Colorado during the summer. Everyone loved it, although there was still a lot of talk about snow skiing. We traveled to the ski resort Beaver Creek, where we have gone in January for the past 5 years. This year in January, there wasn't enough snow to ski. We rescheduled our trip to July and it worked out great!

We left behind wretched Iowa weather--high temps near 100 or more each day and humidity that felt like a rain forest. Colorado delivered well, with afternoon highs around 80 degrees and lows in the 40s each night. I love the days of jackets in the morning/evening and t-shirts in the afternoon!

We enjoyed hiking, white water rafting, fishing, horseback riding, mountain biking, our favorite pizza joint, beautiful scenery in the Rocky Mountains, and time to relax and spend time together as a family.

I'm so glad it's Friday

This has seemed like a long week. My family is glad it's Friday.


It felt like a long week on Monday when...
We headed out of the mountains for home, at the end of our wonderful Colorado ski trip. The snow started Sunday afternoon and was expected to drop 2-3 ft. of snow in the mountains by end of the day Tuesday. We watched the weather carefully, and knew that we would drive out of the snow in the first hour or so. We got up early so that we had some cushion in our schedule. We knew it would be slow going through the mountains--and it was veeeery slooooow going through the mountains.  These are pictures as we travelled east on I-70 (west of Denver).  We left at 7am and drove about 40mph. The snow added about 45 minutes to our trip. At one point we almost stopped all the traffic on east I-70 when our van couldn't make it up a hill. We were very relieved to get this part of the trip behind us.

We heard that later in the day on Monday, a 2 hr. trip took 5 hours, and that the interstate closed at one point. We were glad we headed out early that morning. When we reached Denver it was 50 degrees and sunny. Then we made tracks for home--and we weren't driving 40mph anymore. We got home by 9 pm.

It felt like a long week on Tuesday when...
I realized what my calendar looked like for that day.  We had our normal life to jump back into, with school, band lessons, piano lessons, dog-walking, a vet appointment for our dog, etc.
Byron had hurt his thumb pretty badly on the first day of skiing, so he went to the doctor for an x-ray and found out that it was broken. We got punched it the gut with real life on our first day back!


It felt like a long week on Wednesday when...
Byron went to an orthopedic surgeon and learned that he would be having surgery on his hand the next morning. It was a bit easier day than normal for us at home, and I'm very thankful for that.


It felt like a long week on Thursday when...
we got to the clinic in Des Moines for Byron's surgery at 9:30 and the power went off 15 minutes later.
I was his driver, so I had rearranged my day until approx. 2:00, when we expected to get back home. Instead, we sat and waited for the power to come back on for 90 minutes. (They didn't want anyone to leave, because they would rush their patients into surgery the minute the power came on...whenever that would be.)  He eventually had his surgery and all went well, but it was a looooong day. We got home at 5:00 instead of 2:00. I was really glad for supper in the crock pot.

My teenagers have had a long week too, making up school work they missed while they had fun skiing. It was fun, but always a shock to jump back in to reality.

 So today my family is very glad it's Friday. 

Hope you all enjoy the weekend!

My High Altitude Adventure

Every year when we come to Beaver Creek, my family talks about the awesome views from the top of the mountains. I've sent my point/shoot camera up for them to take pictures, but we always wish I could go up to see for myself.

Today, we looked into options a little further and found out that I could buy a "scenic ride" lift ticket. I bundled up and grabbed my camera! Byron met me at the bottom and left the kids skiing around up on those mountains somewhere. As we got higher the temp dropped lower--just like they told me it would. Good thing I was bundled up! It was great to see the family and share the beautiful view with them.

I could hardly catch my breath, the views were so amazing. (wait... maybe it was because I was freezing and the air was so thin!)

Later in the afternoon (when I was back home with Ryan and Meggan) Byron, Brandon and Ellyn called me from a spot we can see from our living room window. I grabbed the camera and zoomed in on them from the living room and took their picture.  Then I got to watch them ski down the mountain.

Enjoying one of our favorite places...

Beaver Creek Colorado

2011

This is our fifth year--absolutely love this place!



Colorado Ski Trip -- part 3

Just had to share a few more pictures.

This cracks me up because they are wearing boots and swimsuits.  (Oh yeah, and then there's the snow in the background.)

The pool had steam coming off of it.  They felt great in the water.  When I told them it was time to go,  they got out of the water and were freezing and shivering immediately!

Walking around in the village:

After the Chris Thile and Punch Bros. concert:

The beautiful Rocky Mountains:

Colorado Ski Trip--part 2

This is our fourth year to come to Colorado to ski in January.  My family loves to ski.   I love to read books by a warm, crackling fire, while my family skis.  And I love to drink hot chocolate with my darlings when they need to warm up.

The first year we came to Beaver Creek in Avon, Colorado, my family looked like this:

And this...      
(look at these baby faces)

Jan. 2007

Ellyn (12) and Brandon (14)

Meggan (6) and Ryan (8)

Now they look like this:

and this...

Ellyn (15)     Meggan (9)     Ryan (11)     Brandon (17)

Jan. 2010

Today is their last day to ski.  I am sorry to report that Byron woke up with a pounding headache and could barely eat breakfast.  He had to go back to bed...on the last day of skiing. The kids were stunned and sympathetic.  After lounging around for a while, Brandon, Ellyn and Meggan got their gear on and left to ski.

Ryan picked up his book.  He didn't care if he didn't get to ski anymore.  Byron does care--he wanted to get an early start, since it was the last day. I hope he can make it out at some point today.

update:  Byron made it out to the slopes after lunch and enjoyed an afternoon of skiing with Brandon and Ellyn. Yay!

Tomorrow we will get up early and eat breakfast on the run.  We will spend the day in the van and feel very happy when we arrive home.

=========================================================

On another note...a musical note, that is...

Brandon, Ellyn and I get to see Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers tonight in the impressive concert hall here in the village.  We have seats 11th row center.  (Christ Thile is a mandolin player/singer/song writer extraordinaire and overall musical genius, who played with the acoustic trio Nickel Creek before they parted ways.)  He formed this new band with four other extremely talented musicians, and they play a blend of bluegrass-folk-classical-jazz.  I can't wait to hear them.  We are so excited!

Beaver Creek -- Avon, Colorado

Ellyn would say this is her favorite place on Earth. 
It's easy to see why--this is my view out the back door of our condo.  If I would get out of my slippers and pj's, I could give you even more spectacular views. 

The only thing that could make it better would be if our dog Mandie was with us.  We miss her terribly when we come here (some of us more than others), but we leave her in good hands.  (Thanks, Mitch and Lindsey!) 

Did you know her ears feel like velvet?

The drive here is very long. We leave at 5:00 am or before, depending on the weather.  Everyone is in good spirits, since we are on an adventure.  We watch movies, eat, take turns driving, play tons of music from our ipods, read books, and sleep. 

This kid barely makes a peep for most of the drive.  He's always been a great traveler.

This kid asks "how much longer" over and over.  She's always been a terrible traveler.  (This is Meggan with our friends' dog Bear.  She dresses him like a girl whenever she gets a chance.  Sorry Jeff and Travis.)

Then in the afternoon, after hours and hours in the van, someone notices something on the horizon:

Within minutes everyone gets very excited, because we have reached the mountains.

From this point, we still have about 2 hours to drive before we reach Avon, CO.  The rest of the drive is strikingly beautiful as we drive through the Rockies.  It seems to go fast, unless it's snowing and the driving conditions are slow and stressful.  This year our drive was uneventful.  The weather was great, so Byron had Brandon drive through the mountains.  He did a great job.  (Better than I would have done, because I would have been a nervous wreck.  All that down shifting so you don't burn out your brakes...  yikes.)  I took the stretch in western Nebraska.  Talk about uneventful.  The only excitement is if you get stopped for speeding.  (I didn't this year.)

Before long, we pull into Ellyn's favorite place on Earth--Beaver Creek.  It is a favorite for the whole family.

(Ryan would say not true for him. He's too much of a homebody.) 

I'm still not sure which family member loves skiing most--Byron, Brandon or Meggan. 

They are all crazy for skiing; and Ellyn just loves the entire package of this trip.

And me...I like to go almost anywhere with the whole family.

And I love to take pictures of beautiful places, especially while in my slippers and pj's.

 More tomorrow...