ski trip - part 2!

after the success of our weekend ski trip in january, the lowe's booked a flight back to yvr for a whole week at whistler!

this time we stayed on the whistler side in a 1/2 duplex at creekside.  the only downside was that it wasn't ski-in/ski-out - we had to cross hwy 99 - so we opted to drive over each morning since the creekside lot offers free parking :-) after the hassle we discovered in january of trying to get into a restaurant for a large group, it was nice to plan our dinners in every night.  it also ensured that lisa and brendan had leftovers for lunch the next day...there aren't a lot of options at creekside.

we signed the kids up for 4 full-day lessons...and they did great.  the 3 and 4 year olds aren't actually allowed to go on chairlifts during lessons, so the teachers take them on the creekside and village gondolas.  the neat thing about whistler kids is the flaik system.  each child is given a gps tracker that straps around their shin.  at the end of each day, parents are able to log onto the flaik website and view the stats on the child...vertical, distance, average speed, and see exactly which runs the child skied on, and when they took a break at the tree fort :-) imagine our surprise when black diamond runs popped up on gabe and trevor's flaik tracker!  then looking more closely, most of them were triggered when they would go across a black diamond run :-)  however, they did a short stint on the upper parts of a couple black diamond runs...usually as a short-cut to get to a blue run!

for us grown-ups, the ski trip didn't exactly start off well.  on our second ski run, geoff suffered a bad fall on the peak to creek and had the wind knocked outta him.  he was a trooper and managed to ski the rest of the day, but by the end of the day, he was in rough shape.  on friday morning he discovered his wrist was fractured (he was put in a cast) and his ribs and shoulder were badly bruised. so he had to cancel his originally planned ski lesson. since he was supposed to take a lesson, sunny and i booked a spa morning at the westin, leisurely lunch for 2, and then shopping in the village.  the 2 of us had a great day...it was hard to resist the end of season sales...both of us had brand new ski outfits!

on saturday, sunny and i crossed the peak to peak and spent the day at blackcomb. since we lost our ski-leader, we had to come up with our own plan and find our way from lift to lift. apparently neither of us can read a ski map, because it took us 3 tries to find our way to 7th heaven.  by then, i was in need of a lunch break and we scurried back to the daylodge :P fortunately we knew exactly where to go after lunch and didn't waste anymore time.

geoff''s parents joined us for the weekend, and more importantly came to celebrate brendan's 2nd birthday with him.  and in true 2 year old style, we saw a glimpse into the terribleness that is yet to come :-)  good luck, lowe's!

chris joined us for sunday skiing and we spent the day at whistler.  unfortunately, chris' lower body is not cut out for skiing.  he's always had trouble fitting ski boots due to his flat feet, wide feet, with a weird bulge.  even though we went to a pro store to buy his boots and they customized the plastic boot for him, they continue to cause problems.  so after 2 runs, chris took a (very) early lunch break.  thinking that the 2+ hour break would suffice, he hit the slopes with us but barely made it down one run.  so he hit the daylodge again and it was a girls ski afternoon.

misery loves company...on monday, both chris and geoff stayed off the slopes, and had a chill day.  so the originally planned "family ski day" turned into a mom's & son's ski day :-)  since the boys were familiar with the whistler side, the 4 of us hit the gondola's and the chairlifts, and skied our hearts out.  sunny and i took turns leading the boys down the slopes and they did awesome.  every time we would stop on the slope, they'd look at us and say "why are we stopping?!" or "let's keep going!!".  after lunch, we took the kids through the enchanted forest - no fear! - and found the tree-fort, and had an afternoon snack at the beavertail stand. 

for our last day of skiing we had planned to hit blackcomb again.  but the mountain had over a foot of new snow overnight and the winds were gusting, so peak to peak was closed, as were several of the higher-up chairlifts due to avalanche control.  even geoff couldn't resist the last day of skiing and bundled himself up and hit the slopes with us :)  (chris left on monday night...he couldn't get a whole week off work since they were short-staffed.)  the snow was pretty heavy on tuesday, we were all skiing pretty slowly...we only got 1/2 the number of runs in compared to the day before. even the tree fort was closed because of all the snow fall...so we just HAD to go back to beavertails for our snack :)

by the end of our ski trip, the new snow was quickly turning to rain...we couldn't have timed our trip any better!  hopefully our next ski trip will be injury-free!