Living Laughing Loving Life: Spring Break

Sante Fe Ski Trip 2014

This year we joined Jessica, Brian, Jax, Mom and Dad, Jack (Jessica's dad), and Dell and Sue (Jessica's Aunt and Uncle) on their annual ski trip. They moved their trip from February to our spring break in march so we would all be able to go. I have to admit that the 11 hour car ride had me hesitating for months! Everytime we would be out with the kids and drove for an hour or two I would text mom and say that we were definately out on the ski trip, they would have to go without us...either I would have to be heavily sedated or the kids would have to ride in another car!!!

Well, we all survived! It was A LOT of work!!! It was not just being the teenager only in charge of yourself on a ski trip.......the way I remember it. (haha) The first day I really wondered why we thought this was such a great idea after it took about 2 and a half hours to get ready, packed up, drive up the mountain, get kids in ski school, get our skis and boots on..... but once we slid into the seat on the first chair lift and we raised up in the air, snow below us, ski dangling...I took a deep breath and I was glad we were there with our family and giving the kids this experience. Thank heavens for ski school is the other thing I thought (HA)!

Dell, Mom and the kiddos waiting to load up with boots and skis and head to the slopes!

This was the main house we stayed in. A casita was on the same property. Mom and dad stayed in the casita. The whole property was unbelievable! We were totally spoiled !

Getting settled in. Brian cooked a big breakfast for us each morning and we stayed in and cooked each night for dinner.

The Casita...it was adorable!!!

I hadn't been skiing in 17 years. It all came back like no time had passed at all! I couldn't believe it! The only difference was that we were all wearing goggles and helmets and Brian and I were not skiing through the trees anymore. Brian snowboarded while we all skied. He was really good! The elevation in Sante Fe shocked us a bit...we were pretty out of breath, Brian especially working so hard snowboarding. It was a good little mountain. A good place to get back in to the swing of things again.

Mom and Brian

It was fun to ski with Chris. We had never been skiing together before this trip.

Jack, Jessica, Dell, Brian, Dad, Mom, me, Chris

Sue doesn't ski so she kept a close watch on the kids and became the photographer for us while we were out on the mountain. I still need to get a bunch of her photos...she got some great shots of the kids and some videos too.

Lily made quick friends with this little boy named William. We found out he was from Colleyville which is in the DFW metroplex. They both did so well their first day in ski school that they got to go up the quad lift the second day! They were rock stars on the slopes!!

Cade was super cute! He mastered going straight down...not so much on turning or stopping - lol.

The sunsets were BEAUTIFUL every night!!

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Sight seeing in Sante Fe

After two full days of skiing, and poor mom getting hurt on her last run we all decided to take a break. Mom stayed at the house, iced her knees and slept all day and we did some sight seeing in downtown Sante Fe. We visited the famous Chapel Loretto.

This tree is full of rosaries hanging from every branch.

The chapel was GORGEOUS! The story behind the staircase was that the chapel was so small the nuns needed a way to get up to the top floor to be able to sing etc... A regular staircase would take up too much room. The nuns prayed everyday for help or a sign to know what to do. A man showed up and said he knew what needed to be done. He build the staircase without any nails or central support. When he completed the job he dissapeared, did not ask for money, did not leave any of his tools behind. The nuns believed it was the Saint they prayed to who actually built the stair case. It makes two 360 degree turns and no on e can explain how it is still standing to this day. The staircase was not built with railings but years later they added railings on to make the staircase safer.

The entire town of Sante Fe was made of adobe buildings and there must have been a building height ordinance because there were no tall buildings.

Lily enjoyed the market on the square in downtown Sante Fe!

Chris, mom and I, Lily and Cade headed home a day early so we could take her to see Jeff (Chris' brother) and get an MRI.

Driving through a dust storm!

Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo. The winds were 50 mph!

Lily running against the wind - lol

Mom at Jeff's office the next day. She left with two knee braces and finally knowing what damage she had done to her knees. She had tears in her miniscus and mcl's in both knees and had a partial acl tear in one knee. Chris kept her knees iced down for two days straight so she didn't have much swelling to deal with by the time we saw Jeff. That was a plus :)