Skiing with the kiddos

I know it's been forever since I've updated my blog but I have felt like I should blog our Disney trip and that is just a mountain I haven't been able to climb. Alas, I am skipping Disney and maybe someday will get there.

Yesterday, Poy and I celebrated our 12 year "dating anniversary" by taking the kids night skiing. We have taken them both before and felt like they could move from the little beginner hill to a longer run.  We did a few runs on "Bruno", the easy lift, and then decided to move to the big run.  This was not necessarily the best idea. First, we didn't really know what exactly was open and what wasn't for night skiing.  Second, we couldn't really find any of the "green circle" easy runs, so we ended up on blue (medium level) runs.  Most of the run I held on to Nolan with his skis inside mine and Poy had Sophie in the same manner. The run was not very well groomed because there just isn't that much snow. At one point we had no way to get Nolan to the bottom of quite a steep drop so he had to remove his skis and slide down the slope on his rear! Poy held on to Sophie and went down the hill and crashed...into Nolan! He was fine though :) After that area Sophie and Poy got ahead of Nolan and I. We got moving too quickly and Nolan lost control, knocked me into the splits and he kept going.  He was trying to sit down and stop and as I'm laying in the splits he is going, going and gone, over the edge and into the trees! Yikes! I finally got out of the splits and was able to get to him. I couldn't figure out how I was going to get him out. Poy had to take his skis off and get him out.  Again, he was fine :) We finally made it to the chair lift and made it to the top of the mountain. At this point the kids were in tears cause they were cold and wanted to go home. We had only been there for 2 hours. I was thinking this was a wasted trip, but we decided to go inside and eat and warm up. After warming up and eating we decided to go back to Bruno and to stay there.  We skied for another hour and a half and had so much fun! Both kids did awesome. We were so proud of how well they were doing. We'd get to the top of the mountain and both of them would just ski right down the mountain. Next time we take the kids skiing we will definitely be sticking to the beginner chair. It was much more fun and much less stressful. Anyway, here are some pics of our trip.

Sophie preparing for her ski trip!

Eating in the lodge

Nolan and Sophie with Smokey the Skiing bear

Nolan on the chair with me.

Sophie at the bottom of her first great run!

Nolan at the top of the mountain. He didn't even want to stop long enough to take this pic

Nolan on his way down, all smiles :)

Whistler Trip Anniversary Day!

On our 3rd day of our Anniversary trip, it was our actual 10 year Anniversary. We decided to fill the day with activity, doing both the Peak to Peak gondola and a rafting trip!  The Peak to Peak gondola goes something like this... First you get on a gondola to go up to the top of Whistler Mountain. We rode with a very nice family that gave us some good tips on what to do at the top. We then took a chair lift up to the very peak of Whistler. We hiked around and took some beautiful pictures. We then took that same chair back down to where we got on. We did some shopping at the Whistler Lodge. We then got onto the Peak to Peak gondola which takes you from the top of Whistler and across to the top of Blackcomb Mountain. I feel we made a bit of a mistake when we took this gondola... we decided to go on the "glass bottom" gondola which was super full and really not all that cool since the "glass bottom" is more like a small window in the bottom. I think we would have enjoyed it more had we had a less full gondola and just looked out the windows.  Anyway, it was still cool. Once on Blackcomb, we walked around a bit and then took a chair to the bottom of Blackcomb.  Here are lots of pictures :)

On the chair up to the peak of Whistler.

Poy on the chair... he looks a little less windblown :)

At the top of Whistler

Poy on top of Whistler. I loved that there were wildflowers everywhere.

The lower right water is a "snowmaker reservior"

Glacier

Checking out the sights

Poy with the Inuksuk

My turn

These things were everywhere... these were actually quite small but looked big at this angle.

At the Whistler Mountain Peak sign.

This is what I look like after hiking! Yikes, I was tired!

This is the Peak to Peak gondola

Crossing over to the other side

Beautiful Glacier

Poy on the Blackcomb side

A beautiful view on the way back down.

We had a great time on our entire trip!

After this and a quick lunch we were off to our rafting trip. For those of you that don't know, Poy doesn't swim, so this was a big deal for him.  I knew he'd be okay, but will admit when we were on the water I was really hoping he wouldn't fall in. We had a great time though and I think he'd definitely do it again! We didn't have our camera with us since obviously if we fell in it would be ruined. We did purchase the photos that they took though.  I wish they had more photo spots, but at least we have pics of us rafting.

On the lake before getting to the river. This is where we learned what to do.

"Hold on!"

"smile"

Over the rapids!

We had a very memorable 10th Anniversary!

Our 10th Anniversary Trip to Whistler Day 2

Today was another great day in Whistler!! It is such a beautiful place with so much to do, or not do if you just want to relax.  Today we did the Ziptrek "Eagle" tour and had a fantastic time.  The tour is so much fun and educational as well. Much like Portland, Whistler is a very Eco-conscience place, so they talk to you all about the ecosystem throughout the tour. We loved it. Here are a few pictures and a video of our tour. The unfortunate part is that on the last and most exciting zip, our camera died. You will have to take our word for it and picture it in your head... Poy and I both zipped upside down for the majority of the line!! It was SO MUCH FUN!! Enjoy!! Click here for the video.

Our 10th Anniversary Trip to Whistler Day 1

We had an early morning, waking up at 6:45 to get ready for our flight to Vancouver, Canada. We were a bit surprised when we found our gate at the airport was actually downstairs in this little tiny room. We realized we were going to board our flight by walking out on the tarmac. We had never done that from PDX before. This would be the reason for walking out to the plane.

It was an itty bitty plane and it wasn't full at all, but it was quick and a very nice flight.  

Here was a view of Mt. St. Helens from the plane. Poy was proud of this pic

Once we got into the airport, through customs and got our rental car we were on our way.  They are doing a ton of prep for the upcoming Olympic games.

Here are the rings on the side of the highway. 

We decided we wanted to visit Chinatown since we had heard it was a good one to visit. Unfortunately we didn't have a great map and drove way past where we needed to be so we had quite a road trip. We did finally find Chinatown though and found a chinese restaurant for some lunch. We had some great BBQ pork, but I wasn't so impressed by the chow mein. We then did some shopping and found some stuff for Sophie. I finally bought her a pair of chinese PJ's that I've always wanted. We also bought her a good luck kitty and my dad a back scratcher :)

The outfit (I think of them as jammies) are actually bright pink, I think they look red in the photo.

We stopped on the way to Whistler at Shannon Falls. We did a little bit of hiking and took some fun pictures.

Being goofy

Gimme a kiss!

When we finally arrived in Whistler at almost 8pm, we were very happy with our hotel room. We are not normally splurgers when it comes to hotels, but we decided since it was our anniversary trip we were gonna stay somewhere nice.  So, here is our room.

The bathroom has a tub which is VERY important to me and it has heated floors :)

The living area is good sized and has a mountain view.

The bedroom with a pretty bed.

This little note and box of chocolates was on the kitchen island. 

Here is our kitchen

This is the view out our window. This is what the mountain looks like right now. Bikers were taking the chairlift up and biking down. 

After checking out the room we had pizza in the hotel pub and then walked around the Village. Although many shops were closed, it is a very cool area and we are looking forward to some great times.