Having three full days on vacation is just the perfect amount of time! With this trip being so far from home we had to add an extra night (the night we stayed with Dad) to make the drive worthwhile but it really all worked out and the kids didn’t miss much at school since it was the week before Christmas break! I know next year when Kye is in “all day school” that we won’t be able to miss as many days as easily so I’m glad we took advantage of his more flexible school schedule while we could!
Our last day of vacation was spent back at Beech Mountain. Our plans originally for that day were to all ski as a family for half the day. Once we got there and talked to the ski instructors about Kye and Britt they highly advised us not to take Britt up the mountain. Zach and I agreed and are SUPER glad we didn’t attempt it. It would have been a nightmare. Instead, the boys planned on going up and Britt and I planned to have a girl morning walking around the resort area. We needed to find a Christmas ornament so we had a mission!
Renting skis for the day!
The first day we didn’t get a helmet for Kye but for the 2nd day I insisted on it. He was going up a mountain! He was wearing a dang helmet! G-Mama was VERY glad to get my text that we did spend the $10 for the helmet rental 😉
Britt’s rentals were free so we grabbed them knowing she’d want to ski if Kye was skiing
We did some practicing! Here’s a video of Kye’s fall (but I love Britt’s cheering!) and another video of Kye skiing Also here’s a video Zach took of him coming down the small mountain
I remember vividly my first trip to Colorado to ski. My brother and I did a little ski school thing and then one day our parents took me up the mountain. I don’t remember my brother being there so I’m not sure if they took him up too but I remember they promised me they would buy me a stuffed animal kitty that I’d seen and wanted. All I had to do was go down the mountain. Y’all. I was terrified. I did it and I earned my prize and I cried the whole way down and I wouldn’t go up the mountain again.
I have a feeling if we had taken Britt up the mountain that she probably would have also been in tears the entire way down. I also have a feeling that if I had a picture of me going down the mountain that I probably looked something similar to this:
I love Zach’s positive attitude with her 🙂
After a few practice runs they were ready to face the big mountain!
Random fact about me: I’m terrified of ski lifts. Whenever Zach and I would go skiing I would be really scared going up to the lift and he’d hold my hand and help me on. Leading up to this trip I got mega anxiety thinking about a) having to get on and off the lift by myself and b) having to help a kid get on and off the lift with me. When it was decided that I wouldn’t ski…I was very relieved that I didn’t have to ride the lift! Dumb fear? Probably! But I just feel all panicky inside just thinking about it haha! Of course I didn’t say anything about this fear to the kids and Kye did great with the ski lift!
Britt on the other hand…well the three days of no naps caught up to us. Even though she was going to bed super early each night (legit we had them in the bed at 6:00!) she just hit her breaking point. She was whiney and miserable. Wanted her gloves on then off then on then off. And if you have ever put gloves on a child then you know how straight up difficult it is to do!
We went into the locker room and had a little pow-wow. I explained to her that this was our last day on our trip and she had two choices. She could start fresh and we could have a happy day together or she could choose to stay miserable and we could have a bad day together. I was SO THANKFUL she chose to fix her attitude. I try really, really hard when my kids do fix their attitudes to praise them and drop it. It’s HARD to swallow down pride and stop being in a bad mood when you’re in one. I try to just erase the bad moments from earlier and embrace the new look on the day. We ended up having SO MUCH FUN that morning together walking around and shopping. I’m so glad she was able to make it fun!
We even made it back in time to see the guys coming down!
Bless his heart Kye did a lot of falling haha
From my perspective I assumed Zach was frustrated. I mean it was falling then picking up then falling then picking up then skiing for a second and falling. I also assumed that Kye was miserable and hating it and regretting having him go up the big mountain. I was SO surprised and happy to be wrong when they got down to meet us. Zach was beaming with pride and Kye found his new favorite sport!
She waved and waved and cheered 🙂 She is an AWESOME encourager!
I love the bond they share and the FUN they have together!
Britt raced right up to him to hug on him and was saying “good job Kye!”
Lazy skiing 😉
I took both kids for awhile so Zach could go ski some on his own (I know…I’m an awesome wife haha). We all walked over to a jump area to watch Daddy do some tricks 🙂 The goal was to get a pic of him jumping but it’s hard to watch two kids and take pictures of someone super far away from you! I, of course, missed the jump but got the landing! And we were out of patience by that point so it’s the only jump we watched 🙂
More skiing!
My favorite part of the day was just playing in the snow with the kids. We had a GREAT time playing together. I didn’t take many pics…I just lived in the moment and had fun 🙂 We lucked out that Kye’s wall was still up from two days prior and Britt and I had fun building snowmen and having snowball fights 🙂 I even taught her how to make a snow angel!
The wall was MASSIVE!
We just had rentals for half a day so we ate lunch at the resort and then played a little more before leaving. On our way back to the condo we stopped to get pics in front of the Elk in downtown Banner Elk. Let’s get an opinion on this…do elks look more like moose or more like deer? Zach is “always right” but with this I think I win. They totally look more like deer, right?!??!
Missing my third baby!
We don’t do a lot of sweets and treats and we were all SO pumped for some nice warm hot chocolate!
While on this trip I was obviously pumping while Tess was getting bottles back home. I was FREAKING OUT b/c my supply was SUPER low. I also ended up with a clogged duct again and I was just struggling and worrying. Luckily I had brought some of my Gaia Herbs Lactation Support 
vitamins so I took those around the clock and I talked to Zach and decided I needed to buy a new pump 🙁 My Medela Freestyle Breast Pump
has been AMAZING but it’s 6 years old. I read that the motors can start to die and cause issues so I knew it was time to invest in a new one.
I worked on addressing Christmas cards while the kids and Zach went over to the little putt putt course on the resort property to play. Y’all if you normally get a card from me and didn’t this year then let me just say SORRY! I accidentally ordered way less than I normally get and since it was already so late to be addressing them I didn’t have time to order more!
We originally planned to go out to eat for dinner but since our fav restaurant ended up being closed we instead stopped by the store and got food for a feast! While Zach started the cooking the kids and I had a BLAST playing games. I love just having that quality time together.
We also sang a LOT of “Let it Go” and did some dancing too!
Grilling!
Poor, poor Sammy 🙁
My sweetie ready to see us!!!
We had a nice relaxing finish to our trip! I loved the down time together. I missed Tess but at home she gets most of my attention, especially since I breastfeed. It was nice to be able to be ALL about Kye and Britt and I know they needed that and enjoyed it as much as I did! Zach and I didn’t regret at all having the kids with us for our “Christmas vacation.” We still had a lot of quality time together (we started How I Met Your Mother and we’re liking it so far!). It was truly one of the best trips ever!!!
The next day we drove straight home…all 8 hours. The kids did AWESOME with it. We stopped for potty breaks and stopped to eat lunch. Y’all. We picked a BAD spot to stop for lunch. It was a rough area and I was legit on edge the whole time. A man approached us at our table and tried to sell us some rags. Then several men were blocking the door on our way out hassling people for money. I went ahead and got out some cash when I noticed them before we left and gave it to Zach to give to them so they wouldn’t have to ask. Even after we gave them money one of the men kinda followed us to the car asking me about what was in the lunch box I had for the kids. I told him all I had was a cheese stick leftover from lunch but he could have it if he wanted it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ALL for helping people but I didn’t appreciate them approaching us that way with our children there and it made me nervous. Zach said when I was in the bathroom with Britt that one of the men had a talk with Kye about how he needs to avoid living on the streets when he grows up. Life lessons in the strangest of places, right?
I was SO thankful to see my baby girl when we got back!!! We had an AWESOME trip and I kept thinking about how fun it’ll be when Tess is old enough to go with us!
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