Ski trip - Final Christmas celebration!

We got back to Garden City Monday afternoon, let the kids get out to play for an hour while we unloaded and then reloaded for our ski trip. We hopped back into the car and headed for Keystone.

We celebrated Christmas with Tommy's family on Tuesday night.

Here is Trey opening his train while all the other kids looked on.


Trey got 2 big Tonka trucks and absolutely loves them! He and Luke had races all over the condo the rest of the week. It was so much fun watching them.



Here I am on our first day of skiing. The weather was absolutely beautiful, sunny and mid 30's the whole week. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

Here's Tommy on one of his only runs of the whole trip. A lot of you already know the story, but 2 runs later Tommy had a "run-in" with a tree. He had gone ahead of me as I stopped to rest. I could see him almost at the bottom of the run and was actually a little irritated that he skiied off and left me. I made my way down and when I got to the lift he wasn't there. I waited a while, then went to the ski patrol to call his cell. (We had decided I didn't need mine since we were skiing together.) I waited for him for almost an hour then decided to ski and just meet him at Maddi's ski school later in the day. I left this message on his cell and headed off for the rest of the day.

I arrived at ski school about 2:45 to find Tommy's sister there with Maddi and waiting for me to let me know that Tommy had been taken by ambulance to the hospital with a head injury. He had already had one CT scan on his head and was getting ready for his second on his abdoman. Needless to say, I completely lost it. I knew he hadn't been wearing a helmet and have heard about too many fatal accidents occuring like this. I was able to talk with him right away and knew he was going to be OK after he told me to stay with Maddi so she could ski on the big mountain (she prefers this over the bunny slope.) I took her down once and then headed to the hospital.

Tommy ended up having 2 broken ribs and a concussion. We were very fortunate it wasn't worse and I truly believe God was watching over him for us that day. I went the next day, bought a helmet and will never ski without it again.

I took Thursday off just in case Tommy needed anything or he got worse. He was pretty drugged and slept most of the day, but I felt better being by his side.

On Friday, I headed to the mountain and spent the morning skiing by myself. I had really never done this, but had a blast. How can you not enjoy these views?

Tommy came to have lunch with us. These are the only pictures I have of Maddi because he had my camera on Wednesday, so it ended up at the hospital.

Daddy with his little ski bunny.

Maddi and Trey. Don't you just love the look on her face. She had just stuffed her sandwich in her mouth before I took this.

I skiied with Maddi on Friday afternoon. She loves being in the snow, but I knew she was exhausted when she fell asleep riding up the lift! We headed down the mountain and she was all done. She's such a little trooper.

Friday night, we celebrated Grandma's birthday. It's hard to tell in the picture, but when making a cake and you don't have oil, melted Crisco does not serve as an alternate! The cake was horrible, but at least we had ice cream to go with it.

Grandma with all the grandkids.

Misty, Matt and the kids headed back to Garden City with us on Saturday. We stopped at the Bass Pro Shop in Denver on the way through. This is the main reason Maddi is ready to go back skiing, so we can stop here again!

Here they all are looking at the giant aquarium.

All the cousins together after a fun filled week.

Isn't he getting so big?

We had a great time skiing, maybe with the exception of the ER visit on Wedneday. I'm glad to be back home and get back on a schedule. Maddi starts school on Wednesday, so back to the real world!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break and have a Happy New Year!