In January, we went for 1 week to beautiful, snowy Utah so the kids could experience and enjoy the snow. The trip was absolutely amazing! We used skymiles and stayed with family so felt like we could splurge and spend some money on some fun snow activities. They loved them all!! Here is a play by play:
Benny. Fell asleep on the way to the airport. Fell asleep in the airplane. Dream baby traveler extraordinaire.
When we arrived in Salt Lake it was about 2:00am Florida time but it didn't stop these kids from being excited! Here they are, all bundled up while we waited for our rental cars.
We spent our first day recovering. The kids played in the snow in the Quigley's backyard. We ate Cafe Rio, we toured the Chatbooks headquarters. We visited. And we got ourselves ready for our big ski day the next day.
Here are my cutest little snow bunnies! We went to Sundance and put them in ski school for a few hours in the afternoon and they LOVED it! It also gave Daniel and I a chance to go snowboarding. It really was so fun. Jake and Tiff, Shelly, Vanessa, Isabelle and Delcan, and Duce and Jett all joined us and we had a blast riding down the mountain together. After we picked the kids up from their class we decided to go for one more ride with them. We didn't even see Jackson... he took off down the slopes with Jett. Ivy on the other hand, took a little more work. She was a trooper and snowplowed those skiis as best she could but she ate it quite a bit. And then I had to lift her up and get her skiis back on. It was exhausting. But we made it. And the tears at the bottom of the slope were not from the miserable last ride but because she wanted to go again and couldn't. We decided the next time we do this we would give ourselves 2 days on the slopes.
The cutest bundled up baby there ever was!!!
Ivy standing in the beautiful snowfall. The weather really was perfect. It snowed everywhere we went. And the weather hovered in the low 30's so it wasn't too unbearably cold. In fact, most of the time we were outside in the snow we were hot from all the work we were doing (hiking up the hill to sled, skiing, running and chasing each other with snowballs).
A super duper fun morning sledding in the fresh snow. Followed by snow angels of course. And snowball fights. And building snowmen. We really did it all!
We left our cozy accommodations at the Quigley house to meet Jake and Tiff in Midway at Tiff's parents house. Just a little snooze on the drive. And a scrumptious breakfast pictures.
Talk about a lot of snow!!! Midway was so dreamy!
This was a fun little outing. We originally wanted to do some tubing but it was sold out since our only open day was Saturday over a holiday weekend. Instead we went ice skating at this really cute outdoor rink in Heber. This is the only activity Benny was able to participate in. We pushed him in a stroller around the rink. I'm pretty sure he didn't think he could move his arms he was so bundled up. And he had a very quizzical look on his face most of the time. Like he didn't quite know what was going on (what are those little white flakes hitting my face? Why can't I move my arms?) Both Ivy and Jackson absolutely loved it and we were glad we went!
Snowy Sunday Service!
Now this was an adventure for the books! Tiffany's parents own a rustic cabin in Christmas Meadows... near the Wyoming border at Bear River. This little "search and rescue" cat, along with 2 snowmobiles, brought this whole crew and our stuff in 6 miles to our cabin for a night. It was a very challenging experience with a 1 year old but I think the goods outweighed the bads.
That open fireplace kept us alive (by keeping us warm) but also kept my busy (trying to keep Benny from falling into it). Once he was safe and sound asleep in his crib I could relax!
The next day was filled with a lot of this: SNOWMOBILING!! And that was really really fun!!!
We also did some snowshoeing. I really enjoyed this. It was absolutely breathtaking in the mountains and so unbelievably quiet and peaceful.
This was it!! This was our cabin for the night!
Our last day we spent going to Deseret Books, DI, and the BYU Bookstore. We drove around Provo reminiscing about the early days of our marriage and feeling nostalgic. We said our goodbyes to our Utah family and decided we were definitely doing this again in a couple years!
Back in Florida!! On the tram. Looking forward to our own beds and our comfy cozy home!
