Granby Ranch 2014

Trying it all out before the trip

The ski trip has come and gone, in the blink of an eye much like all highly anticipated events.  Adam managed to record nearly 3 hours of video on his GoPro, so he has been re-living the ski trip on his 70 inch mancave TV.  It was Jack's first year skiing in the mountains. He had an interesting level of excitement and fear leading up to the trip.  The unknown factor of the size and speed of the mountain had him nervous. But he knew he should be excited based on the giddiness of Adam! We had been piecing together Jack's ski clothes over the past year or so.. and it definitely turned out AWESOME. He looked like he belonged in the x-games.  We of course had NonaJane suited up from head to toe too.  A nice collection of craigslist, swap-n-shop purchases, and a few new items thrown in.

Snow cuties

       
We headed out bright and early Friday morning, with Kristin shoved in the back seat for good measure.  Kristin likes us enough that we were able to hire her for a small amount to go with us on an expense free work trip :)  We are so GLAD we did!!! Kristin spent her days inside the condo with NonaJane while we were all out skiing.  We were able to take her up the lift to enjoy the view off the scenic path, and we also took her out tubing with us on the last day. NonaJane was happy as a clam every time we came in, and Kristin even cleaned our condo for us more than once while we were all out!  We've already hinted to her that we hope to take her with us on future trips as well!

6:00 AM

First family picture in the mountains

There was a LARGE group of people meeting us at the condos in Granby Ranch Colorado.  13 people (to be exact) would be staying in our two bedroom condo (did I mention that four of them are 4 and under???).  There was us, Adam's brother Ryan, his girlfriend Brooke along with their kids Emma and Zane.  Adam's cousin Luke, his wife Amy and their children Landon and Lauren and of course our babysitter Kristin. 13 people was definitely too many… but without spoiling a story later in this post we'll just say the condo got roomier as the week went on...
 We also planned this trip along with the Ryan and Lohman families whom Adam grew up skiing with.  There was 3 generations of skiers on the slope, and a lot of memories flying around (for them anyways… it was my first time at this resort).   But Adam's first time skiing EVER was at this resort when he was 7, along with his childhood friends the Ryan's and the Lohman's.  It was pretty meaningful for all of them to get to bring their children here for their first time skiing too!

Emma, Adam, myself, and Ryan

The first morning Adam was already taking Jack down green and blue runs with the use of a harness.    Jack was able to turn and direct his skis, he just didn't have the strength or consistency to stop or turn quickly when needed.  Apparently while I was a bit behind skiing with Luke and Amy, Adam had a bit of a momentary slip up and accidentally let go of the harness reigns.  Jack unknowingly took off skiing on his own.  He was doing great... until a pole got in his way.  Luckily it was padded, and so was he.  Other than being disgruntled at Adam for "letting me go!" he was injury free.  Adam modified by wrapping the harnesses around his arms to ensure he could not let go of him again! The rest of the trip was event free for Jack… but not for everyone else in the group :(     (spoiler alert!!!)

Jack leading Adam down the mountain (Adam deserves some props for skiing with that harness… it is NOT as easy as it looks. You have to be able to react fast)

                                                                                                                         

Headed up the ski lift

Midway thru the first day, Adam, myself, Ryan and Brooke ventured over to the black and blue runs to check them out.  Luke and Amy (Adam's cousin and wife) decided to stay on the green runs for some more practice (since it was their first time skiing in the mountains).  Not more than an hour later we received a disturbing phone call and text from Amy stating "Gashed my knee open. Can't stand up. Waiting on ski patrol now to take me down the mountain."  It was definitely a helpless feeling not knowing exactly what the injury entailed, how it happened, nor being able to immediately be at her side.  We skied down and actually ran into the patrol men pulling an empty toboggan behind them. "Did you just help a girl with a gashed knee??"  -"We sure did.   If you know her, she is in the first aid center"

Taking a short break to play in some snowy Aspen trees

and make snow angels :)

I ran on in and sure enough she was sitting there, her leg in a cardboard splint and wrapped in purple bandaging.  She seemed awfully calm and put together… so surely she would just need stitches.  Then her husband showed me a picture of her gory knee… yep.  Stitches wouldn't fix it.  After multiple hours of no pain medication, and shuffling between clinics and cars… she was taken by ambulance to Denver. She spent the rest of our vacation in a hospital bed recovering from surgery.  Can you imagine a stinkier vacation??? It definitely cast a bit of a shadow over the rest of us.  Feeling guilty for skiing on, but not knowing what else we could do. Plus we had extra room in the condo, extra food, but less fun company, bummer! It also added a small bit of paranoia for me… fearing the imminent possibility of injury.  Darn those maternal instincts!  I felt limited to boarding and skiing with caution… guess I will never make it to the x-games!  HAHA! That was never a dream of mine anyhow… but Adam on the other hand…

The four of us on a double tube about to head down… Jack was crying in fear.  But we all survived!

For the first 30 minutes we were the ONLY people on the hill.  Then some of the Ryan family joined us.

We were encouraged seeing how there were children skiing even younger than Jack! We have resolved that next year will be NonaJane's first year in skis, at the ripe age of 2 1/2.  Her daredevil approach to life should treat her well in the mountains.  We have no doubt that Jack will be ready to let go of the harness next year, which is exciting but scary at the same time :)  We will probably skip the tubing next year (because it was really expensive) but definitely think it will be something we do every couple of years.  It was ridiculously fast, and terrifying in a very thrilling way!

We are thankful for the opportunity to go on this trip, we are excited about the fun footage we have of Jack's first time in the mountains to cherish down the road, and are all praying for Amy's quick recovery.  She claims she wants to go with us again next year- because she is crazy and awesome like that!