We left on the 26th and spent 5 nights at Beech Mountain, North Carolina. I know it's not Colorado, but for this southern girl, it was AWESOME! The trip there took about 8 hours, but thanks to Santa's gifts of Ipad minis, the girls stayed very well occupied.
The cabin we rented was less than a mile from the slopes. It was called the Hundred Mile View--the first thing we did was walk out on the back deck for some photos:
I mean, seriously, how gorgeous is that view? We spent the entire first night relaxing in front of the fire. We played a game of Spoons and then Gra-Gra taught Kyndall how to play BlackJack :)
The next day, our equipment rental and lift tickets were for the twilight session (1p-10p), so we started off the morning letting the girls do some sledding and playing in the snow before heading to the slopes.
When we got to the resort, we just practiced for a little while. Justin and Mallory had been skiing before, but the rest of us were first-timers. Justin and my dad took a few minutes working with the girls:
For the most part, everyone picked it up really quickly. Some better than others, but no one got TOO frustrated. Mama kept ending up in the snow bank and Trey had two speeds--wide open or crashed. I was extremely impressed with the girls--they did REALLY well. Libby couldn't quite figure out how to stop, so she would just lay over. Kyndall made like a pro and hit the 2nd level slopes a few times on this first day.
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| Shout out to Mica for letting me borrow her snow gear! |
Personally, I wasn't impressed with the nighttime skiing. It got REALLY cold. The snow turned more icy and it was nearly impossible to stop. It was VERY pretty though.
On day two, we ventured over to HawksNest for snow tubing. It was LOTS of fun, but really crowded. The session was an hour and 45 minutes, and we spent a large part of that waiting in line. I think everyone decided skiing was more fun :)
Day three just happened to be Justin's 35th birthday. We woke up to rain, rain, and more rain. We drove over to a nearby town for ice cream at McDonalds just to get out of the cabin for a little bit. We did a small amount of shopping and ended the night with dinner at the Brick Oven Pizzeria.
The last day we woke up early for an all day session--9am until 5pm.
Around 1ish, Libby started getting tired. Snow skiing is hard work for a little girl. She worked on building a snowman for a little while:
And then ended up going back to the cabin with GraGra and Pop for the rest of the day. The rest of us got serious about our skiing at this point. We would ride the lift up and ski straight back down to the lift again--nonstop.
Right before our lift tickets expired, Justin insisted that we all go to the top slope--the expert leveled, highest slope at Beech Mountain. I didn't think it was a good idea, but Kyndall wanted to go so I wasn't backing out :) The lift went higher and higher and higher. We were literally above everything else that we could see--other mountains, houses, even the clouds. The view was breathtaking.
The trip down was also breathtaking, but in a different way. Kyndall got really scared (it was really steep!) and to be honest, Mal and I were nervous too. Justin tried to help Kyndall down but he struggled. (If I'm being honest, and I guess I am, I was pretty mad at J for talking us into going to the 3rd slope.) At one point, K fell and when J tried to help her, his ski went over her arm. At this point, I was slightly down the hill from them. K started crying and I tried to get to her--have you ever tried to walk up a steep hill in the snow? It doesn't work. Even after I took my ski's off, I could only go downhill.
To make a long story short, K was ok. We made it down the mountain without injury and I got over being mad :) We even had time to jump on the lift for one last trip before our tickets expired. Justin got some really awesome video of Kyndall skiing, but I'm having issues uploading them. I put them on Instagram here though, so be sure to check it out!
I think we are now addicted to snow skiing. We are already talking about when we might be able to go back. It was so much fun! I am so thankful to my parents for giving us the gift of an active vacation. We made so many memories, and that's better than any material gift!
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