We’re here!  We made it to Hays by 11:30PM Wednesday night, a short sleepover there, and on the road 8AM sharp Thursday morning.  I love traveling with my 5 favorite people but this crew is not used to long road trips.  Our van is jam packed with snacks, ski equipment, and every electronic device we could scrounge up.  A few sibling arguments here and there and an overwhelming sigh of disgust when I made all of them read for 45 minutes.  I don’t really think that’s asking a lot out of a 10 hour road trip, is it!?  And I’m certain any of us could step in for Brian on a program at Market Source now, as we are taking in his conference calls.  We stopped in Frisco, CO for a late lunch at Greco’s Pastaria which is owned by a friend of Brian’s.  We always laugh that he literally knows someone EVERYWHERE we go! The food was absolutely delicious and we certainly hope this is not our last visit to Greco’s.

Shortly after lunch we pulled into the Marriott Vail Village and checked into our room (hiding kids in the corner so they don’t see how many people we are squeezing in one room!).  We are getting big enough now that we require 2 rooms.  However, for this short little trip we are squeezing into 1 so we don’t squander away all of Brian’s Marriott points.  It’s a lot of points to stay here right at the base of the mountain.  It’s absolutely beautiful.  Here’s the view from our room and our cute little fireplace.

We walked around a bit and got fitted for our equipment and already have our first souvenir…look at this adorable sweatshirt I found on a sale rack for Reece.  $15!  I’m so proud of myself since everything in Vail is about a million dollars.

And this crazy hat is what she really wanted to buy…thankfully we escaped without that in our sack!

We had quite a laugh at the ski rental because they had Morgan listed as “Mirgan” on the paperwork so we were all calling her “Mirgan” in a hilarious Norwegian accent, including the staff at Vail Sports (who were extremely awesome and helpful by the way).  We’re not sure Mirgan thought it was as funny as we did! 😉

On our way out to find the ski rental, they were serving Smores and hot chocolate by the fire pits and I literally could not stuff one more morsel of food in my body from our big lunch at Greco’s.  The kids were able to make room and enjoyed roasting their marshmallows and deciding which type is best…slightly brown and toasty or burnt. Everything is a competition you know…

The weather is gorgeous and the crisp clean mountain air is so much better than that farm smell and flat boring drive I made from Hays to Denver.  Not looking forward to that again on Sunday!

The kids were dying to swim so we had a little early evening swim!  Look at Morgan’s beautiful outfit.  Isn’t she cute!?

Too chilly for me…I ended up by the firepit and eventually inside waiting for them to finish up!

We played a family card game of Skip Bo and grabbed dinner at Tavern on the square.  I was still not very hungry from lunch!  I convinced Drew to use his Bday money to buy the game because I used to play it constantly at my best friend’s house when I was a kid.  I have to say, it didn’t come right back to me.  We had to do a thorough review of those directions!  I wonder if the Catalina’s still play?

This morning we got up early to make sandwiches (because eating and drinking here costs a small fortune), and get our gear picked up and ready.  Reece and Drew are doing ski school today and Brian is taking Morgan and Jake straight to the runs. Everyone is looking good!  We all got new ski gear on super sale after the season last year so they were excited to put it on.  Hoping for no injuries or sickness and lots of fun today!

We have one snowboarder in the group (Jake) and the rest are skiers.

I’m sure by now Morgan has taken a million selfies and snap chatted every detail on the mountain and we’re only part way through the day.  Teenagers.  😉

More to come on our adventures later!