NC ski trip to Ski Appalachia

 We love to ski!!  David and I bought our own skis and boots on sale when we got back from Colorado.  My boots have saved my legs!!  I loved skiing in Colorado but the rental boots were killer on my shins.  When we got back to VA we tried to take the boys skiing every chance we had.  These pictures are from a day trip up to Ski Appalachia.  There goes Lucas and David up the first lift.

 Selfie!

 Our friends, the Nashida's, joined us for this ski trip!  Super fun and it was a first time for James.  He did a wonderful job staying up on those skis!

 My buddies hanging with me in the lodge.

 Mommy and Hunter.

 Mommy and Lucas.

 Thank you to the sweet guys who offered to take our family picture at the top of the lift.

Sweet boys that are my heart.

Our Little Gymnast

Chloe and her Hart Gymnastic team!  She is a great gymnast and I am so proud of how she works at it!

Sweet girl in her room.

Watching and waiting to go.

Dragon Board

 We had a lot of snow this season.  I feel like we always have lots of snow!  I'm not complaining, we love playing in the snow...much better than really cold and raining.  Nonetheless, the days are cold and we need to find extra activities to do inside.  We came up with the idea to do a dragon board and have all our friends that come over contribute to it.  Some people colored dragons, some did knights and fairies.  You will have to look closely, Lucas wanted me to print him out dragons that were already 'colored in!'

It turned into this colorful board.  We had a great time making the castle and putting it all together! Thanks to all our friends who contributed as well!

Welcome to the furry family!

Welcome to our family, Kona!!  This was the first picture we had of the little guy.  My sister sent it to us from a friend of hers.  The story goes....the husband of Jenny's friend was coming home from work and saw the mother of Kona get hit by a car.  He was able to rescue the puppy.  That family tried to keep him but they had an older boxer that did not get along with the new puppy.  I haven't been able to think about another dog since Abby passed but I thought this little guy might be for us.  The story continues that he might be part Jack Russel.....as the story unfolds, he is anything but!  We met Kona at the hair salon where the rescuer's wife worked and the rest was history.  He was full of worms and a little on the scrawny side but we loved him nonetheless.  I think he must have been around 7-8 weeks old when we got him.  Poor thing was a sweetheart from the start.

It took a really long time for him to venture out into the yard.  It might have been close to two weeks and lots of treat training for him to make it down to the swing set.  He never, ever wanted to be too far away from the house.

Ibis has always been a loner and was rather indifferent to our newest addition.

Kona, on the other hand, loves Ibis and would do anything for some big dog or people attention.

 Cute little guy and at this point we still aren't sure what kind of dog he was going to turn out to be.  He was sweet, except for the puppy biting and jumping.  To this day I feel like we are still working on breaking those bad habits!

Sweet man in the snow.  He followed me wherever I went.  Still does.  He is never 6 inches from the backs of my legs.  His personality reminds me of Abby.  I still miss her....I always will.

Waiting for me after a run.  The snow was over the top of his back.  He had to work and work to hop his way through it.

We are happy to have this little man join our adventurous, fun loving family.

Seriously, how cute are puppies?  We were suckered from pic number one.

Until next year....Time to go home

This trip was so successful, from the first day until the long travel day home.  Kids were great, grown ups had a blast and we were all safe and happy.

Enjoying a last meal at Buffalo Wild Wings in the Atlanta airport.

And home.....back to life and loads and loads and loads and loads of laundry!

Randoms

Funny helmet covers.

Come on Blaine!  You can do it!

Fun kids!

Hot tubbing it for the evening

View from the pool!

Random picture of Hunter and Evan.  It was not the best picture but I don't have that many pictures of Hunter as compared to the other boys.  One reason was that he kept skiing off and leaving the picture taking scene.  He also wanted to be first and the fastest.  So Hunter, if you look back at this blog and wonder where your pictures are, you should stick around for a few and let the rest of us catch up!  I will try harder next year to get more of him!

To the pool!  The pools are heated, the hot tub is super heated.  I loved this.  The water felt so good on your muscles after days of skiing.  We should have come here more often but the days and evenings were so busy.  It was awesome to swim in 28 degree weather.

It's funny to see everyone sitting on the side and David had to get out for a minute.  It was amazing how warm you got in the water.

An evening out

I may change his name from Big Daddy to Selfie King!  David and I need to learn from him and take more pictures of ourselves so our boys can look back and see that we were with them for all of these crazy fun adventures.

Beer with a view?

We went out two nights to a grown up restaurant.  The hotel offered a baby sitting service.  Most of the candidates were also some of the preschool ski instructors.  What a sweet deal for a youngish person!  Ski all day and then baby sit really tired out kids in the evenings for a killer price!  The boys loved it and it was extra sweet that they all got to stay together.

A tasty bottle of wine chosen by Brian.  Delicious.  Special.  Will be remembered for sure!  Thank you!

The family makes it to the Feel Better Lodge!

Much better.  The energy bars started to refill with root beer and french fries!

Yummy!  You notice there are no other children in this restaurant.  We noticed it as well.  We noticed there weren't many kids skiing on this side of the mountain.  Why?  Other folks must have better since than to bring two 4 year olds, a 7 and 8 year old to the top.  I think it took us close to 3 hours to get to the bottom.  At one point I thought the lifts may close before we could get back to where we needed to be.

Fun times with the heat blowers in the bathroom.

Smile!