Colorado Family Vacation

We just got back from a wonderful family vacation to Beaver Creek Colorado.  My brother won the trip through his work and he graciously chose to take our whole family along.  It really was a dream vacation, staying at a ski in/ski out resort where everyone treats your like royalty.  The weather was absolutely perfect...sunny days, not too cold and beautiful!  It was also Cooper's very first time on a plane.  I was a little nervous going into it because I didn't think Cooper could sit still in our laps for that long, but he did so well!  Our first flight was to Dallas and he slept the whole time.

Our 2nd flight was the longer flight and he was super fussy until we finally took off and then he fell asleep again.  Phew!  We finally made it to our resort and were able to take in the beautiful view of the mountains from our room.

That evening we went to dinner in the hotel and tried to get to bed early since we were getting up early the next morning for skiing!  My parents were so nice to watch Cooper so Justin and I could go skiing together.  We started out the first morning taking a private lesson together since it had been awhile since I've skied.  Justin definitely did not need a lesson but he was sweet to take it with me.  

The greens were a lot harder greens than what I was used to, so it took me awhile to get back into it again but it was still a lot of fun being out in the snow!

We met my brother and nephew up for lunch as they also took a lesson.  They had lots of little restaurants and shops and an ice skating rink at the bottom of the slopes where you can walk around for a break.  

Justin skiied the rest of the afternoon while the rest of us went back to the hotel.  Cooper did not sleep well the night before so he was pretty fussy and tired off and on that day.  Though he was tired that day, he sure LOVED playing with his cousin!  Cooper loves playing with other kids and he is constantly hugging Peyton.  It's so cute to see them playing together and Peyton was such a good big cousin to Cooper.

That evening we had reservations to go on a sleigh ride to the top of a mountain to eat at a nice restaurant.  It was so fun...and cold!  The ride up the mountain was beautiful looking at our resort and the city at night.

The restaurant was beautiful and the food was A-mazing!  It was a very fun experience.  After dinner we rode the sleigh back down the mountain and then sat outside by the fire roasting marshmallows.

The next day Justin and I went for day 2 of skiing by ourselves.  I knew this would by my last day skiing as I wanted to spend time with Cooper the next day and give my parents a break.  We skiied out of our hotel and skiied across to the main Beaver Creek area.  It was fun skiing together (even though I may or may not have had a small panic attack at the very end of the run where there was an extremely steep drop off..ugh, this was not a GREEN folks) (I did survive and made it down thanks to my patient hubby).  All in all, it was a fun and beautiful day of skiing!

After skiing we met the rest of my family for lunch.  These Texans may have gone a little crazy bundling up the 14 month old....this was his position in the stroller, poor baby couldn't move his arms!

 It reminded me of The Christmas Story when the mom was getting her son ready to walk to school and he couldn't move his arms.  I think it was clear to everyone around us that we are the Texans...people were even pointing and laughing at sweet Cooper all bundled up.  I'm not sure if the laughing was due to his absolute cuteness or to our absolute craziness.

The next day Justin decided to take advantage of skiing one last day and I stayed with Cooper to take him to play in the snow.  It wasn't quite what I imagined it being in my head of Cooper playing in his first snow as he really didn't want me to put him down, but hey we still got some cute pictures of him in the snow!

The weather was so great that we even got hot in all our layers.  We really didn't even need a jacket with the sun out.  On the last night, we had reservations to go to a nice dinner at the resort.  We wanted to get some good family pictures in too since the hotel was decorated so beautifully for Christmas.

We decided it would be more relaxing for everyone for my family to eat first at 6 and then Justin and I would put Cooper to bed and then we ate just the 2 of use after my family came back.  It was perfect since Cooper is pretty unpredictable at meal time and we were able to have a nice date night.  After having a nice dinner, we went outside to sit by the fire for awhile and then came in and sat in the hotel lobby.  I enjoyed a chocolate martini, which reminded me of our honeymoon when I had one almost every evening.  It was a very nice evening!

And then before we knew it, after 5 days and 4 wonderful nights, our vacation was over and we were on our way back to Houston.  It was such a fun family vacation and I am thankful for my brother who worked hard to win this trip and to take us with him!  We were very blessed :)