Ski Trip 2006: Keystone, Colorado

Derek, Me, and Adam waiting on the train to the airport in the early morning

Derek and Adam asleep during the sleigh ride dinner

Adam showing off his mad skills

General scenery

Taking the gondola up to the mountain top fondue restaurant

Helen and Me

We gave the boys some Lego's as a fun trip gift and Derek would not rest until he finished them

Adam being silly

Derek wears his ski school pins proudly

We got back Tuesday from our annual family ski trip. I blogged about our last couple of ski trips to Sugar Mountain, North Carolina (Google Map): 2008 Trip Report, 2007 Trip Report, but I wasn't blogging when we took the boys on their first ski trip in 2006 so I thought I would do a trip report on that trip before I do one on this year's trip.

Our first ski trip with the boys, 3 years ago, was to Keystone, Colorado (Google Map). Derek was 6 and Adam was 3. We weighed going for a cheaper trip on the east coast since it was their first ski trip and they wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the big mountains out west, but we opted for the trip out west because we wanted them to have a great first ski experience as the slopes on the east coast can be crowded and icy.

We had a very early flight out. My brother dropped us off at the train station and let us leave our car at his house. For some reason I really didn't want to check any baggage so we all wore our heavy coats and pulled our carry-ons through the airport - even little Adam. We thought we were there in plenty of time, but our gate was a long ways off and we had to hustle to make it. We were all sweating by the time we got to the gate.

It was Adam's first plane ride and Derek's second. Derek had taken a trip to Alaska with us to see my sister when he was 1. On that plane ride I was changing Derek's stinky diaper in the cramped plane bathroom when we hit some turbulence. The stewardesses seemed extra anxious for us to get out of the bathroom and back to our seats. They were knocking on the door and I kept hearing this bell ring over and over. I thought it was the fasten seatbelt bell, although it seemed more frantic. The stewardesses started knocking louder and louder. I finally realized that while I had Derek laid out changing his diaper on the toilet seat he was reaching back and pushing some sort of emergency call button, which was ringing the bell that I was hearing and getting the stewardesses all up in arms. Sorry.

I had gone on a number of pre-kid ski trips (Whistler, Park City\Deer Valley\Alta, Breckenridge\Copper Mountain, and Heavenly) and Helen had gone with me to Park City, but had a bad experience with an impatient ski instructor and was, therefore, a little apprehensive.

We put the boys in ski school. They seemed to really enjoy it and the instructors were terrific. The boys got so excited about the buttons that they were given for each level they mastered. By the end of the trip, Derek was going down some of the small slopes with us. Adam showed dogged determination going down the training slope and riding the magic carpet up over and over. The boys learned the terms "french fries" (ski's apart) to go fast and "pizza" (ski's in a wedge) to slow down. There were some nice slopes for Helen and she gained some confidence.

We also learned a valuable lesson about pre-planning evening activities on a ski trip...don't. We made pre-trip reservations for a horse drawn sleigh ride dinner and a mountain top fondue dinner. We were always beat after skiing all day and it was hard doing anything afterwards - especially with young kids. The kids enjoyed the sleigh ride out to the cabin for dinner, but quickly crashed before the main course arrived. The hosts brought out some big wool blankets and the kids slept on the floor next to our table.

The night we went to the mountain top fondue restaurant we were all beat again. Adam was potty training and Helen took him to the bathroom for an extended stay. Derek had a headache and went to sleep at the table. Then all the raw food arrived for cooking. I scrambled trying frantically to cook each course as the other courses piled up. Helen and Adam came back, but they had all lost it - and we were a long gondola ride away from our room. As soon as I got everything cooked we headed back down the mountain to our room. I felt pretty taken. You pay a bunch of money for a dinner that you basically cook yourself. The only good part was that the leftovers lasted us several meals so that we didn't have to go out again.

Overall, we all had a great time and the kids had a wonderful first ski experience.

XBMC, etc.

This weekend we finished the basketball season with all star games, parent\kid games, and the awards ceremony. Adam's team and Derek's team both won their age groups and they both had a good time this season. Adam received the "Great Scorer" (aka The Black Hole) award and Derek received the "Top Rebounder" award. I'm still playing with my new camera - the photos above are video frames that I saved as photos.

I've also been consumed with my new (old) XBox Media Center. Me and a few other guys from work bought old XBox consoles ($50 at GameStop) and modified them to run XBox Media Center. It's been a fun little project. I also bought a used modem\wireless router combo so that I could connect the XBox wirelessly, but I may end up running a direct ethernet cable because direct is about twice as fast as wireless.

I've always wanted to be able to play, on our tv/stereo in the family room, our music, tv, videos, photos, etc that are saved on our computer - now we can. There's still some kinks to be worked out, but it's nice. I'm also converting all my music that I originally ripped to Microsoft wma format (and was then converted\copied to Apple m4a for iTunes) to mp3. I originally ripped it to wma instead of mp3 because you can store the same quality recording in a smaller file and then I got an iPod and needed iTunes and now I'm tired of maintaining the duplicate proprietary formats.