The easy but sad part of all of it was that my little Espen didn't come along and stayed with grandma Becky, such that Josh and I could enjoy skiing with eachother, and the three other little ones, without having to take turns sitting up in the cafe with Espen, as Arapahoe basin does not have baby sitting available.
Espen had such a wonderful time with oma, and was even able to visit his 4 cousins in Dallas, texas! Oma sent us some pictures of his happy face, which was a very welcome surprise every time we did receive one. We also had various videos and pictures of mini-boefje which we watched several times every night together
How fun for a Dutch girl to be right next to some skating. We sure took advantage of that, rented some skates and went around with our three children. Yes, Boefje (Jasper) too! He used a little chair for balance, and had a blast, that little boy loves everything, it is imporssible to make him unsmile, and it is impossible to be around him and not smile yourself.
The girls did fabulous, especially considering that they get to skate only once/year for 1 hr on a very bad quality rink (zamboni had been once the year before, with 500 people 'skating' on a 200 meter rink). They skated a lot, and were introduced to ice hockey too. Several people were very nice to share their hockey sticks and pucks, such that Sofia and Lilian played it for hours, hitting back and forth, they had such a good time!
The first four days of the week, the girls had full days of ski school, including lunch. As A-basin is quite small, we were happy to be able to ski with and watch the girls skiing. They were doing so well, going down many mogulls and other black diamonds, not scared one bit. They worked hard on paralel turns, more moguls and large and small turns, getting better and better every day, adn apparently enjoying it more and more each day too. Their favorite parts were going through the trees and down the jumps! It was fun to spend the end of the day with them and have Jasper between our legs and have them lead the way.
In the evenings we sure loved the pool, including the inside, outdoor pool and hot-tub, as well as the sauna and turkish steam bath. Yes, we were SPOILED! The girls were good reading up a storm thatw eek, including 'Harry Potter, the Sorcerer's Stone', 'Oliver Twist', 'White Fang', and other classics. They were helpful with cooking, the dishes, and were just girls to be happy and proud to be the parents of.
Jasper had a few 1/2 day lessons and one full day lesson as he loved it so much. The weather was very very cold and windy such that the perceptive temperature was sometimes -20 F! His cheels were bright redand he must have been freezing, but he sure didn't mind at all! Although he did start learning the snowplow, he was actually not interested in learning that at all. He just wanted to go down as fast as he could. He would just look at his teacher and pass her, ski straight down, thendo a parallel brake of 90 degrees toward the lift at the very bottom. One time, he actually went down the hill on the other side of the lift than the coach, went straight down, didn't brake at all, skied straight into the net, fell over with his skis criss-cross, then rolled down the snowpile on the other side of the net. I could see he didn't get hurt, so I just had to laugh so hard and really wished I could have filmed that. I did ski to him as fast as I could and he was just laughing his head off. My funny boy. During the rest of the lessons, he would just zig zag like a pro, with parallel skiing, simply shifting his weight. He is going to be my (very little) ski-bum! The teachers were hooked to him too, as he has such a silly type of humor. E.g he would pull up one side of his ski goggles, and say 'I am a pirate!". Jasper was hooked on the tree route soon too, but his favorite was definitely the ski jump park. I tried to hold him up high in the air while we jumped together, it was so fun to see him feel the thrill.
After a week of great fun, we were able to stop and stay for a night with the Murreys, where Sofia and Lilian became instant friends with Brittain and Brooklyn, while Jasper's new best frined was Austin. I am so proud of my kids for being able to instantly love new friends.
Finally, after a week of great fun, but also a week without my sweet sweet sweet mini boefje. We all could hardly wait to jump off the airplane and just cuddle him to pieces. He was soooooooo excited to see all of us, soooo fun, so sweet, so special. In truth, after a fantastic week, that was definitely the best ending of our vacation. Thank you a million times a million Oma Becky, for taking such good care of my very special boy!
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