March 20-25, 2014
Off we go on a little family ski trip. Life's been so crazy busy around here with building the shop and moving the company. We've hardly seen Dave and are looking forward to having him all to ourselves for 5 whole days! No busy work days, no quickly eaten dinners and get this....a husband and a dad in the evening yet too! We booked a place in Big White that's supposed to be ski in-ski out and are very excited to spend a few days skiing!
The roads were pretty clear for most of the way. At the high part of the Coquihalla Highway there was a bit of snow but nothing too crazy to drive in.
We stopped at the washroom along the highway at the top of the Coq. It's a perfect spot for a stop, I always need to go to the washroom by then and it's a good place for a stretch...
After we passed Merrit the weather turned a bit ugly. It really started to snow which stuck to the windows and made it difficult to see where we were going. It was a bit tense but nothing too serious....compared to what we heard friends encountered just a few hours later on the same roads. Hour long delays! We made it through just on time I guess.
We made it to our place in decent time after stopping for dinner and a car wash because that bad weather made the truck so very muddy!
We were very happy with our place. It is plenty big for us and looks brand new!
This was the view from the hot tub. Our place was right along Serwas Run! People skied right along that ridge outside our hot tub!
View of Jake's butt.... no actually the dining and living room view from the kitchen.
Especially with these people in it!
Jake found a mustache!
The view from the master bedroom. Our place was three stories high. You entered from the front on ground level where there was a bathroom, access to the garage and a bed room with bunks for 5! Upstairs was the living area and access to the back 'yard' and hot tub. The last set of stair led to the master bed room suite, main bathroom and another bedroom. Too much room for us but we didn't have much choice since we booked the week before!
I had a few of these delicious caramel macchiato baileys/sambucca drinks over the days. It was a perfect drink after a long day of skiing while sitting in the hot tub! Ahhhh......I would like to go back now!
Big White is a huge mountain resort. There are so many runs and lifts. The last time we were here the kids wanted to get all the way to the Gem Lake Express. It's a lift that is far away from the village! We finally made it there after 2 days of trying to find the best way there. It was stinkin' cold and windy there so by the time we got there we couldn't convince the kids to stay for a few runs and headed back to the warmer places. But, we can say we made it all the way over there and have a picture to prove it! On the map below you can see the Gem Lake to the far left. Our favourite area to ski was the Black Forest Chair. So, the day we made it to the Gem Lake in the morning we spent the afternoon on the Black Forest. Nothing like skiing all over the whole mountain. The black circle marks the building we stayed in...right along Serwas Run.
This is our building. We were the second unit in and walked up the steep embankment onto Serwas Run and off we would go to the lift.
We were supposed to go home on Monday but stayed an extra day. Karen and Paul came up on Sunday night, visited with us for the evening and we thought it would be super fun to ski with them for the day on Monday so we did. It depended on the weather though. If we woke to full on snow, like Saturday was, we would not ski for the day but if it was nice weather we would stay, ski for the day and then stay the night in Kelowna. It was nice when we woke up so ski we did and it was a blast. So fun to ski with them. Their kids rock, stayed with us the whole day. Matthew was super excited to whip, and I mean whip, down the mountain after Josh - who's in Grade 12 and at least twice as tall as Matthew - and do lots of black runs! Nicole was happy to ski with Kiera all day too! Jake had lots of fun with Shaina, Megan and Savannah too. We are really glad we took the extra time to have this experience.
After skiing for the day, having lunch at Karen and Paul's place and a drink after the long day of skiing, we booked a place in Kelowna and headed there for the night. This place had a pool area and hot tub which we were swimming in at about 9:30 PM! We had a fun, chatty dinner before getting to the hotel and then swam for at least an hour before hitting the pillow and going to sleep.
We had the pool to ourselves.....so our kids went nuts!
Oh, yeah, I met a tree branch while skiing. It was swollen and I had a black eye for the week! Oops. Maybe going down crazy mogul runs is not the thing for me. I felt like I was mostly in control and went to brace myself against a tree at the bottom of the giant mogul hill and didn't realize there was a branch at eye level....
It hurt but I am just happy I still have 2 eyes. I had visions of my eyeball hanging on that branch.....
After swimming we discovered in another room ping pong, Foosball and air hockey tables. We spent some more time hanging around there!
What a fun trip we had. I feel totally spoiled rotten to have gone skiing again. It was a relaxing time that we could reconnect as a family again.
Something we really, really needed!
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