Seven years of ski trips and this might be the best one yet! I've probably said that six times already but we did have a super trip!
Last year we drove up on Wednesday and spent the night but we have so much travel this month with soccer, we decided to go back to driving up Thursday morning. Everyone did great being ready on time. We left right at 5. Kids slept half the way there, ate pop tarts and pancake on a stick, and counted cows. We got to Appalachian 820. Checking in was quick- we printed RF cards, got bibs for K and me ($15 each), and then picked up our rental equipment. This year T joined the snowboard group. We were waiting outside with friends by 855 for gates to open. We SHOULD have taken a family pic right at beginning but didn't and kids were skiing so much that we weren't all back together again until we were exhausted and ready to go home. New RF cards are nice- it was in the 50s all day so lots took off their jackets- much easier without paper tag.
This year was our biggest group of friends yet- if I counted right, we knew 40 people there. Plus our teens ran into some CEF teens from Charlotte. KG skied with those teens a lot. We all did a run or two together on the bunny slope. V went up the lift with me once. After that I hardly saw any of our kids until they were hungry :) They split up into different groups and went all over. So fun!
I was thankful it was nice out so we could picnic outside again. We took the same thing we've taken lots of years- PB/nutella/ honey tortillas, Aldi Cheeze -its, sausage sticks, granola bars. Everyone put a water bottle in their shoes. We found another water fountain by the bathrooms. So one on each floor ;) Again we didn't tell people lunchtime or end time. Next time :)
We (well the kids) skied until 5. We turned everything in and then went to Mellow Mushroom. The hostess was very surprised when I asked for a table for 25, but they quickly put the tables together. We had a nice dinner with 4 other families. and then went to Bluedeercookies. I think we bought the rest of the cookies there and then went to a park. I thought at first the kids were too tired to play but it turned out they were just focused on dessert. After that, they had a great time!
