Slumber party night

Sydney has been asking (well, begging is more of the word) for a slumber party night with Daddy. Basically this means getting rid of Zack and Mommy and spending the whole night with Daddy. Since our winter break is almost over, we decided last night would be a good night for that. So Sydney and Daddy got to camp out in front of the TV downstairs, watch a movie, eat popcorn and spend the night on the pull out bed. Also, Zack got to do the same, but spend the night in our big bed. This idea worked out quite well, except for Zack and I trying to watch "Chicken Little" which has way too much scary stuff such as aliens trying to vaporize everyone (so we didn't finish it!). Both kids loved the "one-on-one" time together and it kept them out of each other's hair for a while. They have been fighting a lot lately and it was definately time for a break!

Ski day 2

For our next day of skiing, the kids really got the hang of it and wanted to ski on their own. That was a relief as my legs were getting a bit sore from snowplowing down the hill with Zack between my legs!
We went to Boyne Mountain and spent the day on the *free* beginner area. It is a really nice area and perfect for the kids. The kids were basically only interested in "racing" us down the hill. They were pretty quick!

Sydney was a bit too competative and kept the race going until the very end of the hill, this close to the gate and line.... (yikes!)


Don't we look like we should be up in the Swiss Alps somewhere?? :)


A good time was had by all, and we skied until around 2pm and then headed back home.


Alan and mini-Alan.

A day on the slopes

wow, what a day of skiing we had. It started out pretty good - when we dropped the kids off at ski school and got to enjoy 90 minutes of skiing along I mean! haha but seriously, the kids did enjoy their ski instructions at Nubs Nob and we were told that that they did good. Sydney definately can ski better than Zack, but Zack is doing well too. Unfortunately Zack gets so angry when he is frustrated and skiing can definately be frustrating for beginners. We had a lot of fun, but a bit of tears from both kids too :(

Here is Alan getting in trouble - he had been skiing backwards and didn't know he had snow making equipment behind him. doh!!

We enjoyed our lunch of PB&J's and HoHo's and Nutty Bars after ski school and then we were ready to take the kids off the beginner hill and on the green runs. We were surprised to find out that the green runs that we thought were so simple were actually a bit too fast for the kids in places. So after a couple of hours of skiing on blue runs we ended our day with a cup of hot chocolate in the lodge.

The hot chocolate was very hot (as usual) and my eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw Zack spill a whole cup of steaming hot drink all over the front of himself! He screamed and I started trying to get his cocoa soaked clothes off of him. Thank god for layers of clothes - it only soaked through his snow pants and didn't actually touch his skin. From now on that will be known as the "hot chocolate incident" :)

For dinner we went to Papa Lou's, a rustic little bar in downtown Petosky.

They had the best pizza!

Petoskey

We headed up north this morning for our annual post-Christmas ski trip. The car ride was pretty nice - not snowing too much, and oh so quiet because we got a DVD player for the car. Money well spent for sure! When we got up to Indian River we stopped by to see our friend Gina. Then it was off to the hotel. A nice place, very close to the slopes (Comfort Inn).

We decided that it would be a good night to go tubing, so we headed over to Boyne Highlands. The tubing hill is so cool! I had forgotten how fast those tubes get flying down the hill. Zack had to ride down with us since he was under 5. He'll be so happy when he can go by himself next year... although I wonder if he'll be ready. It was a scary ride! Within an hour I was getting chilled to the bone, and we hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we left

Dinner was at LaSenorita's, right down the road from our hotel. Yummy Mexican food! And our day ended, with two exhausted kids (and 2 tired parents).