Our time in Utah was over a month ago, and I'm just now writing about it...
Such is life.
But my tardiness is no reflection on the trip--it was awesome!
So this first post will be a run down of the beginning of the week/all things not birthday related. That goodness is up next.
With Audrey being two on the return trip we decided to just go ahead and do the whole round trip with her as an officially ticketed passenger. And it was incredible! What a difference her own space made, for all of us. She colored, did stickers, had tea parties, read, rocked her baby, looked out the window, and entertained the other passengers like a champ. What a seasoned flyer. Not to mention she had no accidents! It's possible, though, that changing a diaper in a tiny airplane bathroom may actually be easier. Keeping her hands from touching everything, having enough room to pull her pants up and down, and working with the portable seat cover was a new kind of challenge. But she impressed us through it all. Once she told us she had to pee minutes after the decent started and the seatbelt sign went on. We told her she had to wait, and she did! For almost 20 minutes! We landed, taxied, and deplaned, then rushed her to the bathroom, and she made it! Sometimes I can hardly do that.
We crashed pretty quickly when we got to our condo that night. Then the next day Lee and Jaimie arrived after driving up with Benny, their sweet dog. Audrey had met him before, but this was the longest contact she was going to have with a dog. And in close quarters. So we were all a little curious about how it was going to go. My mom had the genius idea to get Audrey a mini golden retriever stuffed animal that became "Baby Benny", and poor Benny then became "Mama Benny." He was very patient and gentle with her all week, and suffered through the gender swap quite graciously. She really did warm up to him and even still talks about Mama Benny when she sees her Baby Benny. She often called him Woof too, and then by the end of the week she started to refer to Jaimie as Woof too since he is kind of glued to her side at all times. So Boom and Woof are Lee and Jaimie. You don't find more interesting nicknames than that.
Ree came with a goody bag of Valentine's Day treats for Audrey! A heart purse, books, a Hello Kitty headband, and cards to decorate with stickers. She made a lot of beautiful Valentines to pass out to everyone and found lots of other fun places to put heart stickers:
Then it was time to get on the mountain! My mom was happily burdened with the job of babysitting while the rest of us got to ski a few days in perfect conditions. And Marie was smart enough to snap some pretty shots:
We took a day to head up to my aunt and uncle's place called Wolf Creek which is maybe 40 minutes from where we stay. It's a beautiful location and a beautiful home. We went there last year too, but Audrey was too little to fully appreciate what a kid's playground Anita has created there, with toys galore, kid sized furniture and even secret crawl space hide-aways! I was so eager to see her explore and enjoy all of these little details, and I was right in anticipating how much she would love it! She was all smiles from the get go:
Below is Audrey's introduction to the second secret hiding place. It's dark until you walk in and the sensor turns on the light, so when Marie opened the door to the dark cave all Audrey could see was the looming figure of a big stuffed bear right next to the entrance. She looked at Marie with worried eyes and kept shaking her head until Marie stuck her head in and realized what she was seeing. Once the bear was relocated she went to town in there :)
Charlie took groups out on snow machine rides (So Alaska of me to call them that :). And a group went snow-shoeing too. Props again to Marie for the great pics.
She had a blast. "Wheeeee!!!" could be heard all the way down. And then being drug back up was pretty great too. She took a turn with Mama and Ree too, but I think Dada was her favorite driver. More in control and less shrieking in her ear.
 |
| yes, I'm rocking one of Audrey's hats :) |
Then we pretended that Audrey rode on a snow machine. She might have been a little bummed that she couldn't get it to move.
Finally, a couple highlights from later in the week.
We went to the Fireside restaurant at one of the lodges where they cook much of the all-you-can-eat food right in the three large fireplaces. The Raclette cheese course was my favorite, but the big meat skewers were also a hit. Then top it off with chocolate fondue for dessert and we all had to roll ourselves out of there.
We had another sledding afternoon at a big hill by our house. Audrey joined Dada on the bottom portion, while the rest of us tried to make it all the way down without flipping out. Easier said than done, unless you're Jaimie. She won for grace and stability. Lee won for daredevil-ness, of course.
I'll sign off with a shot of me and my little snow bunny watching all the crazy antics (and sweet wipe-outs) of the sledders.
Next up: turning two, Utah style!!
