Snowbunnies in Steamboat

Next stop after Arkansas was meeting Jake's extended family in Steamboat Springs for a week of snow and skiing.  Due to how the weekends fell, we flew from Arkansas to Colorado on Christmas Day.  Maybe not the best way to spend Christmas Day but it was fun to see the Arkansas McKuin family in the morning and the Puryear family in the evening.  But it also meant that Christmas lunch was BBQ at the Little Rock airport.

High winds in Colorado delayed our flight out of Little Rock.  The United employees weren't too worried about us missing our tight connection because they said there was usually a domino effect on airport delays.   As we were about to attempt what they said would be a very "bumpy" approach at the Denver airport, we ended up with an aborted landing attempt and had to circle around Denver again.  Due to that lost 20 minutes, we had Jake run off the plane first to try to get to our 2nd plane and hold it.  The girls and I were close after and we were elated to see our plane still at the gate.  Unfortunately, we saw it back away as we were left forlornly at the gate...

So we join a rather sizable group of people at the Customer Service desk and told they could get us to the Vail airport by 8 p.m. the following day (!).  That didn't feel like a good option so we started calling rental car places instead to make the 4 hour drive as we didn't love the idea of waiting until the next night for a flight to the wrong airport.  Just as we were walking to pick up a rental car, I hear a page on the speakers asking for the family traveling to Hayden who was just at the Customer Service desk to please return.  No one else heard it, so I was beginning to think I was hearing things.  But we did we rush back and the agent excitedly told us that our plane was returning and to run back to the gate.  So we dash through the airport chanting, "It's a Christmas miracle!"  We get to our old gate and no one (and no plane) is there.  Again, we are paged and told to rapidly make our way to *another* gate which we do (we're hot and tired by then).  The agent at the new gate has no idea why were are there but he is on it and quickly mobilizes to help us, but sadly the plane arrived and departed already (likely to fix a lose panel or something).  And there was no time to let us get on...  The Christmas miracle was no more.

So I head to the coffee shop for caffeine for the long, dark drive.  Jake heads to a shop to load up on fruit, nuts and snacks for Christmas "dinner" and off we go.  The drive was very pleasant except for a few miles of thick snow and very snow covered roads.  Thank goodness Avis had a four wheel drive as they definitely had a snow tire/ chains/ four wheel drive requirement for parts of the drive.  But we made it - yay!  Yes, that means two of our three Christmas meals came from an airport.  Thank goodness for pancakes by Tim for breakfast!

The rest of the week was great - lots of snow, skiing, snow tubing and good times with family and friends.  This was our first year to do no ski school.  We kind of thought we would at some point but were just having too much fun exploring the mountain - the big kids could just take off on their own and we would set a time to meet.  The downside was that it was a super busy week so lines were a bit long and it was really a struggle to get lunch.  But the snow and weather was great - one day of snow but sun on the other days.

We all took one day off from skiing.  The rest of the gang went snow mobiling and we hit the snow tube slope.   They had a little tow rope that got you to you the top and three runs down (Larry, Curly and Moe).  Anna tried out Moe with me and the other girls tried the others.  I also checked out Curly which was also a lot of fun - it goes a lot faster than you think it will!

Another fun part of the week was that we were able to catch up with Abu Dhabi friends.   A friend of Regan's moved to Steamboat over the summer and we went to their house for dinner one night.

Overall a fantastic week in a great city.

First stop on Christmas Day after a fabulous morning with family at Tim & Vanessa's?
Whole Hog BBQ at the Little Rock airport, of course!

This picture doesn't do it justice but going over one of the passes towards Steamboat was a bit of a hairy experience.  We are super happy that Avis had a big four-wheel drive vehicle available.  Visibility was so low at one point, we just pulled over and waited some of it out.

Our family on the slopes together.  So much fun to ski together

Anna, Jane, Meredith, Regan, Alex and Zach

Hot tub on our deck.  We had a nice view of the slopes (and of night skiing)

Christmas time!

Dinner out - a very nice gift from Uncle John!

Snow tubing!  Super fast and super fun.  We even got Anna, Grandpa Carl and Gaga to give it a try - although the most adventurous ones were the other three

Regan, Meredith and Jane

With their tubes

One of Regan's friends from Abu Dhabi moved to Steamboat last summer and the girls were able to spend the night together one night and ski together the next day.  So, so fun to reconnect with Abu Dhabi friends as they had us over for dinner this night.

Clara and me - so fun to see old friends!

Getting to ski together one day

We were greeted each morning by a hot air balloon