Winter Break

Every year, John teaches a backcountry ski and avalanche course in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho.  Three years ago, when I was on maternity leave and Cal was all of 10 weeks old, I was able to join him on the front end of his adventure.  My dear friend, Sara, lives in Hailey and was generous enough to provide us with the infrastructure we needed to be there with a baby and her parents offered us an amazing place to stay up in Sun Valley while we were there.  My parents ended up joining us for part of the adventure.  It was a great trip..... we had access to babysitters so John and I could ski together, got the insiders scoop on woods runs, did a lot of exploring around Galena Pass, and got to be in the big mountains as a family.

Having lived in the big mountains of Montana, I've missed them.  I've missed the blue sky days after light fluffy powder falls and I've missed the expanse of it all.  I have so few pangs of regret about having children.  John and I feel that the gifts they have given us far outweigh any of the aspects of life that we have missed.  That said, Vermont has had a grim winter.  It's been very grey, it's either rained or been freezing cold, and there has been the least amount of snow of any winter either of us have ever experienced up here.

As it so happens, UVM's spring break and my school's Feburary break abut each other this year-- which never seems to happen.  So, John had a "free" flight out to Idaho and since I'm turning 40 this year, we decided to indulge ourselves in another trip to the big mountains.  We debated about whether to take Cally or have her stay behind with friends/family (though we never went so far to actually ask anyone if they would be willing to take her).  The truth was, now that it costs full dollar to fly with her, we weren't sure if we could be so indulgent.

Drugging our daughter on Caillou

In the end, we decided to bring the whole family, and I'm so glad we did.  I can't even begin to describe what a wonderful trip it was.  Sara, again, set up everything, from having car seats delivered to the airport in Boise, to having books and toys, a feeding chair, and stroller ready for us in the condo, to arranging for a babysitter so John and I could ski....... it was all there.  So even after it took us 28 hours to get from Burlington to Sun Valley, arriving without any luggage was not a problem because they had everything we could ever need. 

Josephine, Cam, Anna, Hazey, and Cal

The Abbott's and the Gilman's had a ball together.  Josephine (6 years old) and Anna (4 years old) were already Cally's new favorite friends before she even met them.  And they all became fast friends.  Within two hours of arriving to their house, Cal was having a sleep over in their room and as happy as she could be to finally meet these girls whom we'd been talking so much about.  I, too, was thrilled to get to know these little ladies.  The two of them are as different as two sisters could be, but beautiful, witty, and hilarious in so many of the same ways their mom is.  They were so sweet to Cally and I loved seeing their friendship grow so quickly and honestly.

And that mom of theirs.  She does it all.  She juggles doctors appointments, school drop off, swim, ski and dance lessons, some contract work and her own physical therapy.  She does it with such grace, poise and organization.

 

And then there are the Gilman men.  Cam is nine months old and he is deliciously cute and sweet.  I can tell that he and Hazen are going to be good buddies once they can get a few words under their belts.  And Mike, he is one of those dad's you wish every kid could have.  He is hands on with all the kids, will bug out of work early to see a dance performance by his daughter, and just one of the chillest dudes you'll meet.

While we were missing the skiing of the year in Vermont (hence the delay getting out of Burlington and missing our connection in Chicago to Boise, spending the night in Chicago, getting rerouted to Phoenix, and arriving a day later than expected), we did have fantastic skiing while we were there.  We put in some family time at Dollar Mountain with Cally:

On a few of the days, John and I shared a ticket and split our time on the mountains.  But on two of the days, we actually got to do what we love to do-- ski together.

 

 And it dumped while we were there-- two inches an hour, so the skiing on the last two days was fantastic!

And when we weren't skiing, we were spending some quality time at the various pools up in the Sun Valley Resort.  The kids loved it and so did we:

 

After five full days in Sun Valley, we headed down to Boise for a night with the Webbs.  We'd already connected with Brady at the airport upon our arrival-- getting those car seats to us and entertaining us while we waited for baggage.  The Webbs recently moved to Boise from Sun Valley so that Brady could begin a new career as an elementary educator.  When I think of how crazed my first year of teaching was and think about how much that can get exaggerated when you have a two year old and four year old, like she does, it makes me dizzy.  Brady is doing a great job and I'm amazed by how she, too, is doing it all.  Mae (age 4) and Cally became fast friends, but the visit was too short.  Way too short.

And so, as all good times must come to an end, so did this vacation.  John dropped Cally, Hazen and me off at the airport on Friday morning so we could make our way back to Vermont.  I have to admit, I was dreading this part of the journey since the day I booked the tickets.  Flying home alone with a 1 and 3 year old is nothing short of insane.  When you look around the airport, most people don't do it.  You don't see many singletons with two small children.  There are usually a few parents or a grandparent or the children are older.  But here I was.  Fortunately, the kids were fantastic and there was only one delay.  Cally was easy with her chosen drug (iPad loaded with Caillou), but Hazen was a little more of an effort to entertain.  I was exhausted when we finally landed, but everything went really well.  I'm lucky, but I won't be getting on a plane by myself for some time.