Ski Trip 2013

We are settled in back home after being gone for about 5 days. I worked hard to keep myself and the girls well last week so that we could go visit my mom before we left to go to the mountains with Paul's family. I was so worried that someone would end up sick but vitamins and lots of water kept everyone healthy...yay! I know that when my mom has her transplant there will be an extended amount of time when we can't go visit my parents so I'm trying to fit in extra time now!
The girls and Franklin had fun with Gran and Grandaddy (or Boo Daddy as Ellie kept calling him on the way to Greenville...lol!).
Friday afternoon we headed up to Maggie Valley for a mountain weekend with the Edwards family. It snowed up there Thursday night so I was so excited to get up there and let Emmie see some snow! (Remember all she wanted from Santa was an Ariel doll and snow!) We had told Emmie that we were going to see snow so when we got in the car and I told her to take a nap she said she didn't want to go to sleep because she didn't want to miss the snow. I had to promise to wake her up when we got to the snow to get her to take a nap. Emmie was soooo cute when we woke her up to see the snow. She clasped her hands together and just smiled out the window. When we got to the cabin and she got to touch the snow she was even more excited and thne GG came out and helped her build a very, very tiny snowman. We also showed Emmie how to throw a snowball which was entertaining. Ellie was mostly oblivious to the excitement of snow. I think one of the great things about having kids is getting to experience the world through a child's eye and getting to see the pure joy a child finds in the simple things in life.

So happy!

Checking out the remnants of a snowball.

Throwing a snowball with Daddy.

Emmie with her minature snowman.

Our excitement on Friday was Blake getting his truck stuck in a ditch just down the hill from the house. He was doing a 3pt turn and went into a ditch (it was a narrow dirt road in the dark in his defense). The men went and did their manly pull the car out of the ditch with their bare hands thing and Emily came on up to the house (after a bit of waiting around).
Saturday we celebrated Gin-g's birthday at lunch with a yummy Publix cake and then the Emily, Emmie, and I took her to get a pedicure. This was Emmie's first mani/pedi and she had so much fun! I think she was really overwhelmed at first but you could tell she loved being one of the big girls and the girl who did Emmie's nails was FABULOUS and made Emmie feel so special! After pedicures we went to Belk (to look at shoes of course!) and at this point Emmie melted down...little girl needed a nap! All in all it was delightful Girl's Afternoon Out!

GG decided that she would stick her finger in the icing and lick it off so she let the girls do it too. Once Emmie got over the fact that she was really allowed to do that she enjoyed it!

Helping Ellie get some icing.

Then GG decided to put icing on everyone's noses! Emmie really wasn't sure about that!

We let Emily and Blake practice their cake cutting.

Waiting for pedicures.

She was fascinated by the bubbles. The people at the place were so sweet and got some pillows to put behind her so she could lean back.

The princess!

She thought it was so funny when they scrubbed her feet!

All the ladies getting getting pampered!

Saturday evening we did my favorite thing...skiing!! We did night skiing which is nice because it's not super crowded and people clear out by about 830 or 9 and the lines move really fast. The skiiers this year were Paul, Blake, and me. We went down the beginner slope a few times and then I headed over to the intermediate. After a few runs I talked Blake into going with me and experienced the funniest moment of the weekend. Blake had fallen and in the process of trying to get him back up our skiies got tangled and everytime I moved my ski to try to get us untangled it pushed Blake further into a split...I thought I was going to pee in my pants I was laughing so hard. Blake didn't nearly find it as funny as I did for some reason. ;)
Anyway, after that I couldn't talk Blake into going back up on the intermediate again so I skiied solo the rest of the time and Paul and Blake stayed on the lower slope. I actually worked up the courage to go on one of the higher intermediate slopes and I had a BLAST! I went down that slope a number of times and there were a number of icy patches that made it quite interesting but lots of fun and I was pretty proud of not falling.  When I was first going up to the slope there was this little kid zipping down the trail I was going to go down and I was determined the little 7 year old was not going to show me up!
This was how I felt on the slopes!

Saturday when we were going to get our nails done we some some people sledding down a hill on the side of the road so Sunday we took our sleds and all headed out to the hill. It was sooo much fun. Once I talked Ellie into going down in the sled she had a blast and she would say "wheeeeeeee" the whole way down and of course the faster the better for my wild child! Emmie went down once and fell off the sled at the end and then wouldn't sled again until I finally just pulled her onto my sled and went down the hill. After that she LOVED the sledding. The adults in the crowd figured out how to go down 4 together on the saucers on an icy patch. It was quite fun.

Emily and Emmie

Paul and Ellie.

Mommy and Ellie.

Emmie had a great time eating the snow.

Funny story: Ellie was so bundled up that she couldn't really stand up on her own. Once she stood up and then just tipped straight over on her face. Emily said when she picked her up Ellie didn't cry...just brushed the snow and dirt off her face and kept saying "yuck". After Ellie went down the hill with Emily one time she stood up and fell straight back...it was HILARIOUS! She was totally the kid from A Christmas Story.

Sunday afternoon Emily, Blake, Paul, and I went tubing. The tubing area was pretty much all slush thanks to 50 degree weather. However, because the track was a lot slower than usual they let us tie our tubes together and go down 4 at a time which was LOTS of fun. Emily about went over the divider wall one time and Blake about flipped out of his tube on our last run. We definitely had a lot of laughs!
After we got back to the house on Sunday we went to the Mast General Store. I found some Columbia jackets for Emmie for next winter on a great sale which made me quite excited...I love a good sale! We let the girls pick out some candy and they were so funny and so different in their selections. Ellie wanted it ALL. She pointed to everything and said "mine". I told Emmie she could pick out a few things and she got her big shopping basket and picked one sucker. Then she picked up a different sucker and put back the first one. I told her she could get both but she didn't want to. She ended up getting one sucker and then I picked out a few other things for her. It was super cute.

Random picture: My little ham! (She was saying "cheese")

Monday morning we headed out bright and early to go pick Franklin up in Greenville where he had been staying with Gran and Grandaddy. Franklin had a great time getting some good walks with Gran and some good naps and then getting to play chase with Grandaddy. My mom said Franklin slept next to her every night curled up into a little ball...he's such a snuggle bug! We made it back to Columbia around 1230 and I had managed to keep everyone awake on the way from Greenville to Columbia so they were all willing to take naps which meant Mama got a nice nap as well...yay!
So the big test during the trip was putting the girls in a room together. We tried it last year and ended up putting them in seperate rooms after about 2 hrs. but this year they did GREAT. Ellie had some trouble going to sleep but she usually does when she's away from home and Emmie slept fine through Ellie's fussiness. I was sooo glad they did well together (it meant Paul and I didn't have one of our noisy sleepers in our room!) and I think they enjoyed being together.

This is what happens when Daddy makes the beds...too cute!