Snow fun at Steamboat + Winter Park

Happy 2013!  Somehow that happened...

Our holidays were jam packed with family gatherings, and, for the first time in years, with some skiing.  We left the kids with Mima and Boppie for a couple of days at Winter Park with my sister, brother and his wife.  We were dumped on the first day, and we had a fantastic time.  Even though we got ourselves stranded on some highly craptastic catwalks, we all left excited to explore it further.  It looks like we will be having much fun on that mountain this year!

After that, we retrieved the girlies and headed up with another family (who we owe big time - thanks Gomezes!) to Steamboat.  And WOW!  What a mountain that is.  We had a fantastic time, and never even made it into town. 

We put the Bug in full day lessons - her third and fourth for the year.  By day two, she and her buddy were skiing blues!  This from a virtual standing start this year.  Also notable - she LOVES it.  Seriously.  On the second morning, she leaped out of bed and put on her thermals, practically in one continuous move.  No joke, she'll be better on skis than me by March.

The Bunny also took lessons, but for her age Steamboat offers essentially a daycare deal with a 1.5-hour lesson in the middle.  And she also loved it, and apparently is already using her edges.  Which is a good thing, so I'm told.

And the adults got two nice, full days on the lovely Steamboat "champagne powder."  The mountain is stunning, the sun truly made the snow sparkle, they've been dumped on so we could find powder all over the place... It's a winter paradise.  And every day we returned from apres completely exhausted.  I didn't even make it to midnight on New Years.  Not by a long shot.

Our passes have another four days at Steamboat remaining this season.  I really, really hope to use them all!