Jackson Hole

We had a memorable time skiing at Jackson Hole today! Here we are waiting for the shuttle bus after spending the day on the mountain.

Let me just say that it is A LOT of work to take our family skiing and to pack everything and the logistics and all, that part was really hard. And I also confess that I did say "This sucks..." several times today (and last night) and that I didn't want to come on this trip. I didn't want to do this because of the weather. Wait, let me go back a little further. So this was supposed to be our Anniversary trip. But with covid, we were not going to be able to use our usual wonderful babysitters (Corey's parents), and Corey didn't feel comfortable leaving the kids home alone, even though Hyrum and Abi insisted several times that they could do it and they'd be fine. But, we said no, so that meant we were going to take them with us and our anniversary trip was going to turn into a family ski trip. And I was game, but a week ago I started checking the forecast, and it looked like there was a very good chance that we'd be skiing and driving in a blizzard. There was a winter storm warning for the entire 3 days of our trip, like literally the warning was through 11 pm Saturday, which was when we would probably arriving back home. The warning was for Jackson Hole and Driggs and all the areas where we were going to be traveling to and from. Thus, I began to feel stress about driving and arriving safely. 

We were going to try and leave yesterday between noon and 3, but Corey got swamped at work and emergencies came up, and Joseph needed help with some computer programming project, and the elementary kids didn't want to miss their Valentine's day parties and yada yada, so we were not on the road until 5pm. Right after we left, I realized I left my retainer so I turned around while Corey filled the van with gas. So I'm at fault for an additional 20 minute delay, but then we left. It was a nice drive while it was daylight. Corey and I drove together in his car with Peter, who fell asleep right away, and we enjoyed the silence. Hyrum followed us with the rest of the 7 kids. When I told Hyurm we were going to have him drive the van, he was a little bugged to be stuck with the kids, and I said "Hey, you're getting off easy! You said you wanted to stay home with all of them for 3 DAYS! A 5 hour drive is easy." He replied "Well, at home I'm not stuck in the same room with them... I can leave!" What a good babysitter, haha. No, I get it. And that is why I didn't want to be in the car with all of them. So it was great that first hour and a half. Once the sun was down, it started to snow a little bit. Then a little bit more, and yikes we still have over two hours to drive! And we are driving into this weather as we headed higher into the rocky mountains, yikes! We had Wes call ahead and order dinner at the Gold Buckle Grill in Cokeville, and we picked that up and continued our drive. 2 hours 40 minutes down, over half way there we thought. At that point, Corey switched and got in the van and drove that with all the kids while I drove his nice 4 wheel drive car with Peter and Wes. Corey took the licking for me and let me drive stress free. Well, it was still a blizzard and plenty stressful, but I felt safe and mostly looked ahead at them in the van with snow whirling all around and I prayed for them to not slide and to be safe. So, thanks to the winter storm, our 5 hour drive turned into a 7 hour drive. But we arrived safely around 11 pm. Corey wasn't able to park in the garage with the cargo box on top, so I parked the van while he and Hyrum unloaded all the skis, then took off the cargo box, walked the cargo box into the garage, then walked back to his car and drove that in, put the box back on top, and loaded the skis back into the box, we threw the poles and helmets in the van. That is an example of the type of the logistics that made this trip hard. Thankfully Corey did most of that work with Hyrum and Wes, my strong boys, and I watched the little kids. So that was the drive up last night, phew!! Blizzard 1 was done.

Once Corey had finished with the cargo box and skis, he came in the room and got on his computer right away to help Joseph finish up his programming thing that was due like at midnight. They stayed up until 1 am debugging it, I fell asleep with Peter. Peter kicked us all night. At 9 am, Corey was up, told us that there was breakfast in the lobby, and that there was a shuttle that would be leaving to go to "the Village" in 45 minutes, and it was the last one, and we were scheduled to be on it. I was still in bed with Peter between my legs - one of his preferred sleeping positions. 

Then I moved him into my arms and I tried to soak up the moment of stillness and quiet before a hectic day of work.

Sigh... 45 minutes? To get everyone up, fed, dressed in snowpants and boots, and skis and poles out and ready? AND pack up and check out of the room!?! Um... I don't see that happening... Kids eating breakfast...

I do like that breakfast was already cooked and ready, hooray for Springhill Suites.

You guys done? Hurry and eat up kiddos, we gotta go!

Everyone will full plates, calmly eating... and I'm thinking we gotta kick it in gear quick or we're not going to make it...

And we almost didn't. Corey was going up and down from the garage getting the gear, I got the kids dressed in thermals, snowpants, and coats, boots were in the lobby. We thought that Corey'd stay behind with Wes and they'd finish putting stuff away in the car and then they'd take an Uber up. But it worked out cause the Marriott is awesome and let us shove everything into our bins after (that the coats and gear were in) and we were able to just put them in a luggage room there off the lobby. So we barely made it onto the bus. 

Corey called the Marriott to tell them we think we left a the baby backpack carrier thingy in the hall... "Yeah if you can just put that with all our other stuff, thanks." Looks like Peter's gotta haul his own weight today. We also discovered Daniel and Peter didn't have gloves. That was all we forgot, so that was pretty good, two pairs of gloves and the carrier. Peter probably wouldn't have liked it anyway. I'd say we still get a 95% score considering all the things we had to get and did remember. 

Yay we made it. 

Corey went in to buy Daniel some gloves - price range for kid gloves: $75-$210. Corey dug and found a small pink pair for $25, so he got those for Natalie and Natalie let Daniel use her black gloves. And Peter's sleeves were long enough that we let him go without today.

Peter is TOO cute. 

We stood and layed around while we waited for Corey to get the tickets. Little video here of our wait, and Peter doing a little dance. Corey took a lot of videos of our day. I need to get him to start to upload them to his youtube account, or I bet they will just become lost and unseen files on his computer.

We waited for like 20 minutes, then Corey found us and told us to follow him, the kids all needed their pictures taken. So we did that, signed waivers and whatever, kids were hot in the building, some took off their coats, Peter wanted a drink but didn't know how to do it from the drinking fountain, yada yada and I'm all "This sucks" and Corey said "This whole experience is to help you like Disneyland..." ha. Ok - tickets in pockets, let's go! The older kids take off with Owen. Corey was on Peter duty - I look over at him in line and I'm impressed! A toddler in skis on Corey's shoulders! He's amazing. Peter's got a donut hole in his mouth. 

I had Daniel with me and soon Natalie joined us. She's a good little skier.

I really liked how they had a map of the resort on the chair lift, that was very helpful! Daniel has his mask practically over his eyes again. 

We were on Teewinot Quad Chair lift most of the time but then I, for some reason, thought hey, Daniel can do blues - let's take the Apres Vous Quad Chair and go on that run! So Natalie and Daniel and I take a right off of Teewinot and ride that chair lift up. And Daniel was too scared. It was windy, snowy, hard to see, he and I didn't have goggles, Natalie takes off down the face and I'm yelling at her to her to slow down as I try to get Daniel to move. I finally get him going a little bit, but the powder is too deep and the hill is to steep - he can't do it. I try to have him between my legs and we're both doing pizza trying to do down but he was so heavy to hold and my legs were BURNING and it was so hard and we went a little bit, stopped to cry (him) and to catch our breath (me) and then we'd try to go a little ways again. We were coming down Moran or St. Johns, I don't know. It was hard. Natalie was very patient with us. A nice skier passerby asked us if we needed help. "Yeah, which is the easiest way down?" He pointed us in the right direction and we continued to slowly work our way down to the South Pass Traverse and then we were ok, but I was like "THIS SUCKS!" Hyrum said that several times too. We were the Laman and Lemuels again, but tried to not murmur vocally too much, we tried to keep it quiet in our minds and in our pained facial expressions, which most people couldn't see under our masks. So I learned my lesson and we did not go on any other lifts after that and we stayed on Teewinot. After that Daniel was also willing to pause for lunch, so that was good. Hyrum wanted a break so he had been watching Peter. I took Peter, he fell asleep as I held him. I passed P to Abi when Abi said she was done and ready to go home. "Well, we're not going yet, so here, take Peter..." I left and went with the girls a few times. Abi and Lily had showed me a fun path through the trees, so I was came back and begged Daniel to come and give me another chance, and he liked that.  

The girls led the way, I stayed behind Daniel to help him when he got stuck on a little hill. I even took a turn with Peter and took him through the trees. He said "Wee!" when I prompted him. "Is this fun?" "Fun." It was getting cold and snowier, most of the kids were done, so Corey said "Ok, last run!" and Daniel wanted to go, but then the snow was in his eyes and he changed his mind that he didn't want to go...

Ok! Everyone done! Let's go - Wes was a great helper.

Heading to the shuttle...

I thought Corey was counting kids, but he was counting skis. Maybe we had already counted kids, ha.

Hyrum: "I hate this so much... I hate skiing. My ankles hurt so bad! I'm so excited to go on a mission and that Dad won't be able to make me go skiing next year..."

As Hyrum was reminiscing on his bad experience, I took this photo and also added an event to my calendar for 12 Feb 2022 - to send an email to Hyrum, who will be on his mission, and to attach this photo and remind him that he's so glad he's not home and that he's happy to be on a mission!

Wes had a lot of fun. He told me that he decided to work and be helpful, and that when he wasn't working, he was going to enjoy himself. I think he got the most out of the experience. Thankfully he and Corey were able to do some of the hard runs together. 

So there is the skiing experience from mostly my point of view. And here is my photo collection for an exhibit I will title "Profiles at the Bus Stop" -

Corey, Me - 

Hyrum - 

Wesley

Abi

Lily

Sophi

Natalie

Owen

Daniel

and 💗Peter💗! He got lots of "Oh my gosh that is the cutest thing I've ever seen, how old is he!?!?" comments from fellow skiers.

The shuttle ride was not as quick as the ride up, since there was a lot of traffic. Soon we were back in the lobby of the Springhill Suites with our bins and getting everyone to undress. It's not a great system yet, it mostly looked like a mess, but with matching bins from Costco it kinda looked like we had a system. 

Corey passed out Valentine treats from his mom to the kids, and that was helpful and kept them in one spot. I'd say we did pretty darn good for this being our first real ski trip away from home. It was still snowing outside, and it was dark again, but we had to get over to Driggs Idaho, so we drove through the TETON PASS in a freaking snow storm for our Blizzard #2 drive and I'm glad we're still alive. Corey drove the van again, I drove behind him with Wes and Peter and vocally prayed the whole time for no one to slip and slide and crash. I was glad that there were more cars on the road this time than there were on our drive last night. We made it. Our heroic vehicles that got us safely over the mountains. The snow dust all over the back of the cars made them look like they had gotten a paint job

Our anniversary plans were for us to stay the night up at the Grand Targhee, and they didn't have room for more, so the kids got to stay at the Super 8 in Driggs. They got ready to go swimming! 

We had planned to arrive early last night in Jackson Hole so we could go ice skating in the city and swimming at the hotel. But we were too late and the kids were disappointed. So the kids were excited about this little swimming pool

It was a really small pool, but they loved it. Corey said "It's like they've been out of their comfort zone all day, and now they feel super safe in something so simple and familiar!" 

From what Corey saw online, he thought that this little pool was the only swimming pool they had, so it was a win since we had such low expectations. We left Hyrum and Wes in charge and we took Peter and headed up to Grand Targhee. 

They kept the van, so we just drove the 4 wheel car up the mountain, and so that was stress free and fine. Our room is pretty small and simple. The kids have the better room at the Super 8, so that is funny. We have another fun day of skiing tomorrow.