Ski time

3 weeks.

That is the amount of time my kids had off for Christmas break.

3 weeks. 

That is a long time for me and 3 little boys to find things to do in the dead of winter

3 weeks.

Is just long enough for me to know my limits and officially throw in the towel

and look for reinforcements.

My reinforcements came in the form of friends

{as they most often do}

So I started looking into a plan. 

Some families from our ward knew of a great place

in Austria--that they have been to going to for years--for good 

family fun skiing. I being the not so shy or sly type for that matter

started asking questions and finagled an invitation to join them. 

I am kind of kind of lame sneaky that way. 

They on the other hand are gracious and kind and didn't make 

us feel like intruders or an after thought at all.

With days to spare I found what I hoped would be a great little lodge to stay in

which proved to be outstanding. 

The owner of the house was an amazing cook and our meals each night came

with great anticipation and ZERO complaining from my mini men. 

That is huge people!

I am embarrassed to say after years of living in snow climates 

we have never taken our kids skiing. 

Cam and I grew up skiing and even did

it quite a bit while dating, but as the story goes once you get married

and priorities change it was something we decided we didn't need 

to do anymore. What were we thinking?!

So we enrolled the kids in ski school and hoped for the best. 

I thought I would be lucky if I skied two days,

thinking for sure I have would have at least 1 child 

who wasn't digging the whole experience.

I never imagined that after 4 days we would have 

all of them begging for more. 

It was one of our best vacations yet! 

First day!
 Not sure what to expect but he is READY!

In case the skiing didn't work out, Callan was sure he could ninja chop the snow into submission.

This is what happens when your camera is cold and then suddenly warm--you get a nice dream like haze on your photos.
These are the adults of our 22 person group.

Ready for action!

I spent a lot of time just staring at the beauty around me.

Day 3 ready for some bigger hills

Cam and I didn't waste any time enjoying our kid free opportunity!

That pesky rope tow was such a challenge at times for the little folk

Sacia and I enjoyed a morning of girl ski time

Day 2 Mack graduated to the bigger class on the hill he couldn't have been more happy

At the top of the run where we were naive and thinking this was going to be awesome.
There was a toboggan hill AKA death hill that Cam and I thought we would try out.
I am pretty sure the bob sled or the luge are 10 X's safer then this run.

Things we learned from this terrifying experience;
1. Do not wear ski boots doing this you end up just carving snow and ice right into your face
2. If you sort of have bad knees, rest assured they will be destroyed by the end of it
3. Austrians take their sledding seriously. They were cruising down these hills and making turns going what seemed like 30mph while holding infants or small children on their laps.
This run took them 10 or so minutes to get down.
It took Cam and I almost 40!

lucky for me I was the one with the camera so I could document all of Cam's wipe outs.

at the end of the week they held races for all the age groups and although our kids couldn't even come close
to their Austrian and German classmates (who come out of the womb with a pair of skis)
they did pretty darn awesome and had us impressed.

The last day we busted Mack out of the school for the afternoon to come hang with us.
He did great and we all had a wonderful time.

And after Creeds race we grabbed him for a run and took him up on the mighty chair lift to see how well he was doing.
My boys had no fear with this activity and did fantastic.
Much to my dismay.

The award ceremony after the races.

the miracle workers or as most people refer to them  the ski school instructors!