Recap of A Wonderful Weekend!

What a FABULOUS weekend!

Friday night started with house church. It was already scheduled to be game night, so when I was selected to host a house party for Arnold Sandwich Thins, I decided to incorporate it all in together.

Everyone brought some meat and cheese and some other snacks. We all made sandwiches and ate dinner. The sandwich thins were really, really good! After that the Wii was brought out and a bunch of people played that while the rest of us hung out and talked. It seemed like the night was winding down, but then Catch Phrase was brought out and we played girls against guys and had a ton of fun! We were laughing so hard we cried!

After everyone left we cleaned up the house and packed up our stuff because early the next morning John and I were headed to the slopes! The kids all spent the night with my mom so that we could leave early and not worry about getting them over there and saying “good-bye” in the morning. John and I didn’t get to bed until about 1:00 AM, and we had originally planned on leaving by 7:00. We decided that was still the best plan, and while it was hard getting up, I’m so glad we got out of there early!

We ended up leaving the house around 7:30 AM, and we had a wonderful 2 hour drive up to Akron/Cleveland. We talked the whole time and the drive went by very quickly! We went to the hotel first because they had our lift tickets. We walked into the hotel and it was old and just didn’t look very nice. Then we saw a sign on the desk that said “hot tub closed for maintenance until further notice.” We decided right then that we were cancelling our reservation and finding somewhere else! When we were cancelling it, the lady asked us why, and we told her because the hot tub was broken and we knew after a day of skiing that we would want a hot tub! Her response? “But that’s the only thing that’s broken.” What??? What else would there be? Anyway, we cancelled and moved on!

As we drove to the ski place, we drove through a little town that I had driven through millions of times when I was little. I had grown up (age 9 through age 16) in a town between Cleveland and Akron that was about 10 – 15 minutes away from the ski place, so as we drove through this area, I was bombarding John with all of my memories :) I showed him the road that my dad had me drive on when I was only 14, I showed him a restaurant that we loved to go to after gymnastics sometimes, and of course there was the library that we went to all the time to rent movies. The trip down memory lane was awesome!

We got to the ski place and went and bought our tickets and registered for ski school. This process was interesting…I’m not used to doing something when both of us have no idea what’s going on. I remember skiing when I was little, and we had my uncle and his family who skied all the time, telling us how to do things. This was the blind leading the blind! Thankfully someone lent us skis for me, so we only had to rent John’s. We figured out how to get everything on and headed out for ski school.
We were a little late, and when we got there, it was John and I, and three little kids :) But our instructor was great and we had a lot of fun! Skiing really came back to me, and John caught on really quickly! By the end of school, we only had to go down the bunny hill one more time and then we were ready to move up!

We found a hill (blue) that was a little harder and more fun! It took us a while to gain confidence, but after a few runs, we were flying down the hill! There was a little boy in our class at ski school on that hill with his dad…he was doing so well, and we would learn throughout the day that all of us would be progressing through the hills around the same time.

Around lunch time, we decided to head to the lodge and grab some food. At the top of the hill, we saw our instructor and another teacher and chatted with them for a while. They gave us some more pointers, and led us back to the lodge. At the lodge we had a great lunch and I called the kids for the first time. I talked to Josh and Ryan, and they were both having a lot of fun. Josh was following my dad on a map as he was making his way up from Athens. Kylie had gone ice skating with a friend.

After lunch we headed back to that same hill (because John was afraid he had forgotten how to do it), and after one run, we realized we were ready to move on. We headed to the complete opposite side of the mountain and found a hill that had some jumps on it! It also had a straight, flat part, so we started on that and gradually started going on the jump hills – slowly at first and gaining confidence each time, until finally, we were getting some air!

The last 4 runs or so were very frustrating for me…there were little kids (I mean little – around age 4 or 5) going down this hill, and they were not going very fast. The hill was narrow, so it was super hard to pass them, and I spent the whole time going down the hill worried about hitting them and not being able to hit the jumps because they were in the way. Their parents were right there with them and really didn’t care that they were holding people up. The last time I told John and I was done and was too frustrated to keep skiing. So we went up one last time so that we could take a different route and ski easily back to the lodge. On our way up we saw our little friend from ski school skiing down the hill with his dad. His dad was in front and about halfway down the hill, the kid fell. He was fine, but his skis came off and his dad had no idea until he was at the bottom of the hill. The kid was able to move off to the side, and John and I skied down as fast as we could to help him out. We stopped and helped him get his skis back on, and then the three of us skied down to his dad. John and I decided we were tired and ready to go home (we had skied from 10:30 – 3:30!). The kid’s dad was really thankful and it felt so good ending the day with helping him out. It’s so obvious how much John and I enjoy kids – other than being frustrated with them slowing me down on the hill, we have such patience and love for all kids!

We packed everything up and left the slopes not knowing exactly where we were going. We decided to heat back to the town I grew up in so that I could show John around and see if we could find a place to sit and look up hotel rooms online. I showed John the McDonald’s that my sisters and I used to ride our bikes to everyday in the summer to get chicken nuggets to eat while we watched Days of Our Lives. I showed John my old house, and the woods I used to play in and the lake I swam in everyday. I had so much fun remembering all of the good times I had had as a kid in that little town.

We found a Panera and got a drink and looked up hotels. My mom had reminded me about a place that was in Akron that had lots of little shops and had a hotel attached. I loved that place so I was excited to see the prices were reasonable. We headed over there and went in to check on a room. They informed us that there were no King rooms left, only double beds, and the hot tub was broken. We decided to keep looking.

We decided to stay at a hotel that my family had stayed at when they came to visit us when we were younger. We checked in and immediately went to the hot tub! We had the whole pool room to ourselves for a while, and it was so nice to relax our sore muscles! As we were getting out, a large number of kids came in to the pool area and ended up getting in the hot tub. I was glad we were leaving!

Our room was a gorgeous suite with a king size bed in its own bedroom, and a pull-out couch and desk and TV in another room. We showered and got ready for dinner, and sat and watched some TV.

We decided to go to dinner at the hotel restaurant that overlooked the river. We had a table right by the windows and the ambiance was perfect! The food was amazing…we had the best lobster bisque that we have ever had!

Then we went and crashed! The early start to the day along with the skiing had finally hit us!

I slept in until about 9:30, which of course is unheard of for me! I got up, and John and I watched some super cheesy movies on TV, and then we headed out for lunch and our trip home. I called Kylie and updated her as we passed major intersections so she could follow us home on a map (Dad’s idea of course and a really good one!). We ended up getting home around 2:30.

When we got home the kids were so happy to see us! I could tell my parents looked a little worn out (though they would never admit it), so I scooped up the kids and took them home so that my parents could rest. John took Josh and Kylie outside for a while, and Kylie rode her bike, and then they played baseball with the neighbor kids. Ryan took a nap, and then when Kylie came in, we painted our nails.

We ended the day with a dinner of turkey and stuffing and mashed potato leftovers from my mom’s dinner the night before, and then we all played Uno Attack (even Ry-Ry!) and drank milkshakes. The kids headed to bed afterwards and John and I watched a little TV before going to bed.

The weekend was one of the best in a long, long time. I can’t remember the last time that John and I went away together, alone. I’m so grateful for my parents and their generosity in watching the kids. I’m so glad that they know how important it is for John and I to get some time together. Every time I tried to thank them they kept telling me that they should be thanking me, that they love watching the kids and that we need to get away more often.

They are right…I can’t describe how much better I feel today…even though it’s Monday I feel so refreshed and so happy!