Winter Holidays...

Last year Tony bought a season pass to the Mountain but didn't make it - not even once. This year, determined not to let that happen again, we went to the mountain at the start of the July school holidays to catch a few days of fun in the snow. 

Unfortunately, the ski fields were closed on Sunday and Monday - but we did get some time in the white, wet stuff...

  The kids were totally kitted out in snow gear so it was a lot of fun for them to play on the side of the road.

On Monday, the mountain was closed again so we let the kids play outside in the hail and snow while we...

sat in the car with the heater on eating chips... Ah - kid table/adult table - it's still alive!

After some fun in the elements we moved on to our next holiday house - Uncle Bill's Cottage. Although it was far from the beaten path to the mountain - it was actually beautiful, relaxing and a real holiday! I'd go back just to try the outside bath on a not-so-freezing cold night.

Tuesday morning we finally made it to the ski fields and it was well worth the wait (well, it was almost 3 hours of waiting in the queue up the mountain to get chains, and lots of waiting on the mountain because everyone had been turned away in the previous days)...

It was PERFECT conditions for learning to ski/snowboard: sunny, good snow, no wind, lots of other newbies... PERFECT!!!

Tony was 'sowing' throughout the day to hopefully 'reap' a lifetime of family snow trips! We put Helena in a ski lesson (discovered she was a bit too young as she was more interested in making snowmen or friends. Hunter took his first snowboarding lesson and seemed to get right into it... I kept telling him it was like skateboarding - so that helped. And I took another snowboarding lesson - I did fall less than I remembered in the past and I didn't feel cold - two major plusses in the direction towards Tony's dream of a family that does snow sports together.

Even though we didn't have that much actual time on the snow - it was enough to tire three of us out and make a couple of very hungry kids!

As we prepared to leave we caught a glimpse of this amazing sunset on the mountain - the snow was all lit up in pinks and purples!!! Helena LOVED it!!! None of us loved the 3 hours it took to get down the mountain safely, but once the kid were asleep Tony and I felt like honeymooners again driving the four hours to Wellington talking about dreams, future, family, love... ahhhh, road trips!