February X-Country Ski Weekend

Oh man, I have been such a bad blogger. I just went back to get the pictures from last years trip and it's not there! Ack. I use this blog as a journal and to keep track of all that we do, especially since I don't do picture albums any more. No good...but here we are 2 years ago, CRAZY how much the kids have grown!

 This last week has been crazy stressful, epic, sad, maddening, and then it's normal fun, chaotic, great, and tiring all at the same time. Long story short--- a week ago I emailed our vacation rental and was told that the guy had "totally screwed up and double booked you." And that he was not going to honor our contract even though we were first. But we could have next weekend if we wanted. SERIOUSLY! He somehow canceled our reservation, even though we reserved in October and had a confirmation and deposit in. This is a vacation rental for 7 families just finding out 4 days before we were supposed to leave. He said, "I hope you can find somewhere else to stay. Sorry". Again, SERIOUSlY. Those were the soft words said... Anyway, he was a total ass, would not answer our phone calls and took more than 24 hours to get back to us. So we had to scramble to find a place for 7 families 3 days before on a long weekend, near snow! Ugh! We are trying to figure out what kind of non legal action we can take against this guy. No compensation, no trying to help figure out how to help us. Just a total jerk!

We finally found a new house near Chelan, WA.  We found there is a small gem of a nordic ski area just outside of Lake Chelan that turned out to be AWESOME! Then, to add to all the epic parts of the last few days, one family that was supposed to go with us came down with fevers and vomiting. NO! They were super bummed as were the rest of us. You were missed; Jen, Toby, Quin, and Silas!! And our friend Julie decided to back out of the chaos too..we missed you too!

Our new house was a HUGE vacation rental right on the Columbia river outside of Chelan. It was the nicest house by far we have ever stayed in, and it was HUGE! We were now down to 6 families. The biggest bummer of it when we arrived is that there was no snow at the house. But on Saturday we ventured out to the Echo Valley Nordic Area and checked out the trails. They were great! There was a small loop that was perfect for our kids. The snow was blowing and it was cold and windy but they all did great! The group of 5 year old boys were doing awesome! Eliza, Uma, and Miles rocked it too. It was the farthest Eliza has ever skied.  Then they had fun playing in the snow while the adults took some faster loops to warm up!

The boys with Becky & Margo. 

Do you see some girls in pink anywhere?

Corbin the snow man!

The snow came down at the house in the afternoon. The kids took advantage and built a huge snowman and had lots of snow wresting contests. 

The Columbia rivers snow man. 

A huge table for all 10 kids to fit around!

Did I mention that we had two girls who like pink with us?

The snow stopped and the sun came out for Sunday. We decided to split up and let the big boys ski without kids and then switch and let the big girls go. The kids meanwhile (and the adults) spent the whole day tubing at the Echo Valley "Ski Area".  They loved it! Eliza, Uma, Corbin and Eliza probably tubed on and off from 10:30 till almost 4! They were SO tired! 

Lunch in the snow. 

It was so warm and nice in the sun!

They have a love/hate relationship! 

The trails here were so great. Groomed well, although soft that day because of the new snow. But so fun! And beautiful. I think we found a new gem! So much terrain and for very little amount of money. 

Adam on his boys ski. 

Selfie with the girls; me, Jill, & Becky. 

Another selfie; Aimee, Me, Jill, Becky, & Lynette. I wish you could have seen the view behind us!

The view!

Lake Chelan in the distance. It was SO windy up there but so gorgeous!

A few movies were watched to try to keep the volume down. 

All 12 of us for dinner around the HUGE table. 

Miles, Uma, Eliza, Margo, Alden, Baynes, Terra, Corbin, Brody, Luca! 

2014 Family Ski Trip! Thanks everyone!

And then there was the epic drive home. The pass was very SLOW going and closed over night.  It took us an hour more to get over it.  We only saw one near accident as a mac truck tried to pull off to put their chains on and was going too fast. It started sliding and almost hit the car in front of us and then our friends Jill & Paul had just gotten their chains on and it came very close to hitting them! Crazy! 

                                      

Now we are home safe and sound. Tired. But good. We missed our friends who were not there. But we had fun in Chelan. Now do we make the extra hour trip next year and do Chelan again? No more Leavenworth?