Up we went the first weekend of March, planning on staying at the Simonds' lodge for two nights and two days of skiing at Copper Mountain.
Our first ski day as a family (plus Micah, who is basically ours) was wonderful! Tommy took to skiing really quickly, and was soon zipping down the slopes faster than his more cautious brother, Luke. Adam and I stuck with the little boys for the morning on the easy runs while the older boys did their thing, and then we all met up for lunch and took a run together. I had asked the older boys for just one family run, but when we were down, they all said, "Which should we do next?" It made me so glad that they were happy to stick together! It was so fantastic. Skiing with my whole family: a little dream come true!
And then it wasn't. We were taking one of our last runs of the day around 3:30pm (the lifts close at 4) off the lift that takes you to the top of a terrain park. Luke, Tommy and I had gone down the 13' pipe and were waiting for the brothers, who were on one of the chairs behind us, to come down, but they weren't coming. We waited and waited.... Then we saw a telltale orange helmet on someone high above us, riding the lift back down: Josh. Not a good sign! Zac, Ben and Micah came down to us and told us that Josh had taken a funky fall just after he got off the lift, had caught himself awkwardly, and hurt his wrist. Adam speed-skied to the bottom to meet Josh and take him to Ski Patrol, while the rest of us finished off the last run of the day and went to get our things. Valerie drove up from the lodge to pick up the other boys, while I went to the clinic where they had taken Josh.
After a long wait at the clinic, we had results. Josh's wrist was broken, a nice clean "slip" break through his radius on his right arm. The clinic at Copper was a really great, and we appreciated the good care they took of us, even though the wait was long. The staff was pleasant, positive and chill, just like you'd expect from a crew of docs, nurses and aides at a ski resort, and, thanks to adrenaline, Josh was in good spirits. They said that day had to be a clinic record for broken wrists. There was a Big Air competition on the mountain that day, so.... We had x-rays and instructions to get the wrist casted after the swelling went down back in The Springs. Poor Josh!! Needless to say, we didn't take our second planned day of skiing, but headed home instead. We still had to use up our passes, so we made plans to go up the following weekend. Josh would be able to stay with the Simonds back at home. Luckily, it's only the second time one of our boys has had a broken bone, the first being Tommy's broken collar bone when he was 14 months.
Ski day two was also wonderful, although we missed Josh a bunch. There had been a couple of inches of fresh snow overnight, and it snowed off and on throughout the day, which makes for great skiing. Both little boys had their one "I can't do this anymore" run early on, but then turned it around to make for a nice day of skiing. In the afternoon, Tommy insisted on trying his first black diamond, Rattler, which he sideways-slid-traverse-skied down in the most inglorious way possible, tangling with me so badly at one point that I was pretty sure we were just going to have to set up camp and live there, halfway down Rattler, forever. I was grateful for Zac and Ben that helped me help him slowly make his way down. The older boys had great suggestions for new green and easy blue runs to try, and the younger two enjoyed trying out new areas of the mountain, having stuck to just a couple of lifts the weekend before. This time, the only injury was when Adam pulled a stomach muscle going off a jump--but a little ibuprofen helped him finish off the day.
I love these special adventures with my family and cannot wait until next year!
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