Montana Ski Trip

I love finding new places to ski with my kids. You just never know what is going to become a favorite. The Driskills were planning a trip to Montana so we thought we'd go along and try out a little mountain just outside Missoula. What I thought was a little mountain was by far the biggest square mileage ski hill I'd ever been on.

But now I'm getting ahead of my story.

We geared up and got all the kids into skis and hit the bunny hill. But we were wanting to get up the hill in a hurry. So up we went. For a mile! Longest chair lift ever. Went down the back of the mountain, which was much above our ski level. Met Kayte at the bottom and she was hurting pretty badly, so we decided to take Kayte and Ben with us back to the lodge and send the others with the Driskills. We got completely lost on the hill with green circles leading to a dead end of black diamonds. And ending up at the bottom of the wrong hill. Then back up to the top to find the fastest way down. Which was a blue that sometimes looked like a black. And just miles and miles. When we finally got to the lodge, over two hours after we headed up the first chair, we were dead. But the Driskills had had the same kind of trouble and were just arriving back at the lodge as well. We were both an hour later than we had planned to be for lunch. But we did have the lodge to ourselves!

After lunch, we bundled up a little better, left some littles on the bunny hill and finally found the best trails for our skill level. The rest of the afternoon flew by. 

We went back to our very nice hotel (two bedrooms!!) and showered and ordered panda and pizza. The Doanes came!The kids played in the hot tub and we had happy hour in the dining room.

And back to the hill early!

Rentals went faster and we had a much much better day, now that we knew where we were going!

I couldn't believe how well the kids were improving, and they were so cheerful and actually having a good time!! Woot!!

Joe and I took a couple on our own!

It had snowed a ton overnight and the powder was perfect!

So beat! Sara is a bomber like me, she prefers speed. And Ben was loving the bunny hill with Henry and the Doane girls. He loves independence and helping people out :)

The views!!

 Skiing with friends is just more fun!

Kayte working on her curves. She was doing awesome!

Will was definitely getting out of his comfort zone and tried some black diamonds. So great!

Trying to fit everything back in the car for the ride home!

It rained all the way home and we were so thankful it wasn't snow, because that would've been a long long drive.

This was absolutely an unforgettable vacation. It definitely started out rough (which provides some good memories all by itself), but by the end it was just awesome. I love hanging out with these people so much!