Where's The Hot Tub?

Where is the hot tub? That is what about five of the eight people from our recent ski trip was saying the next couple of days. In fact, my brother even sent me a couple of text messages the day after we got back saying it hurt to walk around his house! Getting old is so much fun.

So last weekend, Nellie and I went on a weekend ski trip with our close friends the Stroupes (Mike, Camie, Zach and Nick), Scottie and my brother Todd. It was a trip for all of us to just get away and have some fun, but a chance for me and Nellie to get away from Tiki Tan for a few days after all the time we've put into it. And Nellie loves to ski, so I wanted to take her to the mountains and let her ski.

So here is our trip... in pictures. There are plenty to go around. And I'll do my best in telling the story as we go along.

So we started out by meeting after the boys got off of school on Friday. it took about 2 hours to get to the house we rented. What an awesome place. And it was cheap. And only 1/2 mile to the slopes. It was a newly built house in the mountains... two floors, three bedrooms, plenty of spare room to sleep, two big family rooms... just an awesome place.

So we got to the house on Friday evening, unpacked and in about 2 minutes, the boys had the Wii unpacked and set up. So right away, we were all playing. As Camie and Jennell made some tacos, the rest of us played our hearts out. Nick and Zach played all the time, while Scottie, myself, Mike and Todd all took turns as well.

Camie and Jennell got their chance to play the Wii too. In fact, we played and raced and danced our way through the rest of the night.

After the Wii, Nick wanted to try his had at some cards. So we found some poker chips and taught Nick and Zach the game of Texas Hold Them (NOT Texas Hold 'Em). And we played cards until 2 in the morning.

The next morning, we headed out to the slopes of Ski Beech at Beech Mountain. Jennell and Scottie had their own stuff, so the rest of us had to get fitted for our equipment. Everyone decided to ski except for Todd and me, who were going to snowboard with Scottie. So once we were fitted, we headed out to the slopes.

Nick took to skiing pretty well. Zach (above)... not so much. After a lot of falling between both of them. They got to going up and down the slopes, pairing off with their mom and dad.

Mike spent a lot of time trying to teach Zach. Here, he stands waiting for Zach to get down the hill. After Zach, Jeremy, Todd and Nick... Mike probably wiped out the highest number of times during the day.

Nellie ended up having to pair up with me. So that made it not to much fun for her. She is a old pro on the skis, as you can tell by her picture. She looks totally comfortable on the skis... unlike any of the rest of us. So she only skied a little while she waited for Jeremy to get up off of his ass after falling down time after time after time on the snowboard.

Snowboarding looks so easy. But its not. Like riding a skateboard? Nope. This picture shows the way I spent most of my day... on my ass. It only took me like 45 minutes or more to get down the slope the first time. I'll actually say though, by the end of the day, I could get down the hill pretty well without falling too much.

We have no pictures of Todd or Scottie on the slopes for a couple of reasons. One reason... it was cold. Another reason, it was hard to be on the slope and take the pictures. And finally, it took Scott and Todd (Scottie was Todd's teach) nearly 2 hours to get down the slopes for the first time!!!!

So there is no camera action from the rest of the day, but there was plenty of skiing. We all skied with each other when we could until they closed the slopes for work and we headed back to the cabin for a little dinner (supper for the Southern folks). After some homemade spaghetti, six of the eight of us headed back to the slopes for some night skiing. Zach wasn't feeling well from a cold he was just getting over, and Jennell's legs were bothering her from her non-fitting custom ski boots. So they stayed back and watched the Busch race and played Wii while the rest of us took up three more hours of skiing.

Todd made it one more run down the slope, while Mike, Camie and myself made it only two more runs down before we were all too tired and sore. Nick and Scottie were ready to keep going, so as the rest of us called it a night, they continued making runs.

The next morning, we got up... without too much assistance... had some pancakes, packed up and headed out. A little problem though... it had snowed in the mountains the night before. When we woke up, we woke up to a fresh batch of snow.

So with the cars loaded up, we were ready to head out to our destination of the day... Hawksnest Mountain, where we were going to spend the day tubing before we headed back home.

We ran into one little problem though... the Stroupe's van couldn't make it up one of the snow covered hills back where our cabin was located. The Denali made it just fine with its four wheel drive, but the van... not so much. So, we had to park. A nice local sheriff came and told us that a snow truck would be through our area soon. So we parked and waited... and waited... and waited.

Nick found a way to pass some time. He got out of the van, found some pavement... and made snow angels.

Finally, the truck came. And after waiting for 45 minutes for the truck to come and drop some salt and sand, we were back on our way to the mountain and to some tubing.

We got to Hawksnest... and it was freaking COLD. At the top of the mountain, the truck said it was only 17 degrees outside. And the winds were easily blowing 30 to 40 mph. So that made tubing a TON of fun. We heard one guy say it was a wind chill of -3. Sounds like perfect tubing weather. Camie was the smart one and decided to pass on the tubing and instead stay in the lodge and stay warm!

Nick was wrapped up trying to stay warm as he waited his turn to go down the mountain.

So we spent two hours freezing our butts off... and doing some tubing in between. Todd was the fastest of us on the tubes. And you can see him holding on in the picture above.

Since we have no pictures of Scottie on the slopes, here is a picture of him having fun while tubing.

Nellie was bundled up as well trying to stay warm... and had some serious tubing skills.

Here is a big part of the group waiting in line for some tubing. Can you tell who is who? No? well, from left to right... its Zach, Mike, Scottie, Todd and Jennell.

So after the tubing, we all got back into our warm cars and headed home. It was time to come back to reality and realize that Monday, it was back to work.

While we didn't have any hot tubs, we had a lot of memories. And we've got a new yearly tradition. Thanks for the good times everyone!!!!

UPDATE

Here are a couple of fun videos from the weekend.