Pagosa Springs, Colorado: Part 1

I have been in a "snowy" mood lately. We had our first snow of this winter earlier this week, and then we had a light dusting again on Friday morning. So I thought it was about time to drag out my snowy Pagosa Springs pictures. My parents

treated us to a trip to Colorado from Christmas Day to New Years Day. Also on the trip were my sister Alicia and her son Austin, my brother Neal, sister-in-law Heather and their son Colton, and Heather's parents, Tim and Kathy. We had a big group and it was so much fun!

I have been to the mountains many times in my life, but I have never stayed in a place that had so much snow. I have been skiing two other times, but it has always been at Spring Break time and never during the coldest part of the winter. I have also never been skiing while it is snowing, so that was a fun new experience! Pagosa Springs gets some of the highest snowfall in inches of anywhere in the continental US.

The view of the sunset on the mountains during our drive up to Pagosa Springs.

Our Condo:
We didn't get a lot of shots of the inside of our condo, and this one doesn't do it justice. It was a 3 bedroom, 3 bath condo with a nice big living room and an upstairs loft. The living room had big, soft leather couches and huge picture windows with an awesome view of the mountains.

We got to the condo in the evening, so the next morning we got all bundled up and went sledding. It is hard to see, but Seth has a HUGE smile on his face in this picture!

He loved sledding...well, until the "Incident".

Here is my Dad getting ready to send my nephew Austin down the hill:

Here is my Mom sledding down with Austin:

Caleb and I before heading down the hill:

Seth and Austin playing in the snow:

The "Incident" happened at this sledding hill that was a 15 minute drive up into the mountains. The previous pictures were taken on a hill right next to our condo. This hill, however, was about 5 times as long, twice as steep, AND there were moguls. We bought some discs and also some longer sleds that could hold 2 adults comfortably.

So Seth was fearless up until this point. He had no bad experiences, so he had no reason to be scared. This hill was much faster and I was really nervous the first time he went down, but he did great and was ready to go again! After a couple turns with different people, he got on with my sister Alicia. She chose the path that was closest to the edge of the cleared runs, and there was over a foot of powder on her right. The sleds were really hard to steer, and she hit a bad bump and veered off course and into the powder. Since Seth was in front of her, he got all the powder straight in the face! He had it covering his face and going down inside his jacket. He was not a happy camper :-( So after he stopped screaming and I had gotten most of the snow off of him, he started walking to the car and said, "All done sledding."

After that, the only people he would ride with were his Aunt Heather or her Mom, who the kids call Mimi. He still looks pretty concerned in this picture, but Aunt Heather is trying her best to reassure him!

Alicia and Austin:

Seth and I taking a break from sledding:

Colton and Austin relaxing after going tubing down the hill (yes, we were the tourists buying every type of sledding device possible :-)

Our family sledding photo, minus Caleb.

Caleb didn't make it out to the big hill. He stayed at home with Nana and Papa, but a few days later, Nana and Papa came out to the big hill! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me that day, but let's just say there were some funny moments. I was pretty nervous watching my 60 year old parents fly down this hill! (Correction...my Mom was still 59 during this trip)

To be continued...