Stolz Family Adventures: November 2010

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Thanksgiving at Keystone

What an awesome time with all of our family at Keystone for the long Thanksgiving weekend! Sara, James, and the twins went up on Tuesday afternoon, Dianna and I joined them on Wednesday night, then Bradley, Jolene, and the boys came up on Friday afternoon. In addition to getting in LOTS of skiing, swimming, hot tubbing, relaxing, and plenty of yummy turkey, we all got an abundance of family bonding! It started out a little cold on Thanksgiving morning with temps hovering in the -15 degree range, but the lack of wind, abundance of sunshine, and lack of crowds actually made it a fantastic day.

Here's a shot on Thanksgiving morning of sunrise from the gondola (looking through the snow blowing from one of the snowmaking machines)

No crowds!!!!

Dianna enjoying the spectacular scenery atop South Peak.

Still no crowds, the entire hill to ourselves.......

James skied with us while Sara stayed behind with the twins to start the turkey.

WOW, Dianna and James have an awesome view of Breckenridge from the top of South Peak.

Just another Kodak moment......

Having fun watching the snowboarders and extreme skiers jumping and doing tricks on the big snow jumps while we were riding up the chair lift. These guys are crazy!

We did manage to get a couple inches of snow on Friday morning.

Bradley giving Joseph some more ski lessons:)

Sophie all dressed up and ready to tackle the slopes.

James giving Bella some ski lessons.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Bring It On!!!!

WOO HOO!!!!!! Opening weekend at Keystone!!!!

It seemed like November 5th would never come, then the big pre-season dump happened (Keystone got 26" in 3 days) and it was on! Of course, we decided to go up and catch a few runs on opening weekend even though the crowds were pretty thick. We got our half-dozen runs in, stopped for a hot Bailey's and coffee (ok, maybe it was two), then finished off the day with a few more runs just for fun. It'll be pretty challenging until they get all of the runs open (hopefully by Turkey Day), as our goals for now are to get to the base without getting run over by boarders.

Here's the 'beach' set up atop Dercum Mountain with the phenominal views of Breckenridge in the background. It was 65 degrees on opening weekend!

North Peak (Kent's favorite) - not open yet, but looks like they are getting pretty decent snow too. They plan on having everythng open by Thanksgiving weekend.

Dianna enjoying the new deck next to the beach on top of Dercum Mountain, Breckenridge behind her.

Sara, James, Sophie, Isabella, Bradley, Jolene, Joseph, and Andrew joined us on our second weekend for skiing. Joseph did his first real run with a little help from Dianna.

It's a long ways down the big hill, Joseph taking a break.

Sophie and Isabella couldn't stand it watching their cousin Joseph skiing, so Sara broke down and got them equipment too! They'll be joining us in a week or two to learn skiing too:) Looks like all of our grandkids are doomed to be snow-bunnies too!