Toward the end of March, we headed to Winter Park for a weekend with the Martin family.
This is the weekend that was originally planned to occur several weeks prior. However, Oliver wasn't feeling well and after a visit to Urgent Care that very Sunday, we discovered that he had a horrible ear infection. So... we rescheduled.
We had visions of blue sky skiing, Oliver and Owen in ski lessons and Kellan and Cole in child care. It was going to be a great day for all, surrounded by a fabulous weekend.
Then, Mother Nature kicked in. She delivered temperatures that barely made it into double digits and with wind chill that was well below 0 degrees. We can only guess how cold it was on top of the mountain, because we didn't venture up there. We decided that it was WAY to cold for Oliver and Owen to be in ski school and really, we didn't want to be out in it either. So, we exercised our flexibility and had fun with other Winter Park activities.
The first afternoon we hung out in our hotel restaurant area, which also had arcade games. This was after Oliver, Owen and Cole took full advantage of the indoor pool while Kellan napped. Oliver's big request was hot cocoa which you can see, we delivered. After this photo and as I went to put my camera down, he took a sip and it was so scolding hot that he spilled some down his shirt, which delivered a burning sensation and sent screams of pain out of his mouth. As people stood by and watched us, I stripped off his shirt and applied cold ice to his chest. (I think I remember learning that cold isn't the key, but it's got to be better than nothing. I also remember my Mom saying that my brother Jerry spilled chicken soup on himself as a young boy and the only area that scared was from where his shirt was soaked in soup. So, I removed his shirt, immediately). There was no serious burning and he was good as new in no time. His biggest concern was that he didn't have a shirt to wear, so fortunately he did have a zip up sweatshirt that worked just fine. By the time the rest of our crowd showed up, all was well. Not a single sole ever did ask us if we needed help, they just watched us from afar.
Once the crowd showed up, we couldn't keep the quarters rolling fast enough. There was golf, skee ball, pin ball and the all-time favorite, hunting.
After dinner in town, Oliver passed out cold in the car on the way home. He's not one to pass out so hard, but he did. As we prepared his sleeping space, he laid like lettuce. We couldn't quite giggling. This is not a common scene for Oliver.
The next morning, The Martin's introduced us to a bakery with AMAZING cinnamon rolls.
SO SO SO Good!
We were brave parents who threw caution to the wind and gave our boys ooey gooey sugar infused cinnamon rolls. They loved them!
Cole giving some CHEESE!
Kellan diving into his first cinnamon roll.
YUM!
CHEESE for Mommy!
Ahhhh Brothers!
Oliver and Kellan
Cole getting in on some CHEESE action.
After those ooey gooey sugar infused cinnamon rolls, we knew that we had to get the boys outside to put that sugar to good use.
We headed just North of town for our first ever, Tubing trip.
Oliver in the foreground, Keith and Kellan in the background.
Kellan loaded up and to the left.
Oliver loaded up and to the right.
It was a LONG walk to the magic carpet ride, but we realized later that it was needed because you tubed down, down, down and sometimes... you thought you would never stop.
Headed to the hill.
The view from the bottom doesn't do the hill justice.
It was steep
It was long
It was icy
What were we thinking??!!
Still walking...
Kristi and Owen to the left.
Finally, we made it to the magic carpet ride up the hill.
Once the boys cozied down into the tube, they didn't come out.
Kellan ready to ride.
He reminded me of an Ewok in his personal space ship. He was all bundled up in his winter gear, some of our ski gear and the rented helmet.
Cole and his Daddy ready to ride.
When we got to the top, the wind was howling. I asked Keith if I could take a photo and before I could get the camera turned on, he and Kellan had set sail.
Bon Voyage!
View of the valley from the top.
Having fun in the sun!
(too bad that it was SOOOO Cold)
Check out those storm clouds over head. That storm was settled over the ski resort all weekend but for some reason, the tubing hill has some high pressure keeping the skies clear. It was meant to be.
It was SO super windy.
To the left is Patrick riding up the magic carpet.
To the right is an employee snow blowing a drift. Look how the slow is going directly backward in the wind.
SO COLD!
Check out this video that Keith took
We paid for an hour and got about 75% worth of our investment. Not bad considering we had four adults, two 5.5 year olds and two 2.5 year olds.
The award for longevity in the cold goes to Oliver and Keith.
Next place comes Cole and Patrick. Cole took a break after the first run to get more gear to stay warm, and then he was up and down the run the remainder of the time.
Next comes Kellan. He made it the first 30 minutes before he said that he wanted to "go in the house", which was the little trailer where you paid, got your gear and could saddle up for a hot cocoa.
Owen wasn't a fan. He made it one run and called it a day. Tubing isn't for everyone, but maybe next time, he'll be the champ. It was brutal cold, so maybe he was the smartest of all with a plan of saddling up with cocoa.
By default Kristi (with Own) and Carrie (with Kellan) called it a day early, because we had parental duties. With our need for speed, we could have beat out the guys in a heart beat if it was Mom's vs Dad's. :)
Well, maybe Oliver would have beat us all out. I'm not sure that he was ready to call it quits. I watched as the Dad's pulled Oliver and Cole back to the trailer and Oliver was trying to snow surf in his tube while his Dad was pulling him. He LOVED every minutes of it!!
Do you think this is where the day ends?
Goodness No!
Next up, we had bowling lanes reserved at 2 PM.
This is a new bowling alley / movie theater that they just opened in Winter Park and it's a great addition to the town. We loved it. We had a great time and had the best bowling alley food that we've every had. Gourment pizza's and french fries. YUM!
Oliver was fired up to take the title of champion.
Kellan was too busy to stop for a photo.
We even lucked out to get a kids lane and an adult lane so we all could bowl.
So Much Fun!
The bowling alley was awesome. Instead of chairs of benches, they had leather couches to sit on. At the end of the couch was a high bar with our food, hence the reason that their is a monkey climbing behind Kellan as he enjoyed his late lunch.
Oliver and Kellan pausing for a brief photo.
SO happy!!
"What Up, Mama?!"
Mommy and Daddy having a great weekend and throwing plans and caution to the wind.
Final Score for the Mamas and the Papas
Patrick, Kristi, Keith and Carrie
Final score for the kiddos.
Oh yes, check out the champion.
Cole, Kellan, Owen, Oliver
Back at the hotel, the littlest vacationers passed out in the car so they were crashed on one hotel bed.
The other hotel bed had Owen and Oliver snuggled around the DVD player.
I WISH that I had photos of that, but I was afraid to disturb the perfection of the peace and quiet. In the room next door (don't worry, doors were open and monitors were on) this was chillin' in the bathroom and there was a mean game of Catch Phrase to be had.
For the record, the girls once again took the Champion title.
As we heard rustling next door, this is what we found. The littlest vacationers were up and joined their brothers for the movie.
Can you tell who's been up all afternoon and who just woke up from a nap?
What a great weekend! Not what we had planned, but still fun.
But Wait... it's not over yet.
It wouldn't be a Hamilton family vacation without some sort of medical emergency.
Kellan woke up from his nap with pink eye. We quickly discovered that Winter Park doesn't have a hospital or urgent care. Not even a pharmacy that's open on Sundays. The closest pharmacy was 17 miles away in Grandby. We called our on-call pediatrician and she offered to call in a prescription but the challenge was to find a pharmacy. Since we planned to go home early the next morning for work/school, we changed our plans to go home right then and there. The doctor called in a prescription to a 24 hour pharmacy near our home and we hit the road. The boys passed out and awoke with us in the Walgreens drive thru.
Oliver was disappointed to not spend the last night in the hotel, so we suggested breakfast out in the morning. After getting home very late, we all slept in the next morning (7 AM wake up instead of 6 AM) and then treated the boys to breakfast at the Egg and I. They loved it!
To the Martin's - Welcome to vacationing with the Hamilton family of four and our crazy adventures that are not complete until there is a medical situation.
We loved the weekend, even if it wasn't what we had imagined when we booked it.
Maybe next year, Mother Nature will be in our favor. Or, maybe she was and we were meant to have this weekend and not the one that we thought we were going to have.
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