Monday, March 30, 2015

Easter Egg Hunt

In the never-ending winter temps, we headed over to West Goshen township park for their annual Easter egg hunt.  The field was very wet, the air was very cold but we tried our best to have fun.  Here is Eric with our neighbor Owen and his best friend Brennan, waiting for the 2-3 year old egg hunt:
Eric had fun collecting his eggs:

Then it was onto the 4-6 year olds.  There were so many people, it was insane.  Evan did very well keeping up with the kids.  Here is posting with his cheesy-smile after he was done:
Evan by himself:
And another of Eric:
Here's to hoping the warm weather is on its way!

Sunday, March 29, 2015

St Patrick's Day 2015

Not much to say on this one - just some pictures from St. Patrick's Day.  Eric was too cute in his festive shirt:
And the 4T St Patty's Day shirt that should have fit Evan was looking like a belly shirt, so he went to school in just plain green:
And all of the Felt boys in their green:

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Eric's 3rd Birthday

Eric turned 3 years old this past Friday!  He really understood what it meant to be his birthday this year and was talking about it all week with us.  Nana & Papa arrived with Morgan on Friday night.  After dinner, they gave him his present - a new Lightening McQueen bicycle!
After playing outside, it was inside for some singing and cupcakes:
We had a small bounce-house birthday party on Saturday morning.  We did a Disney Cars theme.  I love these personalize edible cupcake toppers that I got on Etsy:
Eric bouncing:
Cousins, Matthew & Evan
Eric doesn't want to pose for pictures lately, so we had to hang him upside down to get a picture with his best friend, Brennan:
The boys:
More of the cupcakes:
Couldn't get a good shot of the whole group:
Getting ready to sing:
 During the singing, our friend was singing quite comically and Eric just kept watching him:
Blew the candle out on the first try! On the night before, he spent 5 minutes and couldn't blow it out, so we were all surprised:
 Sunday morning couch time with Nana:
And Sunday afternoon, Brian, Morgan, Evan and I went ice skating.  We had tried it in the year prior with Evan and he didn't like it too much.  This year, he definitely enjoyed it more and Morgan did really well too:
More to come on Eric's 3 year stats soon but I'll give you a sneak peak. . . he's still short and too skinny :(

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Colorado 2015

Exactly 15 years ago, Brian and I headed on spring break to the ski resorts of Colorado.  It was an amazing trip and I left there thinking that we could end up getting married, as crazy as that was considering we were still in college.  Fast forward to last winter - we took Evan to a little ski resort.  We each took 20 minutes to go off on our own at this mountain and, after one run on my own, I was texting Brian that we needed to get out west next year.  We reserved the grandparents a year in advance and began planning.  So on Saturday, with the threat of 1-2 feet of snow expected at the mountains, we boarded our plane and ventured out to Colorado.

First is a comparison photo of then and now.  We took this first photo with our disposable film camera, long before the word "selfie" existed and a year before we actually owned cellphones (at the time, we swore we'd never own a cellphone).  Well, this trip we started off with new goggles and new helmets which we got for Christmas from my parents - the first time we had ever skied with helmets.   Ski goggles do wonders to hide the wrinkles on our eyes.
On Sunday, we headed to Breckenridge with 3 inches of fresh snow.  This was my favorite resort in our prior trips.  So much had changed since the last time I was there.  They added a lift to the top of peak 8, the highest chairlift in North America at just under 13,000 feet.  It was snowing so you couldn't see what is really behind us.  
Since I couldn't take any of my own photos, I have borrowed someone else's.  Down to the far right is the Whale's Tail trail, which is the trail we took down.  This was my only venture into double-black diamonds and I loved it, though I was a lot more scared than I remembered being during my last trip there:
We also skied through the trees in Breckenridge, which was fun and terrifying.  Just to the right of me (not in the picture) was a small tree which I straddled on my way down:


On Monday, we headed out to Beaver Creek.  Another 4-5 fresh inches of snow fell overnight, which made for some spectacular early skiing.  While we had skied Breckenridge on a weekend day with some crowds and lines, Beaver Creek was a Monday and we had the place virtually to ourselves.  Here is Brian about to gown down our first black diamond of the day (Loco).  
And the view facing the other way.  As we (I) huffed and puffed our way down this one, someone on the lift above us screamed out "You are brave!".  I was hurting by the time we finished this run:
Another Beaver Creek shot with no other skiers in sight:
The Aspens at Beaver Creek were quite a sight.  We also skied through the Aspens (Thresher Glade run) and my nerves were shot by the time we finished:
On Tuesday, we skied Vail.  The last time we had been to Vail had not been under the best conditions.  It is the premier ski resort in the area and we had been disappointed.  Well, that was the furthest thing from our experience this year.  They received 7 inches of fresh powder overnight on Monday night.  We got a great tip on where to park from some people we had spoken to in the hot tub the night before and we were on the slopes the moment they opened.  And it was just incredible - everything about it was amazing.  The temps were fairly cold and it snowed a good portion of the day - some of the most beautiful sites I had ever seen.  Unbeknownst to us, iPhones don't really work in cold conditions as our phones kept shutting off whenever we tried to capture a photo.  We did run into an issue where I became paralyzed with fear on Ricky's Ridge trail in the Sun Down bowl.  The black diamonds at Vail seemed scarier to me than the double blacks at Breck, especially on weaker "day 3" legs.  Something about the trees and exposed rocks were causing me anxiety.  While we didn't get our own pictures, this is pretty much exactly what Ricky's Ridge looked like when we skied it - look at that fresh snow:
Later in the day, we ended up skiing a few runs with an Australian man who was relying on us to guide him over to to the Blue Ox run (which had been recommended by my dad).  He came to Vail all the way from Australia for of week of skiing and we probably spent close to an hour with him.  All in all, we agreed our day at Vail was the best one, hands down.  We probably should have spent 2 days there.

On Wednesday, with our bodies aching, we headed off to Copper Mountain.  Copper Mountain required us driving over Vail Pass (I70 through the Rocky Mountains), after yet another night with a few inches of snow.  This resulted in me covering my eyes with my hat and biting my nails while Brian did the driving.  We had upgraded to an SUV at the car rental place and it was definitely worth the investment.
Copper Mountain brought our coldest day by far.  High of 9 degrees with low of -8 degrees.  And that was before the windchill factor, with winds of 30-40 mph.  We dressed warmly but it was still pretty brutal.  Brian wanted us both to hit up the double black diamonds of the Spaulding Bowl, something I  might have done in my younger days.  But my legs were jello at that point and I was too fearful, so he went off on his own for a little while and I stuck to the front of the mountain.  This is not him skiing but this a shot from Spaulding Bowl and you can see why I might want to skip it on day 4 - it was straight up and down:
After lunch, we headed to the Copper Bowl, where we tackled some great runs in fresh powder.  Before long, though, it started snowing and blizzard-like conditions took over so that you couldn't see more than a few feet in front of your face.  Take a look at this sequence of events.  Check out the beautiful blue sky in the background as Brian headed down the Alicante Trail (ignore the hazy gray in the top right of the screen as that is my mitten):
Up close shot of skiing - notice the only exposed skin is the tip of his nose.  Did I mention it was cold there?
Fast forward about 10 minutes and here I am going down a neighboring trail (though the phone turned off so this was the only shot we could get . . . pretty far away).  Take a look at how much the sky changed in just 10 minutes:
And all of 15 minutes after this shot as we were riding up the lift, the snow started falling like crazy and we couldn't see more than a feet in front of our faces.  It was 2:00 at this point and we called it a day about an hour earlier than we had planned.

We also found out while at Copper that our flight back to Philadelphia on the next day had been cancelled due to weather back east.  My poor parents were taking care of the boys and had to deal with shoveling 9 inches of snow AND the stomach bug, which had hit Eric on Thursday morning.  We managed to get on the first flight out on Friday, which gave us the opportunity to relax on Thursday, to visit Vail Village and watch the US Open Snowboarding competition there.   So while we enjoyed an extended vacation day, it was a bit stressful seeing Eric at his worst through the magic of FaceTime.  We returned home to a very sick Eric and, soon after, a very sick Evan.  Nothing quite like a stomach bug that last 5 days per child to return from vacation to.  This is after we were back and Eric was "watching a movie" (i.e. - just a zombie on the couch, not even looking at the tv):
And on Saturday, when Evan didn't eat lunch and fell asleep laying on me (despite having not napped for almost 2 years), I sort of knew he was in for a similar fate as his brother:
Big thanks to both sets of parents for taking such great care of our boys!  For some reason, my parents keep drawing the short straw as they had to deal with Eric's allergic reaction and a trip to urgent care when we went to Spain/Portugal.  And now this time, they got to experience the snow and the stomach bug.  We couldn't have enjoyed ourselves as much as we did if it weren't for us knowing that the kids were in such great hands!  

Next time we head out west, my hope is that we have two young skiing boys with us!