Copper Mountain, Colorado - February 6-9, 2014

This past weekend we were blessed to take a long weekend trip with our great friends, Katie and Eric Ormond.  We left Houston Thursday morning and flew to Denver!  Eric ended up having to go to a conference for work, so he met up with us later in the evening at our condo.

We arrived at the Denver airport around 9am to -11 degree temperatures! We are smiling here, but really we were freezing our butts off waiting for the shuttle to the rental car place!

From there we took our MAROON Ford Fusion and pointed west towards Copper Mountain. Look at all that snow!

We stopped at Sam's No. 3 for lunch in Denver.

Don't judge.  It was delicious!  "Gyro Burger" and tots!

From there we kept heading west....

and the weather went crazy!  The temperatures here, close to Copper Mountain, were actually higher than Denver, but quite snowier! (and cloudier)

We found our condo, Passage Point at Copper Mountain Resort in the Central Village.  It was perfect! Great rooms and great location!

We settled in a bit, then went to the local Safeway for groceries, got fitted for our skis and waited for Eric to arrive.  We had dinner in that night, spaghetti and turned in early!

The next morning we got up and Matt walked me to my ski lesson over at West Village, then he joined Katie and Eric after a few warm up runs.

My ski instructor was great! (Rich....I highly recommend him).  This was our training ground for the morning!  Bunny slope off to the left, and a place to practice our turns there through the middle.  It was so pretty being out in all that snow, I HAD to take a picture!

My class ended at noon and with my new found confidence, I joined the rest of the group for lunch at West Village, then we hit the easiest green run, up the Kokomo lift!

From there we split up again for a bit so I could continue to build my confidence in some of the easier runs, and on the chair lift!  My class had been without the use of poles, so the first few times I was on a lift with the extra equipment, it took so re-learning how to get off :)

Ready to tackle West Ten Mile (one of my faves, nice and long and not steep!)

Group pick after we tackled the LEAST favorite run, can't remember the name, but I am proud that I did it!  Even if it freaked me out!  It was STEEP at the end!  Not very green-like to me!

It never stopped snowing while we were there!  Which made for great skiing, though sometimes not good for trying to see!

Friday was Eric's 27th birthday, so we decided to go out for dinner that night.  After trying to find a pizza place that the Ormonds had been to before, we finally settled on C.B. Grill.  It was delicious, right by our room, and we were seated right away!  We also got to watch some of the Olympics' Opening Ceremonies in Sochi on the TV next to us, which was fun!

Saturday morning we woke up leisurely and set out for the slopes!  This time, there were a lot more people out since it was the weekend.  We had to wait in a few lines for some of the lifts, but it didn't slow us down too much!

weekend traffic at the Timberline Express

After our first few runs, I needed a break (mentally and physically), so I sat inside with this view of the mountain, while the others tackled some harder runs! After that we ate lunch and went back out to get in a few more passes before the lifts closed at 4!

We found Soliloquy in the afternoon and everyone liked that one!  The guys could go in and out of the trees and I wasn't terrified the whole way down!

Saturday night, we stayed in again and watched some of the Olympics and ate enchiladas. And passed out on the floor from the long day!

Sunday, we had heard the traffic would be bad and since the weather was also crazy, we decided it would probably be best to skip any morning activity and just hit the road earlier.  We slept in (can you tell this was  a relaxing vacation?!), then had breakfast and packed up.  Good thing we did!  This is what we went out into:

check out the icicles on the left!

As anticipated, we hit traffic...and ice....

and lots of snow!  Matt was a great driver, and with Eric doing some pushing, we were able to avoid getting stuck in the snow!  Which was good cause we wouldn't have last too long with the little water and snacks we had! Plus we all had to use the restroom!  How do people do it that live there?!
I know, they don't drive 2-wheel drive cars!

Great work guys on keeping us safe and getting us home!

Thankfully, we still made it to Denver by 3:30 (we left Copper at 11!), in time to grab a quick bite to eat at Ted's Montana Grill!  We dropped off the car, and made it to the airport, with a little time to spare since our plane was late coming in.

Then, Matt flew us home!

Just kidding!  But he did get to check out the cockpit.  Notice there is no steering wheel!  Good thing he wasn't the pilot!  What a cutie though!