The Phillips Phamily: Spencer Family Ski Trip

Mid February rolled around and the long awaited Spencer Family ski trip was FINALLY here! This year, Kory didn't get to come which was a big bummer. My Dad flew to Billings and we drove to Colorado to meet the rest of the Spencer crew. Its funny how a 12 hour drive seems like a piece of cake when we're used to 24+ hours!

Here's Dad in the captains chair rollin' down the road. We had beautiful driving weather and could've made it all in one day, but we would've beat the rest of the crew there. We scheduled our trip to where we would have 2 days if we had bad roads or something. We were so thankful for an easy trip with no winter worries.

The first day of ski school this crew was READY! Marion and Mallory were the rookies and Quinn only has a couple of hours under his belt. The other 4 are pros.

Marion was PUMPED about her first day of ski school. Her enthusiasm dropped significantly about an hour later, but here she was ALL SMILES!

They got to say hello to the ski school mascot (whatever that is) on their way in. A nice way to calm some nerves.

We dropped the kids off and hit the slopes! This first day, Maurine stayed at the house with mom and the little kids, so it was Me, Clay, Clint, Rachel, and Dad. We had a blast and enjoyed being in a new place none of us had ever skied before.

I was nervous/excited/anxious/giddy to hear how Quinn's first day was. He did awesome. FINALLY learned to turn and spent the whole day on the mountain. He was tired, but all smiles!

This was part of our first day ski crew after a successful day!

The kids crashed pretty hard in the evenings, so they enjoyed a little movie time in their PJ's before bed. This house had a great living area for relaxing after a long day of skiing.

The best thing about the house (according to the kids) was the landline phones. They said, "These phones are awesome!! You can pick it up and talk to the person upstairs without even calling them!"

I was really dumb and didn't pack Kanyon's stroller. The way this places was so spread out, it was a BIG mistake not to have it. So I went to Walmart and bought a cheap umbrella stroller and then he could go with us to pick up the skiers. He was so happy to see his cousins after ski school!

Beautiful views!

The day Clay stayed with mom and the little kids, they rode the gondola up to eat lunch with us.

Here's clay and 3 girlies headed through the village.

Up the gondola (or the magic bubble as the kids called it!)

The lunch crew!

More chillin' with a movie. You can see Kanyon playing with Avery's hair. He LOVES to play with hair and Avery and Ro are especially sweet to always sit close and give him a pigtail to play with.

The day Dad stayed home with mom and the little kids, he and Kanyon made a snow tunnel!

Ellie and Juney are SOMETHIN' ELSE. They are in their own world lovin' life all the time. They loved matching! Marion had this shirt too and somehow I never got a picture of the 3 of them together in it.

One night we braved the village to go eat at a pizza place. We made reservations only to find out when we got there that they don't really take reservations. Not cool. We had a trillion kids and an hour wait. We managed to walk around and even watch some broom ball while we waited.

I have a billion pictures of Kanyon playing with the girls' hair but its just so cute...

The kids loved sitting in this basket....and of course, klp was perched right behind Ro's hair.

Mom set out the kids' Valentine treats one day after skiing. She's the best when it comes to stuff like this. All the moms pretty much skipped Valentine's day since it was during the trip, but NOT GAY GAY!!!!

Quinn was so sweet on this trip. He wanted to be independent and do it all himself. Put on his own boots, carry his own skis, the works. He was so sweet and good.

The day Dad stayed home with Mom to babysit, it was just us UNSUPERVISED CHILDREN!!! Hilarious and so fun!

Mom requested a picture of us 3. Though they're way better than me, my brothers are still my favorite people to ski with!

These 2 girls come in a close second. Sometimes I forget we had "family" before they came along. I love them a whole bunch.

jjp got to come on pick up duty one day. She and Mal got the sillies when they saw each other!

Clint, Rachel, Dad, Mo. Clay was on babysitting duty!

Clint and I snuck away for an afternoon to ski the back side of the mountain. It was nice to be away from the crowds and see whole new area!

How can you resist those cheeks!

Q loaded up and ready ski school!!! EXCITED!!!!

Gay Gay and Colbie waving everyone off in the mornings. Its amazingly obvious that we could NOT do this trip without Mom! She's real life Superwoman.

Q and Nolan after a great day on the slopes.

Me and my ski buddy.

Yes, we let them all in the hot tub together one afternoon. It was as wild and hilarious (and loud) as you think. Especially when they started daring each other to jump in the snow.

The last day things got REAL. The kids didn't do ski school so the whole gang skied together!!!!

Here we are all together! Even Kanyon got to ski the last day!

All the girls did pigtails pulled through our goggles for a little "team spirit" as Mo called it! We will hopefully add Jaylie June and Ellie to this crew next year! Can we please all notice how tiny and sad my pigtails are.

Skiing with this many kids is A THING. A WHOLE BIG THING. We are sorely outnumbered and now that I'm skiing with my own children, I realize how dangerous other skiers are! We are totally at the mercy of other people paying attention and not running over our kids! SHEESH!

Soooooo, in an unfortunate turn of events that was full of frustration (and some anger), Kanyon didn't get to ski each day like we planned. But he did get to ski half day the last day. My dad helped get him to his teacher and stuff so that I could stay with Quinn. It was a little hectic, but worth it for Kanyon to get to ski with everyone. Here he is meeting his teacher. They had a great day! His teacher said when he asked Kanyon if he liked to go fast or slow, klp's immediate answer was "SUPER FAST!!!" And they did! They came and skied with the big group so all he cousins could see each other ski, then they split off and hit it hard so they didn't have to wait around on everyone else. All the cousins were quite impressed/jealous to hear that Kan skied blacks in his ski school! His instructor said he enjoyed Kanyon's "sense of adventure!" No doubt about that!

Here's a shot of our whole crew from above. I think this might've been everyone but Rachel and Marion. Haha, we were tough to miss thanks to the mass of children and then an adaptive bi-ski thrown in the mix! haha!

I had a great day skiing with Quinn! He learned so much this week and had so much fun! He did great trying new things and handling the frustrations and hard work of learning to ski. I was so proud!

So we had the whole group together for a little bit, then we sort of broke up into groups since there are different levels of skiers. Of course we named the groups!

The Fab 4: Ro, Avery, Nolan, Landry

They are great little skiers and can ski well enough to go lots of places on the mountain.

Dynamic Duo/Pizza Pair: Quinn and Mallory

Ski Queen: Marion (she wasn't too enthusiastic about skiing and stuck pretty close to the magic carpet so her mom stayed with her.)

Quinn and Mallory were both making good turns, but were no where near the level of the Fab 4. Clint and Clay took the Fab 4 off to ski some stuff they enjoyed. Me and Maurine spent the morning in the giant beginner area with these two and had so much fun. They did awesome and we had tons of area to cover with lots different places to go in the beginner area and it was a blast! Mallory skied great and managed to eat snow the entire time she skied!

We got to trade kids riding the lift!

We all met up for lunch and Q checked out the terrain on his trail map.

lunch bunch!

After this, Clay skied with Mallory so Mo could ski with her bigger girls with Clint and the Fab 4. Me and Quinn joined that crew and let Q ski a little more of the mountain. Q did good keeping up and everyone was really patient to have a newbie skiing with them. The wind started blowing and they had to shut down several lifts, so we never got to meet back up with the rest of the crew, but we had a great afternoon! I think the wind literally blew Marion off the magic carpet, but other than that it was a great day!

The last day of skiing was a DOOZY! It was a great way to end a great trip. My crew and Dad headed out the next morning to drive back to Billings. We had great weather again and could've made the trip in one long haul, but broke it up into 2 easy days.

Quinn drew this "Sindrelu" (Cinderella) picture for Jaylie June.

Snoozing with a chocolate covered face....

We got to our stop for the night and decided on a pizza party with cartoons in the hotel room since the hotel is the best part for the kids. We had a lot of fun!