Four Day Colorado Ski Trip - Affordable Travel and the Epic Pass

By the time March rolled around, we were feeling fried.  My business picked up, Adam was working a lot of overtime, and we had survived the childcare less month of February.  Plain and simple...we needed to get away.  We hadn't been on an airplane since before the pandemic and we were desperate to get away for any amount of time.  While a lot of our friends headed south for sunshine, we planned an entirely different getaway.  Our 2020 ski season was cut short due to the pandemic, and winter 2021... I was very very pregnant. And so, this was our first year back on skis. We bought the Epic Pass to make sure we got out there and used it and it worked.  We spent four days in Colorado, three days skiing in the most perfect warm and sunny spring skiing conditions. It was long enough to recharge but not too long away from our one year old.  It was the perfect amount of time to enjoy a ski weekend without going insanely overbudget on an expensive trip. We were so happy to come home to our baby and our dogs, and both agreed these were some of our best ski days yet. We returned home perfectly windburned and happily recharged. 

A year of Whitney - Celebrating in a Winter ONEderland

On February 24th, we celebrated Whitney's first birthday. It's wild to sit back and think that 365 days have passed since that moment I first saw Whitney. The past year has been filled with ups and downs and I can say with certainty that loving him has changed my life in an amazing way. My fears about motherhood slipped away as I stepped into the new role. I worked hard to ensure I "bounced back" to my physical and emotional self as quickly as I could. I made it my main mission to integrate Whitney into my life, not just change my life to always serve him. Having a child was not a death sentence to my identity, to my body, to my sleep schedule or the way I enjoy life. He enhances my life in a way that is hard to describe, adding another layer to my persona, not stripping some away.

His first birthday felt like such a celebration. You laugh at the "congratulations for keeping him alive for a year" texts but I started to take them to heart. I didn't want to throw a huge party but I wanted something thoughtful that brought my family together to celebrate a year with this darling little boy. As I spent hours making a balloon arch and assembling floating snowflakes to the ceiling, I kept telling myself "It's a party for us too". I put out the popcorn, ordered the pizza, and popped champagne to celebrate the sweetest year of Whitney.