A couple of days after Jamey started his new job the beginning of February, he got a call from the HR person who told him that the company annually holds a Winterfest in Keystone. Because he was now an official employee (he was offered and accepted the job back in November, but we had to wait on the government to finalize a part of his clearance) he and his family were invited. We had 2 weeks notice, I had to move a client but we made it work! My parents very kindly took Everett for the weekend so that we didn't have to mess with a little one. The company paid for a condo for two nights, all food on Saturday and an activity of choice. We chose to do the snowmobiling excursion. We left mid afternoon on Friday February 25th, and drove up to the mountains. It was so beautiful with all the fresh snow. That night we just hung out and ate at a restaurant in the little square. The boys loved watching all the snowboarders and skiers walking around. The atmosphere at the restaurant was very fun too. Saturday morning we woke early to get some breakfast before meeting at the shuttle. We drove for quite a while to get to the snowmobiling mountain. After getting outfitted and given a few instructions on how to use the snowmobile we were off. I am not an adventurous person and they put me at the end of the long line of people. Jamison was having a hard time with his gloves and goggles, which at one point went flying off. I had to stop and grab them which made the whole group stop. Nice uh?
We followed in a line up to a higher spot, mostly getting accustom to how to work the snowmobile. They stopped at a place where they had us practicing passing people and going in a circle. Also up there they had two kid snowmobiles. Both boys jumped on and had a blast!
Then we broke into smaller groups and got our speed on, or at least that's what we were supposed to do. Again, I was nervous and Jamey complained later that I went too slow. He was the one who choose to be behind me. After it was all over Jamison told me that he was scared. I wish I had known while we were on the mountain! It made me feel better that I took it slow. When we got back to the condo we had a few hours to relax, take showers, watch some TV and play pool before dinner. Dinner was at the top of the mountain. We rode the gondola all way up. It was so far we even had to transfer gondolas to finish the trip up. Once up there we walked into a very fun restaurant. It was a fondue restaurant. We got the kids (and us) all hot chocolates.
Walked around looking at the place and taking some pictures.
The dinner was so good, but it was absolute torture to our children. Three hours of eating and cooking your meal is not fun with an eight and five year old. Again I was feeling so grateful that we left Everett at home. We decided that next year all of them might stay home! On Sunday morning we planned to go tubing, but the kids were ornery, so we just packed up and came home. There were parts that were so fun, others not so much, but we are so grateful to Itec for the weekend away.
