Up-North for the New Year

When you plan a vacation, you hope everything will go exactly envision, it’s not as if you go into it thinking that it’s going to be a disaster- but you are definitely ready for a minor disaster or two. Just trying to keep my expectations realistic. With that being said, I was very hopeful when the start of our up-north getaway to go skiing on New Year’s Day started out great, it really gave me hope that this whole trip might be Instagram “worthy”. The car was packed and ready to go when the kids got back to our house, they were all excited when we surprised them that we were going skiing, no one argued in the car, we talked and played guess who sings/the name of that song game and Taco Bell not only give us everything we ordered, but we actually got two extra tacos! Our first-night up-north continued to be pretty good, from getting the kid’s equipment rented to dinner to a nighttime swim outside to a peaceful bedtime. Also, our cabin at Trout Creek Condo’s , was perfect for us- two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a sleeper sofa, and a kitchen.

But the next day things got a little rocky, as we rushing out of the condo to head to the mountain, Camden came running inside yelling there was a hole in the back window of the car and that it was not her fault. Steve and I, of course, rushed out outside hoping she was wrong. But nope, Camden was definitely right… there was not only a hole, but the whole window was shattered. This is not how you ever want to start your day, but this certainly not how you want to start your day when you are four hours from home, on vacation, it’s snowing and you are trying to get out the door to ski all day. Since there wasn’t much we could do besides calling a few auto glass repair shops, we packed up the car and headed to the hill. While the kids were trying to get on the endless amount of clothing you need for skiing and Steve was running back to the condo to get my ski boots that I forgot, the auto glass repair shop kept trying to call me, but I couldn’t hear anything due to having horrible reception within the ski lodge (side-note, how is there still bad reception??). I was trying to put Leighton’s ski boots on and could feel all the anxious feelings. At that moment I had two choices to let my anxiety take over or take a deep breath and trust that everything will get figured out, luckily I was able to go was the latter choice.

Once I finally was able to get my mood back in check, we had a great day skiing- Jared did a great job of snowboarding this time, Camden did awesome skiing as usual (she even started using poles this time) and Leighton once again amazed us with her lack of fear and went on her first chairlift.

Another fun activity the girls definitely enjoyed was a nighttime swim in the outdoor pool and hot tub, this was their first time braving the cold winter temperatures to go swimming.

On our drive home, we stopped at two of your favorite summer up-north places, Charlevoix and Pond Hill.  While both were a little chilly, we had fun exploring them in a snowy setting.

Even with our few minor setbacks, it was still a great trip with lots of memories made.