Thanksgiving week in Utah

Well, I'm only a week late posting this - hopefully it's "better late than never."  It's been a while since we've visited family in Salt Lake, and with the kids out of school for the whole week we thought it might be the best opportunity we'd get.  And, since the kids had never been skiing before we thought it would be fun to combine it with this trip. 

Personally, I was a bit apprehensive about the skiing part.  Jamie and I haven't skied for about 17 or 18 years - not since before we had children - and I like to make the joke that as I got older it got harder on both my knees and my wallet (not so much of a joke, I know!).  But apparently it's like riding a bike.  Jamie was always better than me (I still have to "snowplow") and the kids picked it up easily.  I don't remember resorts regularly opening before Thanksgiving, but luckily the ones in the canyons near Salt Lake opened the weekend before the holiday.  The only problem was that we were staying in a place called Eden just north and east of Ogden.  But what's a 2 hour drive when you've already driven 800 miles?  So, we spent a day early in the week skiing at Brighton (which is where I learned).  Even though Taylor insisted he wouldn't need lessons we signed them all up for a couple of hours of instruction at Brighton.  And they were all very good at turning and going back and forth across the hill to maintain a safe speed, but Maddie would just turn into the middle of the run and go straight down as fast as she could, narrowly swerving around other skiers and any trees that happened to be in her way.  I couldn't keep up with her, and it made for a tiring afternoon.  Ann and the boys went with us to Wolf Mountain after it opened on Thanksgiving (it was only 10 minutes from our condo) and Ben and Carter taught Taylor how to snowboard (Braiden decided to stick with skis), and other than a face plant that resulted in a bloody nose, he did really well at it, too.

What about the weather?  It was COLD!  It reminded me why I wanted to move somewhere warmer!  We left LA on a rainy morning that made driving miserable, and by the time we reached Provo it was snowing like crazy.  But the mother of all storms was to be The Giant Blizzard of 2010 on Tuesday.  We were told:

• Not to travel unless absolutely necessary
• Stock up on food, and the local market was abuzz with locals
• The power would probably go out
• Employers should send employees home early
• There would be 2 feet of snow over night in our area, maybe more
• And just "hunker down" and keep your family close!

Yeah, I'd forgotten how much Utah weathermen like to freak out about their predictions.  It was a bust and would be an exaggeration to say we got more than 2 inches!  But it was cold all week long - usually single digits in the morning and rising to the teens during the afternoons.

We also went to see the new Harry Potter movie, which we all loved and now we can't wait for the final movie to come out.  We had Thanksgiving dinner with my family at mom and dad's.  We even made it to see the lights on Temple Square Friday night, but didn't stay too long since it was so cold.  But even with the cold it was a nice trip.  It was good to see family and friends, and we had fun.  The kids didn't fight or argue or tease each other very much, and got along really well.  But we were all happy to get home to some warmer weather... until Monday morning rolled around and we all had to go back to work and school!