At a charity event last November, in a drunken frenzy, Jay had the winning bid on 5 days and nights in a private home in Vail.  We expected a house.

What we got was a palace on a mountain peak.

I've paid good money just to tour houses like this, much less unpack my bag and stay awhile.

As Josie said when she walked through the house; "Why would I want to go skiing when I could just hang out here?"

Imagine a soaring mountain chalet with enormous fireplaces, fifteen foot ceilings, walls of glass overlooking the Colorado Rockies, banks of french doors out onto stone patios suspended a thousand feet over the valley floor...this place was nicer.
Everyone in the family got their own bathroom.
Mine had a jacuzzi tub big enough for two.
The dining room table was plenty big enough for a dinner for twelve at one end and a cut throat game of Lord of the Rings Monopoly at the other.
We stocked up the kitchen with goodies and prepared to have a fabulous time.

Days were for painting on the porch and playing on the mountains.  Nights were for grilling on the patio and poker til the wee hours.  The men taught Josie to play Texas Hold 'em on Tuesday and she cleaned them all out on Thursday.

Tuesday morning the boys all took off with snowboards and Katie, Josie and I rented skiis.
Katie had skied before but Josie and I had not.  Josie was very excited and impatient by the time we got our stuff all rented.  She and I zoomed toward the chair lift as Katie, the only one with any experience, yelled "Wait!" behind us.  We didn't wait.

We should have.

Josie and I had no idea how to get on a chair lift.  We just barreled up to the chair and hopped on.  Well, Josie hopped on.  I tried to hop on but actually hopped off.  Off the loading zone and into a ditch.  As the nice young man who operated the lift helped me up, my ten year old floated up the mountain.

All Alone.

She's never skiid before.
She's never been on a chairlift before.
She's never been on a mountain before.
There she was, feet dangling, thirty feet in front of me, ten feet above me and fifty feet in the air.

I managed to get onto the chair directly behind her.  Katie had caught up to me and we rode up right behind Josie, but too far back to be able to lend any courage or support to the tiny little red jacketed figure rising into the sky in front of us. 

Katie laughed all the way up the mountain. 

If I hadn't been so worried about Josie, I would've wet myself, as I remembered too late that I really don't like hieghts.  Josie's not so crazy about them, either.  Once, on the longest chairlift ride ever, Josie turned and looked over her shoulder at us.  I couldn't tell if she were glaring daggers at us or just checking to see how absolute her abandonment was.

Meanwhile I had to listen to Katie howl:
  "Mom!  I can't believe...lookat....alone...can't believe...fell off!...Ohmigod...wouldn't wait...don't know...worst....EVER!!"
Okay. 
I get it. 
No Mother of the Year Award for me.

She laughed so hard tears were flying off her head.

Then we realized that Josie would have to get off the lift by herself as well.  This set Katie off worse than ever.  I would have worried that she would laugh herself off the lift, but I was too worried about Josie to spare a thought for her inappropriately amused sister.  I watched helplessly as Josie approached the top.  The moment her skis touched the ground, she simply launched herself off the lift, basically diving into the lift operator.  He didn't catch her, but he did throw the brake so she didn't get hit by the next chair.  I was grateful.  If there's anything worse than abandoning your small child on a chairlift, I suppose running over that child with your own chair would be it.

Going down was WAY more fun than going up.