Craig and I had the opportunity to get away a couple weekends in a row. We weren't planning on them being back to back but Craig's work conference got moved after we already had our first trip planned. The first trip we went to was just a quick trip down to Utah. We left Friday February 4th after we got the kids off to school and drove down to Salt Lake where we went to a Jazz game. They played the Brooklyn Nets, but sadly a lot of the players were injured, but still fun to go. Saturday morning we then packed up and drove up to Craig's uncle Mike's place in Eden and went with him and Craig's cousin Alex skiing up at Powder Mountain. Mike has worked there for years and was able to get us free passes and was our own personal tour guide of the mountain. The snow wasn't great, but it was a bluebird day and was a lot of fun. After skiing we went back to Mike's house for some yummy chili and then hit the rode and were back home before the kids even went to bed. We just had one of our teenage babysitters stay the night with the kids and it worked out really well. It was super quick, but a great little get away. We love skiing with our kids but it has been fun the last few years heading to different resorts just the 2 of us at some point during the winter.
So, we got back from Utah on the evening of the 5th and then headed back out of town on Wednesday February 9th. This time we were heading over to eastern Idaho and into Montana. Every few years there is a Vision Source (optometry stuff) conference held in West Yellowstone and they pretty much pay for you to come have a weekend of free fun stuff as long as you are willing to sit and listen to reps speak while you eat meals. It's a pretty good trade off if you ask me. We have been to the conference once before 3 years ago and were excited to go again, especially because another doc from Craig's office and his wife were coming too. So we drove over to Rexburg Wednesday afternoon after we picked McKay up from preschool and dropped him off at Craig's parents house. We met up with our good friends the Siddoway's who had moved over to Rexburg the year before (don't ask me why, no one in their right mind moves to Eastern Idaho) for dinner. It was so good to see Alisha again and to see their house. After dinner we headed over to my sister Sunni's house where we slept for the night. Thursday morning we headed over to Grand Targhee with my sister and her daughter Akirah to ski for the day. We did not get the type of snow that we were hoping for or that we were blessed with the last few times we skied there, but it was still a lot of fun and a beautiful sunny day. After parting ways with Sunni we then headed over to West Yellowstone.
Thursday evening we just went out to dinner as a big group and then Friday morning we got up and got ready to snowmobile. We got all decked out in our gear and headed out as a big group for about 3 hours before we came back to the hotel for lunch. It had been super fun, but we hadn't had a chance to get up to the top of the mountain yet so they were planning on taking us up there after lunch. Originally I had planned to just snowmobile until lunch and then I was going to hang back at the hotel and workout and take a nap, but I was talked into going back out. It didn't take a lot to convince me though. So we head back out and get to the top of the mountain and it was crazy beautiful, we were all having a blast until... Craig smashed his face against the handle bars of his snowmobile. He and his friend Hans had been going off a jump a few times and he just came down awkward and got his face. When I pulled up he was spitting out blood and checking his teeth to make sure he hadn't lost any. Luckily all of his teeth were still there but his lip and jaw were swollen and he had cut up the inside of his lip pretty bad. About 10 minutes after Craig's mishap I was just tootling around on what I thought was just some small rolling hills but then one dipped a lot more than I thought it would and I then smashed my face against my handle bars. Now it was my turn to spit out blood, but I was also spitting out crushed tooth. I knew instantly that I had shattered one of my front teeth. About half came off the front and about 2/3 off the back of it. I also had a nice swollen lip and quite the headache. At this point I just decided to hangout until it was time to head back to the hotel, but our friend Hans ended up busting the windshield of his snowmobile about 10 minutes after my crash. I swear that drive back to turn in our snowmobiles took forever. I was so ready to be done with them. Craig and I were quite the sight. Once we got back to the hotel we both took a bunch of Ibuprofen and got ready for dinner. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of us right after it happened, I was too mad at myself for not just staying at the hotel after lunch.
Saturday morning after breakfast we drove about an hour and a half to Big Sky ski resort. Quite a good sized group headed up there. We broke off in to groups kind of based on experience. We ended up with one of the docs from Twin Falls who knew the mountain pretty well. Again the snow was not great, but when you don't have to pay for it, it doesn't seem to bother you as much. The mountain is huge and we only saw a fraction of it. We did end up with a few scratches on the bottoms of our skies from rocks and I had to ski the whole day with my tongue covering my broken tooth because it was so sensitive to the cold, but other than that it was a fun day. You will notice that my smile turned into a closed mouth smile at this point. After skiing we headed back to the hotel for one last dinner and some more Ibuprofen. Sunday morning we were up early to start our drive back home. The kids had been with Craig's parents for two days and then with my sister Melissa for two days. Luckily by this point they are really easy and do great when we are gone, but we had missed them and were ready to get home. By the time we got home we were both ready to be out of the car, we had done way too much driving over the last 9 days. Monday morning I called my dentist and got a temporary crown put on a few days later and I'm still currently waiting to get the permanent crown put one later this week. What started out as a pretty cheap trip turned into quite an expensive one since we don't have dental insurance. Craig's jaw stayed swollen for about a week and it took a few weeks for the inside of his lip to fully heal. I told Craig the next time we go I want a mouth guard and a full face helmet. Besides our snowmobile mishaps, it was a really fun weekend, but I am good taking a break from snowmobiling for a while.
