Deer Valley 2014

While it feels like forever ago already, our yearly Deer Valley ski trip came to an end about a week ago-- the craziness of our daily life has a way of making that happen I suppose.

This year we went with my sister in law Lisa, and her family.  We stayed in a condo that was walking distance to the lifts on the top half of the mountain.  The place was great!

There was room to hang out in the family room in front of the fire...

 

...and a loft that most of the kids were able to sleep up in.

It snowed almost non stop for 2 straight days, making for awesome ski conditions!!

The kids (mostly Zach) put a lot of time into building a sled course.  It was pretty impressive!

 For the first day the kids all did a day of ski school.  The ski school at Deer Valley is fantastic, and the reason my kids are now officially all better skiers than I am.

The one and only picture of me on the slopes.

 Day 2 we all hit the slopes together, ready to ski as a family.  Nothing brrings me greater joy than to see what amazing skiers they have all turned into.  We always have a blast together, and Vinny and Christopher rarely even fight!

And then it happened--only 2 runs into our first day skiing as a family.  We were on a simple, relatively flat run through the trees.  The 4 boys were in front of me, and had just popped back out onto the groomed run.  Not sure what exactly happened--Pete thinks my ski hit a branch or root.  Suddenly I was going down, twisting on the way.  My right ski was stuck, not budging an inch.  I could feel my knee twisting and twisting, until my binding finally gave and my ski popped off.  I landed in a tree hole.  Pete also went down behind me.  I knew it was bad, my week likely over.  I got pulled out of the hole, and then accessed the damage.  It hurt, but I guess I was still in denial and didn't want to call the ski patrol.  My knee was clearly unstable when I stood up,  but I gritted my teeth against the pain, and (very slowly) skied to the bottom.  I was crying, knowing my week was done.  Joey was crying because he said it was his fault for choosing the run (of course I reassured him it was not).  Home I hobbled.

It was a bummer, but Pete and the boys had a blast hanging on the slopes the rest of the week.

 I had to laugh becasue he said that without me there, no one knew where to go or what lift to hit next.  I didn't realize how much I always took charge in that realm and dictated our days.  Itw as good for them though.

 They sent me fun and cool pictures, and because we were so close to the slopes, they came home every day for lunch.

It was cold, much colder than we were used to.  One day was so cold in the morning (-11!) that no one even left until after lunch.

I waffled from being grateful that I only had a knee injury and nothing something more serious, like a head or neck injury to having a pity party about the fact that I was injured on the couch and everyone else was outside having fun.  I then ended up sick with a fever--really??  Like a jacked knee wasn't enough?? The last day was absolutely gorgeous- clear as a bell and sunny.  My view from the couch was of the above runs.

Despite my bad luck, it was still a great family trip.  The kids had fun, and we had lots of time as a family to just be together.  And I really was and am grateful that I wasn't hurt more.

As for my knee, the final verdict came in on Friday with my MRI results-- an MCL that is partially torn off my tibia and a medial meniscus with tears in 2 places, partially extruding out of the joint.  The MCL will heal on it's own, the meniscus will not.  Looks like I will be spending our February break recovering from knee surgery.