Vail, Day Five

Wednesday was full of adventure and a bad injury for Neely. These first two pictures are of Neely skiing. After this we all ate lunch and then went up the mountain to get a few more runs in. On our first run after lunch Neely was a little in front of me and I saw her take a bad fall. We were on a green slope, but her right leg didn't come out of her ski and she twisted it badly. Richard and Ty rushed down to get help and her sweet boyfriend, Josh, was crawling over to her on the mountain as fast as he could. He took off his snowboard so he could help her sit up on the mountain and his snowboard went flying down the mountain (thanks Richard and Ty who later found Josh's snowboard). Then the rescue ski patrol guys took her down the mountain on a sled and Josh and I rode the ski lift down to be with her. Richard and Ty snowboarded down and meet us then carried Neely to the car when Dad got there to pick us up. We found out on her x-ray that she broke her tibia bone. She will get an MRI on Monday, then see a surgeon on Wednesday to see if she needs surgery. The MRI will also tell if she tore any tendons. For now she is in a fiberglass immobilizing cast.

Neely Neely

Josh aka rookie of the year award for snowboarding!

Josh

A yummy lunch at the Blue Moose Pizzeria

Richard acting silly!

Richard

Neely's sled ride down the mountain with ski patrol.

When we got back Richard, Ty, Grady and I got suited up to go sledding at a local elementary school.

Richard and Grady

Ty

Mama and Grady

Grady wanted so badly to go on the playground. Little did he know that it is not like his playground at daycare...it was very cold and covered in snow.

When he went to open this door he hated that it was covered in snow. He did have gloves on during sledding, but kept taking them off. I tried to be a good mother, but he won't wear them.

Grady crying and thinking "What is wrong with this playset?"

Videos of us sledding.

Vail, Day Four

On Tuesday we all headed over to the slopes. Ty was feeling better from his mono and went up to snowboard with us. My parents and Grady rode the gondola up to the top of the mountain to watch us snowboard. We all had a great time and the views again were beautiful! My dad got many more pictures with his camera from today and I will add those when I get them from him.

Mama and Grady on the gondola. Meme and Mama

View from the gondola.

Grady in the lodge.

Ty snowboarding

The black diamond that Richard, Ty and I went down. This was nothing for Richard, but Ty and I were proud to conquer it (even though part of it we slid down on our bottoms).

Video of Ty snowboarding.

Video of Richard snowboarding.

Vail, Day Three

Monday was our first day on the slopes! Richard went straight up to the Back Bowls and got lots of beautiful pictures. I went with Neely and Josh to the bunny slopes because it was their first time on a snowboard. Josh was a natural and just took off on his first time! We were all impressed! Neely did good, but was having a hard time finding her balance, so we went and exchanged her snow board for skis. She was much more comfortable. We had a great first day, the sky was blue and the views were incredible!

I am in the back, pink jacket. Josh is to the right in black. Alise

Grady sleeping. He was worn out each day after his nightly swims.

Vail, Day Two

On Sunday, Richard, Grady and I had a wonderful Valentine's Day just hanging out together around the hotel. We went swimming for a long time and that has proven to be Grady's favorite thing to do here. He especially loves to stand up on the side of the pool and shiver from the cold and then jump back in the warm water. My parents, Ty, Neely and Josh arrived around 6:30 that night after a long and horrible day of traveling. We were just thankful they made it here safely.

Richard and Grady swimming in the pool.

A man in the lobby was greeting guests and he made a balloon dog for Grady. He loved it, but quickly unraveled the whole thing into one long balloon. Richard played with it and was able to make it back into a dog. Below is the one Richard made. I was impressed.

Grady loves to wear his goggles. He is pointing to his cheek to tell me to sing "If your happy and you know it then your face will surely show it."

Video of Grady playing with his goggles.

Vail, Day One

Richard, Grady and I left for Vail, Colorado on Saturday, February 13th. It snowed a few inches in Charlotte the night before, but thankfully our flight on Saturday was still on time despite the weather. Before we got on the plane we gave Grady some Benydryl hoping he would sleep on the plane. It did not work and he was very excited the whole time and all over the place! We tried to quite him down a lot with food. He ate a whole roll of Ritz crackers, a small pack of cookies, lots of fruit chews, and many other things. Then we had a to drive to our hotel which was a little under 2 hours away. It took us 3 1/2 hours because the roads were in such horrible condition. It was very scary and were praying a lot! Grady slept a total of 20 minutes and it was from the time we put him in the rental car to the Walmart we stopped at in Denver. Therefore, he was unhappy and whining and crying the whole 3 1/2 hours Richard was driving in the snow storm! My singing, which isn't good, was all that would calm him down. I would fill in normal lyrics for lyrics that were prayers for God to protect us and get us the hotel safe. We finally made it and got a great night of sleep. Unfortunately, my parents, Ty, Neely and Josh were stuck in Charleston with the snow. Their Saturday flight was canceled. Then when they flew here Sunday, their flight was an hour late, they missed their connecting flight in Dallas, and then made it on another flight to Denver a few hours later. Their luggage was lost, but it is on it's way to our hotel now.

Here is Grady sitting in his car seat in the airport. Grady's first airplane ride!

He loved looking out the window and opening and closing the shade.

He watched a lot of Blue's Clues on the plane.

STEVE! If you can't tell he was changing seats/positions constantly! Thankfully nobody sat on our row so we had three seats. It was somehow the only empty seat on the plane!

Grady loves to wear his "goggles." He calls anything that goes over your eyes goggles.

There was a sweet family beind us with a little kid and they played peek-a-boo a lot. He especially loved the grandmother behind us!

A sweet man a few rows back came up to us and gave Grady a pack of cookies. He said he bought them for Grady when the snack lady came around. We thought it was really nice of him. He said that Grady had been eyeing him and smiling at him a lot and he wanted to get him a treat! You can tell Grady loved them!

Pushing buttons on Daddy's laptop. We were trying to entertain him with every toy we could think of that made zero noise. We even had Blue's Clues muted.

Tickle Monster gloves!

Here he is alseep for his 20 minutes. Literally we put him in this seat, he was so excited to get in and was asleep before I closed the door and without sucking his thumb. Richard had not even put our bags in the car.

This is how upset he was during our 3 1/2 hour, 10 mile an hour drive through the mountains! Poor guy he was first biting his shoes, then took his socks off and was biting them in anger! Food nor drink was entertaining him anymore at this point. Sad, but funny to us.

Grady's Valentine's Party

On Friday, February 12th, Grady's class had their Valentine's Party. He recently moved up to a new class because he is 18 months old. He loves all his friends and it's so cute to watch them eat at those tiny tables and they talk in baby talk to each other. Here he is with his friends.