This time last week we were en route to a wonderful ski vacation with the Watsons in Utah! We had a blast! Our only complaint was that the vacation was too short (and our return flight home was HORRENDOUS - we'll never fly United again). But on to the fun part. ;) We flew out at 6am on Friday morning which was totally worth it b/c we were in Salt Lake by 9am local time. We were thrilled to be able to do lunch with Bryan's great-aunt Dorothy. She is the sweetest lady and we had so much fun spending time with her. After that, we headed on over to Park City to check into our condo - which was AMAZING. Totally perfect for all of us! That night, we drove back in to Salt Lake to spend some time with Bryan's grandparents. The boys helped Grandpa Keddington with his new computer before we enjoyed some Asian Star for dinner. If you've never heard us talk about Asian Star then I'll let you in on the secret. It's the BEST asian cuisine ever! Better than Doc Chey's, PF Chang, or any of the others. If only it were closer to us.....oh well. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with his grandparents and the great food.
The next morning we woke up early to eat breakfast in our cute little condo, and then we hit the slopes! It was Andrea's first time skiing so we headed straight for the "bunny slopes". After a morning of Andrea learning to stand on skis, ski, and appropriately fall down the mountain we took a break for some lunch at a great restaurant at the bottom of the slopes. Oh, and in order to get to this restaurant, Andrea totally skied down a blue. Yeah, she was awesome! For the afternoon, us ladies headed back over to the greens so Andrea could get her ski legs under control while the boys explored more of the mountain. That night we went to eat some very yummy Mexican and explore downtown Park City. It's such a cute little town and we had a blast.
The next day was filled with more skiing, except for this time the boys had some fun blues to take us down. Remember - this was only Andrea's second day of skiing EVER and she was skiing blues ALL DAY LONG! We were all so impressed! The runs the boys found were so much fun and went by these huge houses. We hung out on those blues (and a few others) for most of the day. The ladies finally called it quits around 3:30 when our legs and knees couldn't take it anymore. The weather was amazing, so we parked ourselves on some comfy chairs at the bottom of the final run to wait for the boys to come down. It was truly a perfect day of skiing!! That night we treated ourselves to an amazing dinner at J&G Grill at the St. Regis in Deer Valley. It was ah-mazing. I had some of the best salmon I've ever had. It was quite memorable.
Our trip home was horrible. There are no two ways about it. We all stayed in good spirits (well as good of a mood as you can be when you're stuck in the Houston airport for 7 hours), but we will never fly with United again. We found out on Sunday night around 9pm that our flight out of SLC the next morning (which was supposed to be at 8am) had been canceled (mind you - no one contacted us) and we had been rebooked on a 6am flight. Awesome. That night the boys tried to call the customer service line, but we found out they had shut it down due to high call volume. B/c that's a total reasonable thing to do. Just ignore all the complaints. So we begrudgingly made it to our 6 am flight and arrived in Houston around 10am local time. Since our flight into Houston was earlier than the original one, we were supposed to have a 3 hour layover. We tried to make the best of it and played cards and found some yummy food. As we were on our way to our gate, we found out our flight had been delayed. Still trying to stay positive, we found a good window to watch the planes and played some family feud on the iPad. Andrea and I also found a little "spa" and got a massage. Hey - when life gives you lemons... As we once again started to head over to our gate, we found out our flight to Atlanta had been canceled. The weather was fine, and we were never given a reason for the cancellation. With no other choice, we headed to the customer service line. We were originally told they would rebook us on the 6am flight the NEXT MORNING. Clearly they didn't know who they were dealing with b/c there was no way that was going to be okay with us. Alex and Bryan stood in line for a very long time (likely over an hour and a half) while they tried to find something else for us. We ended up all making the 5:30pm flight out (2 of us were flying stand-by at this point) and arrived back in Atlanta by around 9:30. I only say all this to tell you to please never fly United. I completely understand that things like this happen with airlines. It wasn't the situation that we found maddening, but instead their complete and total lack of customer service. For a company to treat their paying customers that way is unacceptable.
Well, enough about that! The trip (minus the flight home) was a blast, and here are some pictures of our adventures!
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| Our painfully early wake-up time on the first day was worth it in order to have a full day in SLC. |
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| Sunrise on the airplane. |
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| Spending time with Bryan's great-aunt Dorothy. |
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| Ebby in the snow. Isn't she just the cutest? |
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| Bryan and I with his grandparents. |
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| So there's this awesome lift at The Canyons called the Orange Bubble. It's covered and the seats are heated. 1%, what? ;) |
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| That's me - tearing down the slopes! |
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| Andrea learning. I can't explain to you how great she did....such a pro! |
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| After lunch on our second day of skiing. It was a sunny and warm day of skiing. Couldn't have asked for better weather. |
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| Alex may have fallen over while trying to show off. Of course we took a picture... |
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| The view looking back down at The Canyons. |
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| Enjoying Park City at night. |
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| Headed up on the non-Orange Bubble lift. |
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| The funicular at the St. Regis. There's a lower lodge and an upper lodge. We had to take the funicular up to the restaurant in the upper lodge. It was awesome, and yes, we are easily amused. |
