we had planned to take one more trip to let lil do some water skiing before she got to pregnant, but alas, she didn’t feel comfortable getting out, but at least michael and i got to rip it up. i stopped in foster auditorium (my old gym) which has been COMPLETELY redone. the place was a rathole when we played there, and now it’s super fancy and womens vball and basketball are back to playing there.
lake tuscaloosa was warm and wonderful. here i’m trying to “help” michael, but he obviously isn’t wanting to be “lifesaved” : )
bear loved his first time in the boat, and began to “like” being in the water a little better
michael’s all grown up and ripping big airs now.
and i’m still giving it my best shot, too
michael did have some problems with his tub flipping when jason was dragging us behind the boat, though.
jason won parent of the year for letting michael stay up and play tiger woods golf with us til 1AM on saturday…he also gets big shoutouts for putting up with my little boy (who didn’t get potty training until about 1 week later) who peed on his floor about 8 times : )
we headed out to park city for christmas. lil’s sister melissa was great with child (verily) and way past being able to fly, so her whole family headed out to park city to be with her and jonathon for christmas. lil and i got to do 3 good days of skiing/boarding and then christmas with the family. somehow lillis and her sisters/mom ended up somehow spending about 65% of the time we were not skiing cooking. they cooked (or attempted to cook) any number of unique creations. speaking of unique, hangar one makes a pear flavored vodka. i bought a bottle out there and tried it. highly recommended.
anyway, we did our skiing in park city and at the canyons. it snowed about 4 feet in the 2 days before we got there. the first day was a little bit cold and there was some wet snow falling (which made it tough sledding – so to speak) but the next two days were fabulous.
lil and i stop for a quick picture at the canyons
“lil and her mom have a fun, quirky tradition,” said charles. i’m concerned that it seems unlikely they’ll grow out of it.
when the sun came out, it was completely gorgeous out there. here’s the view from the top of the terrain park.
lillis thinks my helmet makes her head look large. i think so, too. it’s very “great gazoo”-esque.
here i am with most of lil’s family at park city. everyone skied all morning, and then everyone but me went and road the roller coaster in the afternoon. i opted for more boarding (i only get a few days each year).
here’s the view from our cabin (quite) early on christmas morning. on the right is a GIANT tree that someone had outfitted with christmas lights.
i have no idea how to spell this dog’s name. it’s pronounced “nolla” like “holla.” anyway, nala, was checking out the nativity scene while melissa worked on making some waffles in the kitchen.
that’s me. and my wife. and some mountains.
same mountains, same wife, lil’s dad, and her sister, and nola.
beautiful country out there.
here lil and her sister lacey perform a lillis family tradition of resting ones hands on someone elses abdomen. good times
it was a good trip. no broken bones, or travel hassles. plenty of good snow and good food…and santa was able to find lillis and sneak some icebreakers clothing into her stocking.
below is the video from our trip. we didn’t get a whole lot b/c lil was only skiing with me for a 1/2 day most of the time and we really didn’t do much hitting the terrain park or anything. next year, i insist on more “big air” opportunities.
anyway, the rest of the pics are here, and see below (if you’re on facebook, you’d have to view this post in it’s source or at charlesbreland.com) for the video.
lil and i were planning our ski trip and she decided we should go somewhere a little different. we usually end up in the park city area, but she was feeling adventurous. i asked her where she wanted to go….she said crested butte or jackson hole. we checked and delta had direct flights into jackson so we booked it and headed out west. sunset on the mountains was gorgeous as we flew in.
flying into jackson, you actually land in the middle of grand teton national park. pretty impressive and only a short 15 minute shuttle ride from the town of jackson (and the very nice homewood suites with the super-friendly staff and the free shuttles to/from the airport and the slopes). it was a really cute little town. it had great restaurants, a cool feel, and much more reasonable prices for food and “stuff” than most any other place i’ve been.
lillis liked their town square with the shops
and she particularly loved the antler arch (elk antlers).
the mountain was seriously steep.
we met people who had actually relocated there from other ski areas just to have access to more advanced terrain. it was certainly a little steeper than any place i’d been before, but it did have some beginner perq’s if anyone was going with a “mixed skill” group. #1 it seemed that the easy slopes were grouped all together at the bottom of the hill, #2 there’s a smaller mountain in the town that has 30 something dollar lift tickets, night skiing and tubing, and #3 it is a short drive to grand teton or yellowstone parks. also, skiers or any ski level can enjoy making jokes using the words “teton” and “jackson hole”.
team photo up on the hill
lillis wore my helmet to protect her little head. i’m not being precious, it really is rather small. anyway, the helmet looked huge on her and she was trying to cover it up for her picture. i thought she looked rather like the “great gazoo” but she had never heard of him. i forget she grew up on a farm.
here lil shows off some of her moves coming down a double blue
then we took a final shot at the end of our skiing to show that we’d both survived.
btw, another strong feature of jackson hole….music at the bottom of the resort every day at the end of the day and kids and dogs running around all over the place. really a nice setup they’ve got there.
we went out to dinner all three nights. night 1 – Gun Barrel Steak and Game House – AWESOME bison and elk. night 2 – mountain high pizza pie – solid and inexpensive. night 3 – Nikai sushi – FANTASTIC sushi place. well worth the (admittedly expensive) meal. when we got back lillis had a special moment with the moose we bought her. she was infatuated with moose on the trip (even though we never saw one). after a glass of wine at dinner (it doesn’t take much) she had a spirited conversation with the moose, trying to decide his name. she just kept repeating….”Maaarty…..JACK…..Maaaary……JACK…..Marty Moose sounds cool, but Jack is good because he’s from Jackson Hole.” in an upset, Marty won out.
the next morning we had one last brunch and lillis enjoyed the sunshine and the coffee before we headed home.
while the snow was mediocre, the resort was great, the town had a cool vibe, and the break from everything else was enjoyed. i highly recommend the place. here are the rest of the photos from the trip. enjoy!
oh, and finally, below is the video. nothing too crazy this year, as we only had three days on the hill and lil hadn’t skied in a 2 years and i was boarding a little gingerly to protect the ribs. so, no super high speeds, and no big aerials – particularly as most of my big aerials tend to end with big wipeouts.
sooooo, i was able to convince john and stephen that it would be a good idea for us to spend a weekend out in the woods with no food and no hair dryers (more a concern for stephen than for me - and less so every day). we found our way up to the greater […]
we went to huntsvegas for our end of the season volleyball tourney with the tsunami club i've been working with. below are a few picks of my team (13 black). we had a tough opening day, but did manage to upset the #1 seed in the tournament on day 2 before bowing out.below, allie poses […]
i took a second trip to nicaragua in april. this time brent nix (the mystery 4th in our group) and john headed down as well. it was john's 3rd trip and we were taking a look at a couple of places that he had visited before as well as some new places that peter wanted […]
sorry, no pics for this one. soooo, Atlanta was hosting the inagural ING marathon on March 25th. several of my friends had been training for months, but i had been nursing a sore leg and had not jogged for about 2 months. for some reason my friends (most notably jason, drew and blake) thought it […]
well, i'm sure everyone was jonesin for an update on the fantasy baseball draft update. i know it's like a monkey on my back. well, we were very excited that our draft angel was still there this year and had not indeed been killed by the fans of the Dominican team last year. as you […]
soooo, i decided to wing on up to DC to check out the WHO at Verizon Center with my friends Jeff and Todd and my brother Jeremy. We had a pretty fun weekend there, highlighted by either the girl who claimed she had political asylum, or the one whose belt was "Hermes" (as i was […]
all apologies for my lateness in getting this post out. the lesson here? i'm a slackass. a special note, going forward, all blog pictures will be clickable. clicking them won't make you smarter, but it will increase the size of the photo. this service i supply to you free of charge.sooooo, stephen, jason and myself […]
soooo, as you may know (if YOU are indeed reading this, and it's entirely possible you're not) i am now coaching volleyball. i'm coaching a girls 13's team that plays out of Woodward. often times those practices are the highlight of my week. there's something really amazing about having 12 people scream your name every […]
i usually try not to really mention what i'm thinking here, as it is my general supposition that no one really cares, but today will be an exception. i'm not even going to pretend that any more than 3 people in america might find me insiteful, but i figured i'd just put it out here. […]
nothing really to tell here. drew and i went fishing. i caught my first bass (more of a fly fisherman, i am)you may remember my phat hat as being the same one i won for catching a barracuda on drew's bachelor party. it still looks every bit as good as it did the day i […]
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Hope you enjoy the site. Below are links to different content on the site, and to the left are the latest posts from my blog at charlesbreland.blogspot.com. My pictures are on picasa, and I've just completed building my professional photography site at charles+camera.com.
