Park City long weekend

My kids had this Monday off school (for Eid al Fitr — a new thing for our school district this year). So we decided to do a long weekend trip to Park City, Utah for skiing. My husband had taken our younger kids there twice (when I took the three older kids to the UK in late 2022, and then when I took the two older boys to Spain over spring break in 2024), and knew that it was a relatively doable trip. There’s a direct flight from PHL to SLC, and then Canyons Village is only about 35 minutes from the airport. We stayed at a resort that was right by the slopes. Going in late March it wouldn’t be too crowded. Nor would it be that cold! But there would still be snow, so it worked.

The trip went pretty well as family trips go (even if it did feel like a quick turnaround after Barcelona — but the kids hadn’t been on that, so it didn’t feel that way for them). It started a little rough. We left on Friday afternoon after school and got on a 6:55 p.m. flight. This meant we landed just a few minutes before 10 p.m. Mountain time, but that was midnight for us. The 5-year-old started crying at about 10:30 p.m. our time that he just wanted to be in his bed. Eventually I got him to fall asleep on me, though I wound up feeling pretty queasy on that flight too (something I ate I think). No one was in good shape when we got off. I went to the bathroom and sent everyone on with my carry-on to go wait for the bags we’d checked (with ski helmets/etc.). I was carrying the 5-year-old’s backpack, so I didn’t notice that I didn’t have two bags with me when we left the baggage claim (because I did have two bags…just not mine) and the child who’d been assigned to carry my bag to the baggage claim decided that it was my turn after we got there but with no official hand-off, and then no one counted bags as we were discombobulated and getting in the rental car.

Net result: As we were checking in at the resort, my phone rang with a Salt Lake City number. I picked it up and heard a cheerful voice saying “Laura! Did you leave your bag at the airport?”

Yep, we’d left it sitting there by the baggage claim (fortunately well labeled with my name and phone number!). I was pretty much despondent at this point, but after we got into the room my husband got back in the car, drove back to the airport, got my bag, and came back at 1 a.m. Mountain time, or about 3 a.m. our time. Quite the night!

The good news with the time difference is that, despite the short night, we were able to get up in the morning pretty easily. My husband and I took the 5-year-old down to the ski rental place, got him set up, and then checked him in for his first day of ski school. This is one of the major highlights of a ski vacation. A lot of resorts have daycare for very young children and then by age 4-5 the kids can take lessons, so the adults and older children can go ski on more challenging slopes. I don’t ski, but this is how my husband was able to take our little guy on these trips by himself and actually get to do any serious skiing.

We got the rest of the kids in their gear and off to the slopes…and then I enjoyed a few hours to myself. Both days! I went to the gym, I worked, I took myself out to lunch at this little Japanese place for ramen, and then picked up the 5-year-old at 3 p.m. He did so well! Over the course of the two days he got promoted to the “Blue” group, whatever that means, but he’s definitely getting better. My husband mostly skied with the older kids (the 15-year-old did snowboarding) though they left the mountain at various points as they had phones/room keys/etc.

Then in the evenings we’d go to the resort’s restaurant, which had pub fare and giant milkshakes, and the little guys would go play in the resort game room. Our balcony had a hot tub, so we made it in there both nights too. We don’t do so many things with all 7 of us anymore, so it was kind of nice to be forced into togetherness for a bit!

It was a short trip, just two days of skiing, and we headed back on Monday. The way back is shorter (only a 3h 40m flight) but it was so, so bumpy I was counting minutes for a lot of it. As we approached Philadelphia (which had a major storm system coming in) the plane actually lurched. Like, people screamed and flew up from their seats — good thing we were wearing seat belts. So I was glad to get on the ground, get our bags (we counted this time) and get everyone else in the van. Then I got in a cab to go to my choir rehearsal downtown, arriving just in time. It seems Philadelphia was about 75 degrees this past weekend, so no more Pocono skiing this year.

It was a lot of running around for the weekend, but the mountains were so beautiful. A little hard getting everyone back on eastern time but we are surviving.

Photo: View in the other direction from the ski slopes. The ski slopes themselves had a lot more snow…