Keystone Ski Trip

Ben and I went on a ski trip in January for our anniversary to Keystone, Colorado.

It was my first time to this adorable town and I just loved it!

It has a quaint little village, incredible skiing, and a huge mountain to explore.

We went with Ryan and Stacee who were also celebrating Stacee's birthday.

Ben and Ryan had just gone two weeks before with their Men's Group bible study to the same resort and were excited to bring us back.

The drive to Keystone is a couple hours but the views are incredible.

We arrived around dinner time on a Friday night and drove from Denver to Keystone, checked into our condo and had dinner in the village. It was a pretty normal evening and we went to bed excited for our first day of skiing Saturday morning.

This is where the beginning of our trip gets crazy.

Around 3am in the morning, Ben and I are snoozing when we hear a LOUD thud in the other room and then a blood-curling scream from Stacee yelling Ryan's name a few times and yelling for us to call 911. Ben jumped out of bed, not really remembering where we were, and tries to open the door to their room and is stopped by Ryan's body laying on the ground.

As we peak into the room all we can see are Ryan's feet laying on the ground.

Stacee tells us by this time that he has a pulse and he's breathing but to call 911. I call and tell them where we are located and they are there quick; within just a few minutes.

While I am on the phone, Ryan wakes up.

He has no idea what has happened.

All he remembered is sitting up in bed going to open the blinds on the window so he could see in the room to walk to the bathroom.

After the fact, we are pretty sure he just passed out from the altitude and bounced around from the bed to the wall a few times and then finally hit the ground.

It was such a shocking thing to happen. Ryan has never had problems in altitude before. He was JUST in this same exact location 2 weeks prior with no issues.

It just came out of no where.

The paramedics were great and checked his pulse, gave him oxygen, monitored him, did an EKG to ensure there was no heart event, and just stayed with him a while until he felt better.

They finally left our room around 5:45am and we all tried our best to get a little sleep before our first day of skiing. In the moment, it seemed crazy but I am so glad we got these pictures.

Ryan looked at them multiple times to see how pale he was during his episode and what all they hooked him up to. 

It's worth documenting, because it is definitely something we will never forget.

In the end, Ryan recovered well and took most of Saturday at a slow pace and kept Stacee company during her ski lesson. After about a day, he said the only thing that was still bothering him was his leg where Ben had whacked him with the door trying to open it to get inside the room to help. :)

I felt like Stacee's mom sending her off to ski school for the day and making sure she got to where she needed to go :)

It was my first time to ski with Ben without any family and just adults.

It has a whole different, relaxing dynamic to it.

There is nothing like skiing with my kids but not taking off and on 10 layers of clothes off of three children multiple times a day was kind of nice. We skied as long as we wanted, as fast as we wanted and just enjoyed the day!

It was so fun!!

Getting ready for a day of skiing in the condo.

Our condo fireplace and our matching souvenir shirts.

Evening hot tub time in some eskimo Stacee brought us for the trip.

We loved walking around the village just to look in the shops, sit by a fire or have a great meal.

We ate lunch most days on top of the mountain and where we could even warm our feet by the fire too.

The weather was perfect, sunny and not too cold the whole weekend.

So proud of this beginner skier.

She is picking it up so fast and was going down blues with us by day three!

There was so much cool stuff on this mountain!

At the bottom of one side of the mountain was this barbeque shed that you could eat and lounge and relax and watch people come down the slopes. It was so cool.

They had this huge kids area at the top of the mountain complete with sledding, snow tubing and even a giant snow fort with built in slides. I took a picture in it because I knew my kids would have LOVED it.

Even though it started a little crazy, it ended up being such a great trip!

I am so thankful for my time away with Ben with these sweet friends.