Our Fiesta of Five: Whistler Trip

My fantastic husband has qualified for all-expense paid trips two years in a row because he is so good at his job. Last year we went to Kauai and decided to bring the kids (Harper was just 6 weeks old!) but this year's Whistler, Canada trip was just for mom and dad! We left only 2 days after getting back from Costa Rica, and while the timing was not ideal, it ended up working out perfectly for us. My wonderful in-laws were thrilled to come stay at our house for 4 days and 3 nights taking care of our little rugrats. While I am sure they could use another vacation of their own, the girls did great and we are so appreciative to them for letting us have a stress-free break from our little ladies.

While traveling to Whistler proved to NOT be stress-free, fortunately the rest of the trip was incredible. Our connecting flight from SFO to Vancouver was bogusly cancelled by United, and a lengthy 5 hours later we were literally the last people to walk on another flight. Not surprisingly, our bags didn't make the connection and we would spend some frustrating time everyday on our trip trying to track them down. The bag ended up being in San Diego when we returned 4 days later...oh well! We got to do a little bit of shopping in Whistler and Air Canada will supposedly reimburse us.

Anyway! After a 2.5 hour drive from Vancouver to Whistler, we finally arrived at the Four Seasons, and even at midnight we could tell it was gorgeous. The hotel staff did their best to supplement our lack of toiletries and we hit up the pharmacy the next day to get a few essentials.

We spent the rest of the trip exploring the area, walking a LOT, shopping a little (heehee), and thoroughly enjoying being together. We took a helicopter ride and saw snow-covered mountains, thick forests, a glacier and natural lakes tinted green from natural minerals. We took a chair lift up Blackcomb Mountain, a 4 mile gondola ride across a deep valley to Whistler Mountain. It was amazing and a little scary. The best part was walking around in flip flops on top of a snow-covered mountain! Then we took an open air chair lift down Whistler and had a refreshing lunch of oysters and fries!