Well, as many of you have learned, we had a very memorable vacation last week.
The trip got off to a great start. Keystone got 4 inches of snow the day we got there, our condo had a great view and was in walking distance of the gondola & we beat the Spring Break crowd. We were in the makings of an AWESOME ski trip!
Kate, Jan & Susan took lessons the first day, so I skied with the boys. Here's Todd, Ben, Jason & Jack. They did their best to keep up with me :). That night the guys went back out for night skiing while us girls cozied up to the fireplace and played dominoes. Picture perfect, right?
That was until Day 2. Ben started to not feel so hot around noon. We rode the gondola back down the mountain and he spent the rest of the day in bed, with what we thought was altitude sickness. The trip then gets a little blurry for me. I do know, that by midnight we were at the ER in a hospital in Frisco. Poor Ben had been diagnosed with an appendicitis, kidney stones, a GI infection...you name it. The truth was, they couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. He spent the next 2 nights in the hospital on fluids and pain medicine. We would stare out of the hospital room window at the beautiful snow-covered mountains and joke (kind of) that at least it beat the view from a hospital room in College Station.
The group dinner outing that we had planned for Saturday night, ended up being take-out from A&W. We played dominoes, told stories, and were told only once by the nurses to keep it down. It was a close second to our cozy condo in the mountains.
They released Ben on Sunday morning with a prescription for a colin infection, which we soon found out was a waste of money. But for the meantime, we got to enjoy the mountain one last day.
Instead of skiing, we all went tubing! If you've never been tubing, I highly recommend it!
This is us girls, towards the end of a run. Fun times!
And this is Vince Vaughn, no joke.
Ben was able to ride the gondola up the mountain and take pictures for us. We were glad to have him back.
This picture, as goofy as it is, is the last one I have of trip. That night, we found ourselves again at the emergency room. This time in Denver. After 1 x-ray, they determined that Ben had an appendix that was about to burst and would need surgery. (That would have been nice to know on Friday!) Ben was completely calm about the whole thing, even anxious to get it on and over with. I, on the other hand, was a mess. My uncle David (who happens to live in Denver) made it to the hospital shortly after Ben went into surgery. He hung out with me most of the day (while Ben slept & recovered), helped me book new flights home and then drove us to the airport the next morning. What a God-send. Poor Ben, doped up on pain medication, had to be wheeled through the airport security and loaded onto the plane while half asleep. We got to ride on one of those go-carts at DFW airport (with all of the senior citizens) which I've always wanted to do. Ben probably doesn't even remember it. Fun times for me, not so much for him. Addi helped us unpack when we got home. I wish these gloves and goggles could have gotten more use.
Ben is feeling great and already looking forward to next year's trip.
That is, if they'll let us go :)
