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Remember when we were kids and the weather predictions were always wrong? Well, technology seems to have improved. They said it was going to be below zero in Vermont this past weekend and INDEED, it was below zero. One day, the wind chill was -25. Are you shivering just by proxy?

But… when you drive six hours north to Sugarbush Mountain, you do not let a little thing like COLD effect your fun!

Well, maybe you stay indoors on the -25 wind chill day, but for the most part, you proceed as planned!

Well, you probably stay inside on the -15 degree day too but GODDAMNIT, you get outside at some point!

The first day was actually warm enough for skiing. And by warm enough, I think it was 7 degrees. Good thing warm winter gear technology has improved along with weather predictions.

I wore two pairs of pants UNDER my ski pants, two shirts, a fleece vest, a ski jacket, a balaclava, a fleece necker over the balaclava, a helmet, goggles, a pair of waterproof gloves and one really good thick pair of socks. FYI: You should never wear more than one pair of socks in your ski boots because you can cut off circulation to your toes and put yourself at greater risk for frostbite. I learned that lesson about ten years ago and never wore two pairs of socks again.

Here’s me in my outfit:

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Oh no wait. That’s me trying to look somewhat normal in a regular hat. Here’s me on the mountain:

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Does that look cold enough for you?

Mazzy went to ski school and wore pretty much the same gear I did, except her ski outfit is a one-piece. She was also not going anywhere near the top of the mountain so she would not be dealing with the same wind chill as Mike and me.

Here she is excited to ski, freezing temperatures be damned:

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Harlow wore a sweater and leggings. We kept indoors— we’re not crazy!

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We sent Harlow to a daycare at the mountain until noon and then our cousin Robyn watched her until we returned at 3pm. Did I mention we were sharing a condo with our cousins? We go skiing with them every year. Robyn doesn’t ski and is always happy to babysit. GOD BLESS HER.

To protect our skin from the cold, my whole family slathered ourselves in Vaseline Intensive Care™ Advanced Repair lotion (the sponsor of our trip), which forms a barrier on the skin’s surface that seals in moisture.

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I don’t know if it is just because I have been way more on top of my moisturizing game or because the healing micro-droplets of pure Vaseline jelly are really THAT EFFECTIVE, but we had no dry skin issues throughout our trip. Normally, the kids get cheek chafing and my legs look like they might belong to a lizard, but everybody’s skin is smoother than ever with no evidence we’ve been spending time in sub zero temperatures and then returning to the VERY DRY HEAT of our condo.

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I even noticed Mazzy stopped her incessant itching, which makes me feel badly we didn’t start using Vaseline Intensive Care on her skin sooner. Also, I was inspired to start using the lotion on my dry cracked feet and HOLY CRAP, I noticed a big difference after the first application! My feet don’t look and feel like they belong to an old man anymore! Mike is THRILLED.

I will spare you the foot pics.

Skiing conditions were pretty fabulous that first day. We had fresh snow, no wind and the mountain was not very crowded.

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My only problem was I was supposed to take pictures of our day and my phone kept telling me it needed to cool down before use.

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I don’t know if it was really warm in my jacket or the phone was so cold, it got confused. In either case, it would only work about half the time. Also, taking off my glove to take a picture made my fingers feel like they were going to fall off. But I still managed to snap a couple.

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I even got a few of Mazzy after ski school when she wanted to take a few runs with us before stopping for the day. (Wanting to continue skiing is always a good sign your child hasn’t frozen to death.)

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After one day of ski school, Mazzy improved dramatically from our last trip. That was the time she almost skied right off the mountain into the parking lot. PIZZA STOPS ARE EVERYTHING. The instructors even moved her up a level in the middle of the day and said she’d probably move up another level the next day.

Unfortunately, the next day was the -25 wind chill day and none of us went anywhere. There was a lot of this:

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And also this:

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The day after was the -15 degree day and we stayed indoors for much of that day too. Around noon, Mazzy started complaining that we hadn’t built a snowman yet and rather than get all Elsa on her, I told her to get dressed and we would give it a shot.

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We went around back so we could come in quickly if we were too cold. This meant we had to climb a snowbank that left Mazzy waist deep in snow. She had never walked in snow so deep (I don’t know if I have either) and we laughed our heads off the whole time.

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The snow was high but not that packable, so we made an absolutely terrible looking snowman.

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Mazzy called him Olaf and said, “He’s not that bad” and all was okay. This also meant when his head toppled over, it was true to character.

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Then she packed snowballs (which I forbid her to throw at me) and made snow angels.

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We both truly had an awesome time out there because her excitement was contagious.

Mazzy’s next request was to go sledding, so after a bit of research on where to take two little kids on a small hill, we all drove to a nearby golf course. Mike brought a tube, two flying saucers and a toboggan. I don’t know why he thought we would need all those sleds.

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We also took Harlow, which turned out to be a mistake.

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Here are some other sledding mistakes a family might make:

1) Thinking a field is too flat to gain any real momentum.

2) Forgetting the snow is three feet deep and mostly fresh, making it almost impossible to walk back up the hill, especially for small children.

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Mike put Mazzy and Harlow in the toboggan and gave it a little push, thinking they would just slide a few feet away. We both realized his mistake as soon as the sled took off and quickly picked up speed. Then we both followed our immediate instinct, which was to run after it, totally forgetting how deep the snow was. So basically, we screamed, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!” in unison, took one huge running leap and then both fell flat on our faces simultaneously. Both of us buried in snow, several feet away from each other, with Mazzy and Harlow still sledding off down the hill. I’ll give you a moment to picture it. If someone had been filming, we would have won America’s Funniest Home Videos, for sure.

The sled came to a stop without any dramatic capsizing (thank god), but Harlow was still understandably terrified. By the time we got to them, Harlow wanted to go back inside immediately while Mazzy wanted to “DO IT AGAIN!!!”

Mike ran Harlow back to the car and I stayed out with Mazzy a little longer.

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After one more push down the hill, Mazzy learned how hard it was to get back up to the top and wanted to pack it in as well.

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Just to illustrate how ridiculously high the snow was, at one point, I dropped our bright blue snowball maker and despite seeing it fall out of my hands into the snow directly in front of me, I was not able to locate it. It is gone forever.

We ended the day by going to a place called Adventure Time, which was basically an indoor tennis court with a swing set, a trampoline and a bouncy castle.

I have never seen the kids so excited to be indoors.

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I was pretty happy to be inside too.

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I’m still giving away a $500 CVS gift card and a Vaseline prize pack. You can enter under each post about my trip for additional entries.

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JUST FOLLOW THE GIVEAWAY RULES BELOW:

1) You must be a Mommy Shorts subscriber and “like” or “share” this post in some way to enter. Then leave a comment answering the following question in the comment section below:

How do you like your roasted marshmallows? Soft and warm or burnt to a crisp?

2) For an additional entry, follow @vaselinebrand and @mommyshorts on twitter and tweet the following, leaving a second comment saying you did so:

I just entered to win a $500 CVS gift card from @mommyshorts and @vaselinebrand! #vaseline #staywarmmommyshorts http://bit.ly/17UrTCk

You can see the full rules here.

Winner will be announced Monday, February 23rd when I give a recap of my trip

Good luck!

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This post sponsored was sponsored by Vaseline, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.