We’re getting ready to pack up and head home from Tremblant. So I’m writing instead of packing because packing is fucking terrifying.

Here’s how we survived (and even enjoyed) five days up here with Little Miss Thing (4) and the Sheep (2).

First. We drove. Yup. Eight fucking hours from NYC. We left at 6:30 PM; right after dinner. Kids went into the car in their PJs, covered in blankets and lovies. They slept most of the way and we split up the driving roughly 60:40. So many Red Bulls. Good thing I love Red Bull.

Only one of them vomited; and not till we were very close to the hotel. Its not a real drive until someone throws up a banana and curdled semi-digested milk, anyways.

If you’re wondering why we didn’t just fly, there’s a few reasons. (1) I still have PTSD from flying with them (albeit ten hours) to a destination wedding last year. (2) The notion of getting on a plane with these fuckers and all of our ski gear makes me want to impale myself on a tree trail. (3) I really like having our car up there.

We checked in around 3 am and they went right back to sleep.

Just kidding; they were fucking animals.

We didn’t get them back to sleep till almost 4:30 AM. I woke up with the Sheep in my armpit at 7:40 and we started our day as if we hadn’t just had a fucking family raver a few hours earlier.

We stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn — in a two bedroom suite with a kitchenette (fridge, oven, stove-top, sink, microwave). The room was amazing. Two big bedrooms, two bathrooms, TVs upstairs and down.

The hotel has a gondola (or as the Sheep says “gongo-wah”) right outside the door so there’s no walk with your skis to the base of the mountain (which is where the ski school and day care are).

Left my snowboard in a rack right outside the front door. Easy peasy. [Last year we stayed at the Westin. It’s nice, too — but a longer walk to the main area and the staff was sort of obnoxious.]

Had breakfast in the hotel every day; the kids loved the make-your-own waffles situation and the fresh squeezed juice. No one batted an eye when the Sheep dumped an entire cup of it onto his chair and told his dad he had to go sit somewhere else. Fun!

I think we all went down barefoot one morning – the staff was not super amused by that one. But still so polite. Oh, Canada.

We put Little Miss Thing in ski school full-time. Did the same last year when she was 3. Last year she spent most of it on the little bunny hill. This year she got off the bunny hill. On day 2, we ran into her, the instructor (Fanny), and the other two kids in their group at the top of the mountain. Little Miss acted like it was the most natural thing in the world and gave us a casual wave. Then Fanny took all their skis off and headed back to the Gondola — apparently some kid named Nicholas peed in his pants. Nicholas!

But they did get three runs in on the mountain by the end of the day. I’m really impressed that Fanny could shepherd three 4yr olds up and down the mountain. I can barely get my two gerbils safely up the goddamn stairs in my house.

Meanwhile the Sheep went to daycare, which is right next door to the ski school. The staff remembered my giant marshmallow from last year. He saw bubbles and went right in. On the first day, I picked him up at 1 PM; fought with him to nap in our hotel room, lost, and switched him to the full day for the rest of the trip.

On day two they reported that he napped for an hour and forty min after lunch. Also, he’s “independent.” [Which is polite French-Canadian for “your enormous son is clearly in the Terrible Twos.”]

So, what did I DO with myself once my kids were safely ensconced at their respective activities? Well, on the first day I did four conference calls for work after I finally stopped jumping up and down and yelling about freedom. But I stared at the snow and Christmas trees through the window so it felt like vaca.

After that, we actually got up on the mountain and did some runs! Turns out, snowboarding is for young people who don’t have kids and 400 million pounds of baby weight. But we still enjoyed it.

Last year I cried because I was just too fucking fat to enjoy snowboarding. It used to be one of my most favorite activities. This year I was 15 lbs lighter. Definitely still fat. But apparently those 15 lbs did the trick and I had some great nostalgic runs blasting Weezer and belting out inappropriate lyrics for a 33 yr old mother.

I highly recommend a light sushi (or ramen) lunch at Samurai in the ski village. For whatever reason, the cappuccino there is particularly delicious.

Another great thing about putting kids into ski school and daycare is the possibility of going back to the room for adult activities.

“But I stopped shaving two weeks ago to prepare for the sub-zero tundra,” you say. Me too. What happens in Tremblant, hairy legs included, stays in Tremblant. And then gets posted on a blog.

After the first full day, the Sheep went to sleep in a pack-n-play (supplied by the hotel). We drank a glass of champagne with the dinner I’d made between work calls in the little kitchenette.
For whatever reason, my kids really like the idea of their home food on vacation, in addition to eating at restaurants
Something about routine. They both ate their chicken, quinoa and salad better than usual. [Note: there is a little general store in the village – lots of fun decadent foods; that’s where we got the champers and firewood.]

When Little Miss Thing then asked to sleep in the same room as her brother, her dad went in to put her down. The poor sucker never made it out.

Cut to me drinking the rest of the bubbly out of the bottle, feet up on the coffee table in front of the fire watching whatever the shit that show is on HGTV. The one with the couple everyone worshiped and now he’s fresh outta rehab and she has moved on to date a bunch of other guys who also have addiction problems. Suffice it to say I had an uplifting little evening for one.

Here’s the best part. I went to bed in the upstairs bedroom loft. Alone. He got stuck with two kids and I slept like a giant drunk baby – alone. It was a Christmas miracle.

Speaking of miracles. If you have a car, make a reservation at Rustique in Lac Superieur. But know this: although they have a couple of kids’ options on the menu, there are NO PAPER OR PLASTIC CUPS. So bring a sippy cup or chance it with your kid drinking water out of a mini glass mason jar. Somehow, we didn’t leave any smashed glass on the floor and my kids are 4 and 2 and the two year old is like a fucking farm animal. So yea, there’s clearly a god. And he hangs out in Lac Superieur.

If you’re into yoga, there’s a studio 15 min from Tremblant called Karma Shala. All I can tell you is that the first two min of the class with Marlene are wonderful. That’s when Little Miss Thing, in her little blue yoga outfit, told me we had to leave immediately. She had talked about doing a yoga class with me for days. We do it at home. Well, we’ve done it twice. But when we got there it was too adult-y and she was shy and exhausted and we had to leave. I’m still bitter about it.

Learn from my mistake: don’t assume a 4 year old can go do yoga with a bunch of grownups after a full day of skiing. And then, when you get back and try to recover from that error in judgment, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES let her watch the Barbie: Life in the Dream-house show on Netflix. It’s like a saccharine pack of digital bubblegum that melts your brain and replaces it with weak feminine stereotypes and an eating disorder.

Little Miss Thing plays with Barbies at home (even though it kills my soul a little) but this was something else. Avoid at all costs.

Some lucky travel hacks that worked well / other recommendations for Tremblant:

• The Classical Lullaby mix on Spotify – I put it on my phone for the Sheep to fall asleep to. Instead of schlepping that godawful sound machine that only plays Twinkle Twinkle and dares you not to smash it into the fucking wall.
• I made sure to have snacks in the room for post-skiing, pre-dinner. Fruit, animal crackers and some chips did the trick.
• I also brought some basic foods to cook for in-room dining so we could have the option of not eating out every night. On our last night, my kids scarfed down their turkey bacon, cucumbers, and plain noodles like it was crack. And we made our own fondue with fantastic cheese and bread from the general store. That was actually crack.
• I made sure to have some activities in the room for downtime / in between activities. Brought some new little sketch books (one for each kids) and two new packs of crayons and scented markers. found them at Shoprite. They will probably give us cancer. But the kids went crazy for them and occupied themselves, so there’s that.
• I also brought this fab little “make your own pizza” Play Doh set that my sister in law bought the kids for Hanukkah. The kids went back to the little table to do these activities countless times. Whatever toys or activity sets you bring, best to bring new ones. The novelty lasts just long enough.
• Go Dog-sledding. Do it. It is wonderful. Book at the activity center in the ski village. (Or online.) Dress very warmly — like in ski clothes.
• These teachers at the ski school were all warm, skilled, and attentive: Laurence, Florence, Fanny, Maria, and Veronique. Your 3-4 year old will be lucky to have any of them. Tip generously at the end. These people deal with your snotty cranky kids in frustrating ski gear all day. We should elect them to Congress.
• Do the full day at daycare. Consider it a Christmas / Hanukkah gift for your soul. You should send baby/toddler with diapers, wipes, butt paste, empty bottle if/she needs a bottle, and whatever loveys or dolls kid needs to nap. Tip generously at the end.
• Go to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate store. But not too close to dinner. You’re welcome.

See you in Tremblant next year, moms.  I’ll be the one with the vodka.