When Inspirato member Marin Hamilton found out she was pregnant with her fourth child, she and her husband, Jesse, were trying to come up with a creative way to announce the pregnancy.
“We thought it would be fun (to include our kids), since they’re old enough—they’re 8, 10, and 12,” Hamilton said. “And when I started thinking of those ideas, I was thinking of the timeline we would find out the sex of the baby, and it fell right in line with our spring break plans, when we were staying at Solaris.”
Then, inspiration struck: Because the family was traveling to Vail for spring break skiing anyway, Marin decided that nothing could top a gender reveal on one of the resort’s peaks.
“I told my husband that I thought it would be really fun to do a gender reveal on top of the mountain—I’ve skied since I was 2 and he’s skied his whole life, and our kids have too,” Hamilton said. “So I started to look up things I could do at the top of the mountain, that wouldn’t hurt anybody or hurt the mountain, and I found these little powder cannons.”
So Marin bought three of each: three girl cannons and three boy cannons.
When the Hamiltons arrived at Inspirato’s Solaris property in Vail, they informed their Destination Concierge of their plan, and loaded up two bags: one with blue-powder cannons and one with pink. They gave the envelope with the baby’s gender to Inspirato staff, who then handed them the correct bags to take up the mountain.
“Everybody was so sweet and excited for us, and excited to find out once we knew,” Marin said. “Then, we took (the bags) up, and that was our first run of the day! We went over to Avanti, because it has such pretty views, and we had good friends with us who took pictures and filmed the video.”
When they were ready, Marin, Jesse, and their kids stood in a line at the top of the run, cannons aimed. As they fired them off, blue powder exploded into the sky—and Marin was speechless. Due to a similarity in the pregnancies, she thought she was having a girl.
“I was shocked,” Marin said. “I thought I was having a girl, and I think my daughter thought we were having a girl. We didn’t care—we’re thrilled, and thrilled to be having a boy … but I was stunned … I couldn’t talk for a few minutes afterward,” Marin said. “I think my husband thought it was a girl too.”
Marin credits Inspirato with helping her execute the idea, and for being so accommodating.
“Everyone who knew about it was so nice and congratulatory—from the concierges and lounge staff, to the ski valet—and they all made it really exciting,” she said. “We were thrilled … and it was a beautiful day. It was just a fun, special thing to do with the kids.”
(All family photos courtesy of Marin Hamilton.)
