First time skiing

And what a first time it was.

The line for rental equipment was nearly two hours long. The kids did very well waiting. A lot of that time was spent standing outside. We got very cold and hadn't even gotten to the snow yet. In this photo is the waiting line.


Finally we got our boots, skis and poles. I was surprised the kids didn't have unhappy comments about how constricting the boots were. They just wanted to try out their stuff. I was wishing for an extra set of hands to carry everything.




The two unsuspecting children.













Finally we were ready to strap on the skis. But since people didn't really part way for our novice crew, we were unsure of where to do this.

On and off with the skis, we decided to walk to the area near the bottom of the beginner slope.

"These things keep moving on me!"

After many squawks of frustration from the kids, we weren't sure what to do. It wasn't going well. I decided to take Ellie up the ski lift and try just coming down the hill. My biggest concern was her getting off the chair without falling. She did splendidly. We both just skied straight down the little hill. Then when we got situated at the top, she wanted to try it herself and went straight for the fenced off area under the lift. Then she got twisted and her skis came off. Trying to put them back on while on a slope was a treat. I decided the best thing was for us to both hold our poles, I'd straddle her and hold her. Then we'd ski down the hill in snowplow formation. It worked wonderfully, and she got to experience the fun of whooshing down a hill.

Next came Josh. And since there was no way I'd take him on the ski lift, we walked up the hill. I did the same thing with him, and snowplowed down the hill.


After those two hours of trying to stay upright and a trip with mom (Gary still doesn't like skiing) down the beginner hill, the kids went in the lodge with Gary for hot chocolate.

I took a chair lift to the top of the mountain to get in one actual ski run. And since I haven't been on skis in over a decade, I decided to take the easy trail down.

When I got in the lodge Gary was still in line and Josh had a burnt finger. While in line the first time, Josh spilled his hot chocolate and burned his finger. We were given free hot chocolate and sat down to let it cool off so the kids could drink it. As you can see, the evening ended with unhappy skiers.

And from the time we left the lodge to go return our equipment, to gathering up our stuff from the locker and going the restroom one more time, and walking to the shuttle to get to our car, Josh cried and carried on. Ellie threw in her whine here and there, too. I lost count of how many people stared at us.

To their defense, it was three and a half hours after their bedtime and they didn't eat much dinner. We knew what there issues were, so they weren't in trouble. But we still had to keep our patience about us, which I think we did rather well.

We will seriously plan our next Member Day ski trip differently.