Skiing!

No pictures tonight, but great stories from the Daddy! Take it away Jake!

Isabela and Maya's Adventures

Kent, one of the guys I work with, suggested a few weeks ago that we take our kids skiing on MLK day since his kids were off school that day. That sounded good to me, take a day off work and ski? You bet.

On the Saturday before, Laura and I started to condition Isabela and build her excitement to go skiing on Monday. I had to re-mount her bindings on Saturday so we could do a test run in the back yard on Sunday. After her nap on Sunday, we bundled up and went outside on the deck. I showed her how to put her skis on and taught her the "snow plow" and how to side step and move around with big sticks on her feet. Then I had her "ski" down the 5 foot drop off our deck where I had piled a bunch of snow. She kept wanting to sit down, but she eventually got it. After dinner she helped me wax her skis. I also installed some ski tip clips that she got for Christmas - they velcro to the skis and then have a clip to hold the tips together for a no-brainer snow-plow move.

Monday morning Laura made us applesauce pancakes for breakfast so we had a good chance of making it more than 30 minutes before Isabela got hungry (Isabela or me being hungry is not a good thing). We packed up and were on our way. We arrived at about 10:30 and were on the bunny hill by 10:50. We met up with Kent, he had Anna Beth and Eli, all three were snowboarding.

The first couple runs, I heard a lot of: "HOLD ME!" "Hold my hand" "Don't let me go." We had the ski tip clip on so she was actually doing pretty well with the snow plow, although I couldn't get more than 10 feet in front of her without getting in trouble. Those were some long runs. The carrot at the end of the stick was the chairlift ride back to the top (vicious cycle :) ). She would get on the chair which was traveling just faster than Maya crawling and yell woo-hooo! A couple more runs and it was time for lunch (my favorite part). She improved a lot and the last run before lunch she told me to un-clip the tip clip. I imagined a pink pretzel in the middle of the hill, but I listened and un-clipped them. She actually did great and had really good control doing the snow plow.

After lunch, we decided that she was ready for the big time. We headed for the high speed quad and got in line. Eli, Kent's son came with us, it was his second time as well. We waited in line and Isabela had fun talking to him. She asked hime if she could hold his hand and he pulled his hands in tight and scooted away. We finally got to the front and hopped on. Since this was a high speed chair we had a high speed woo-hooo! and were off. Every time we had to ride up with a stranger so she would look over and ask me who they were. Then of course, she would make friends with them.

We took the route to the far right which was a green circle run and she did really well. If anyone got close to her, she would put out her hand and say "watch out!" Eli was in front of her so Isabela would tell him to "Stop!" She had a lot of fun catching up to him occasionally. By this time, she was really catching on. I didn't have to hold her hand much and she was laughing and having a great time.

By the last run, she told me "Don't follow me" "I'll meet you at the bottom" and would make it all the way down with only two stops.

We left at about 4pm, I thought she would only make it until 1pm. After 10 minutes in the car, she was asleep. It was a great day, I can't wait to take her out again!

Jake