Girls Ski Day

I have an uncanny ability to find the humor in things that most others will find completely out of hand. The other day, I decided it would be a incredibly fun day to take the little ones skiing for the day. We live so close to some major ski slopes and what better way to spend the day with my two girls then skiing and enjoying the snow...hmm, well, a root canal would have been better at times. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time but, there were moments....OMG the moments when I thought of jumping off the chair lift.

We left early in the morning and I had perfectly timed it to get to the slopes just as they opened and we would, for sure, get the best parking spot around. If you are a regular follower of my blog, you know that this could not have happened because if it did, I wouldn't be writing about it.

My in laws have a cabin up in the mountains near the ski areas so, we usually leave our skis and equipment up there. The girls and I roll into the cabin around 8:30 (slopes open at 9:00 perfectly timed...right?) to pick up the skis...only we can't find the boots. Skis...check, poles...check, goggles...got 'em, boots...Oh CRAP!!! We spend about 45 minutes looking for the boots and calling anyone who may know where they were. After a frenzied search party that may or may not have involved a few tears, we found the boots in a closet that I vaguely remember putting them in during the summer. We headed up to the slopes for our fun filled day.

We had never been to this particular ski resort before...mistake #1. We had to ride a gondola to actually get to the slopes...mistake #2. Having two kids by myself and thinking I could handle it...mistake #3. We take the gondola over to the village and I thought the kids would love this part...not so much. They freaked out on the way over there. When we got settled into the village and found our way to the ticket booth (carrying all our gear I might add along with a few choice words under my breath) we finally paid our obscene amount of money to hit the slopes at 10:42 AM...Yep, we already missed an hour and 42 minutes of skiing!!! Of course, my thought is...well, that is $22.14 that I can't get back. Then I realized the amount of money spent for a day of skiing minus the hour and 42 minutes was made up for in those wonderful memories that we just created on the gondola and the searching and the aimlessly walking around. GREAT!!

Very first chair lift ride, both kids get off too early and end up ducking under the chair in order to NOT be hit in the head by it. Second chair lift ride, my youngest got off and ran into a trash can. Oh , I knew this would be a wonderful day. Lunch was back in the car so that meant another gondola ride just to eat our lunch. Oh the joy of that again!!! Not to mention the many, many gear malfunctions that included goggles, helmets, gloves, harness and poles and YES we had an issue with each of those things. This was shaping up to be a great day...don't you think? I was told that the goggles were "actually hurting my brain" by my youngest daughter. And I cannot forget the fact that as "mom of the year" I MAY have misplaced my oldest daughter at one point during the day. In my defense, she is so freakin fast on the slopes and she ended up getting too far in front of her sister and I and I was glad to find her waiting at the bottom of the hill and not over the edge as I thought she may have gone.

The amount of money I spent on this day and the amount of tears all became worth it as we were exiting the gondola for the 4th time that day and both of my kids refused to carry their gear. My youngest had all she could handle in carrying her gloves and my oldest thought it wasn't fair that she had to carry her skis and poles when her sister did not. My response? Exactly as my parents used to say..."This is part of skiing, if you don't carry your gear, you don't go." That moment was PRICELESS!!!