Ski School

I have been watching the date of my last blog post creep farther and farther into the distant past (last year even...) but every time I go to write a new post I get distracted by reading my friends' blogs instead. Not to mention that at my stage in life it is difficult to start- let alone finish- anything without getting multiple distractions throughout in the form of breaking up arguments, dishing out snacks, making dinner, please for attention, etc. If you add to this the feeling that I need to "catch up" on everything I missed, you have a sure-fire recipe for no blog posts for a very long time.

So Christmas break... despite the rough beginning, we had a great visit to Dave's family. Dave actually got a break from work for a few days and we basically just enjoyed ourselves. We have been promising Jared that we would take him skiing since he turned 5, but this year we finally got around to it and, just to add to the fun, took Camryn too. I had somehow conjured up blissful images of our happy family gently swooshing down the bunny hill or at least Dave (the ski expert of the family) spearheading the teaching part of our little family ski school. I guess putting the kids in ski school wouldn't have been too bad of an idea either in retrospect. We rented skis and headed out to go night-skiing. We took the kids to the bunny lift and Dave asked me, "So are you going to ski with Jared or Camryn?"

"Huh??" I guess it hadn't occurred to me that Dave couldn't ski down the hill with both kids. So I spent the next 90 minutes skiing down the bunny slope multiple times with Camryn between my skis, alternately sitting on my squatting legs with her full 50 lbs. and stepping on my skis with hers. I've never done a "Thighs of Steel" workout, but it could not be harder than trying to do turns on a snow-covered hill on skis with a 50 lb. weight sitting on your quads. You add to that trying to turn when someone is stepping on your skis half of the time (which leaves you with no recourse but to pick them up off your skis with your arms-- don't forget you're still moving this entire time) and you have the world's newest psycho workout.

At the end of 90 minutes I was totally trashed. Gone were my Norman Rockwell-esque pictures of our happy family skiing in the winter sunset. They had been replaced by visions of a full body massage and the hope that I wouldn't have to stand or sit for several days until my legs had recovered from the near-permanent injury I had inflicted on them. Luckily, Camryn was tired too (it's gotta be exhausting being carried down the ski hill), so we went in and took a break for hot chocolate. Then Dave and I each took a turn skiing a regular run by ourselves (amazing how much easier it is without the 50 lb. weight). By the time we were finished Jared was ready to ski again, so I took Jared back to the bunny hill while Camryn played in the snow off to the side. After a while even Camryn felt like attempting to ski again. I do have to admit that our second attempt went much better than the first (Except when I got over-confident and let go of her so she could do the last little flat part by herself. She didn't fall... she kept going and going... right up into a metal fence that kept her from going over the hill down to the parking lot. Oops.).

So in the end we did have a nice family outing. And I had burning quads for the next 4 days.