Ski Day

 When we were in the thick of the floor sanding, I took the kids up to Cherry Peak to ski.
It was quite a task getting all the skis, boots, poles, gear, kids, etc. together and up to the resort.  Ugh.  What a pain!
We got there and realized that Allie's boots were still at home, along with my poles.  My ski binding was also messed up, so I couldn't get into my skis.
While I was trying to figure out my skis, Allie took Jason and Nathan on the magic carpet for their first run.  She was just wearing snow boots and just walked down as they skied.
Jason did okay, but by the time he got to the bottom of the hill, he had decided he was never going to ski again.
By that time, Mike had showed up with the boots and poles, and fixed my binding.  Hero of the hour.
So, Jason was done.  He abandoned his skis and was in the lodge before I could even get pointed in the same direction.  Nathan, however, picked it right up from last year and was going up and down the magic carpet like he had done it a thousand times.
He was begging to go on the big lift.
Allie had her boots by then, so I upgraded his pass and sent him off with her.  He pretty much went up and down the hill as many times as he could after that.  He seriously didn't stop.  The others were back in the lodge by 3 and he closed down the lift.  He was the very last chair of the day and he was sad that they had shut things down.  That's kind of how Nathan lives life though.  He's just all over it.

Anyway, back to Jason.  I had anticipated some hard times with him, so I brought along the ipad.  He was sitting in the lodge with the ipad, happy as can be, when a girl he knows from school came along.  Allie knew her older sister, so we were making small talk.  Allie complimented her on her skiing abilities and Jason said, "hold on, you know how to ski?"  She said that she did, and the words were barely out of her mouth before he was putting the ipad away and donning his ski boots again.  We went out and gave it another try and he did so great.  He tried and tried and tried.  He went over and over, even though he crashed a lot, he just kept getting up.

Every once in a while, the siblings came to the magic carpet to check on us and they'd take a run down with Jason.

 I was proud of Jason for giving it such a great effort.  He's pretty much got it down.  As soon as he can get himself back up again when he falls, he'll be set.

We came into the lodge to hang out while we waited for Nathan to come back.  He really never did.

I finally got a bit nervous at letting a kid his age go up and down on his own, so I went out to watch the hill and wait for him to come down.  I finally caught him as he was about to get back on the lift.  He asked me to join him.  I went up with him and we took a run together.  It was a beautiful view and I'm glad I went, but I think my skiing days are over.  Maybe I need to find more comfortable boots or something.  It was rough on this old body of mine.

Nathan's a great little skier though.  

We had a fun day.  We played hard and were all excited to get home and see the progress on the house.  We had to eat out because we still couldn't use the kitchen.  We've eaten out more these last few weeks than ever before.  You'd think the boys would be sick of Wendy's, but they're not. 
We ate and went home.
It was fun to take the kids skiing.  So much more fun knowing that we were so close to home.  It was easy to go to and we all had fun.  We'll have to do it again sometime for sure.