Bring on the New Year! – Growing the Family

The kids swiped my phone and had a photo shoot up in the toy room.

So the real Christmas present this year was a ski trip and ski lessons for five of us. Adam is already an excellent skier, but never goes because if he isn’t at work, he’s at home with us. So if he is going to ski, it is going to have to be a family affair. We went the week of MLK day, so the kids only missed four days of school.

We rented a house in Park City, but our babysitting fell through, and there was no one to watch Georgia. Adam ended up staying with her and Daisy all day. We were going to put Daisy in lessons too, but since Adam wasn’t going, we didn’t do her this year. We kept trying to find someone, but none of our usual sitters could do it because we were just too far to drive up.

The kids did great in their lessons. I did alright myself. I’m very cautious by nature, especially because of my knee problems. The one time I went skiing in college was HORRIBLE. So my first lesson was on Monday, and my instructor was ever-so-slightly nuts. She would show us something, and once we did it, she would move on to the next thing. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT. I WANT TO DO THAT AGAIN! LIKE 100 MORE TIMES. She made me nervous. She told me to go to level three on Tuesday. No. Way.

Day two I went to level two and had an extremely cautious and slow instructor. I liked him and learned a lot. When we were picking up our ski equipment one day, a couple stopped to tell me what a great mom I was because my kids were so well behaved and happy. I started to tell them that they are naturally this happy and have great personalities and are fairly obedient to begin with. They stopped me and said, “We both taught school for over 30 years, and we’ve seen the results of great parenting. You’ve done a great job. Accept the compliment.” It was a really nice thing to hear.

Day three was another great and slow day. It was so cute to see my four littles cruise down the hill with no poles and no fear.

Day four went great until the end. My instructor took us up a much more difficult and new hill for our last run. I wiped out repeatedly, and it just shattered my confidence. I was truly traumatized. I wasn’t sure how I’d make it down the hill. I swore I wouldn’t ski again; I was that upset.

Friday we all had a free day skiing. We managed to find a sitter for Georgia and Daisy so Adam could go skiing too. At one point, Caisen took off down a run with no skills or intention of stopping. Daddy to the rescue! He chased him down the hill and stopped him before a tree did. That scared me to death. The last run of that day I finally went down a run, slowly, but I did it. I knew I had to face a hill before we left.