Skiing!!

Last Saturday we took our two "big" kids skiing for the first time, which made for a pretty exciting day in our house. One of the many things Gilby and I love about Colorado is all the unique opportunities the mountains bring. Our first several winters here we skied quite a bit and loved it. Post kiddos it's been a lot different, but we have been looking forward to the day that they can join us.

Grandpa picked up Ryker in the morning, and we headed up to the mountains with Myles and Sydney. They were pretty excited and had been super well behaved while we were getting ready that morning, although I don't think they knew what we were really doing. I had shown them some videos on YouTube of other little kids skiing and we had gone to pick up their rental gear the night before, but that was pretty much it. Myles slept on the way, but Sydney was too excited. She gets giddy when something fun is coming up and talks nonstop. As we were driving she kept pointing out the window and asking, "Are those the big mountains?"

When we arrived a bit over an hour later the mood changed. I think they got nervous, but both kids, Myles especially, were resistant to getting their snow gear on. We headed from our parking spot to the shuttle bus with Gilby carrying four sets of skis and me carrying a screaming and crying Myles. Fun times. I thought that our day might be ending in about 15 minutes, but thankfully after the bus got going, both kids calmed down and did great the rest of the day.

We spent the morning on the itty bitty ski-school hill. The kids skied between our legs while we held onto the harnesses they were wearing. They are far from being independent, but it was our goal just to expose them to skiing this year. Both kids were willing to try and had fun coming down, but Sydney was admittedly better and more eager to keep going. She kept asking to go on the chair lift, so after we took a break for lunch we headed to the bunny hill. Sydney went down several times saying, "Can we go faster?" when we would get to the top, and "Now I can go again!" when we got to the bottom. Myles rode the chair lift and skied the bunny hill only once, but he liked both. He was just so tired by that point, and was content to stay at the bottom making snowmen. Considering last winter we could hardly get him to put a hat on, I'm so proud of him simply wearing snow gear and heavy ski boots all day with little complaining. It was a bonus that he was willing to try skiing, did fine with it, and actually enjoyed it! We look forward to hopefully many more ski days with our kiddos.