Ski Day at Sierra Summit

Last Monday, we skied at Sierra Summit with the school group. This was my first year organizing the trip. Overall, it went quite well. All of the families that I worked with were fantastic, so that made my job a lot easier. It was time-consuming, and it left little time for me to enjoy skiing. Next year, if I organize it again, I'll ask for a co-leader to split the project with. I think that will allow me more time to ski with my own kids, and properly supervise them throughout the day. I was also way too busy to take pictures to document the day. Now that the day has past, I am disappointed that I don't have more photos.

I do have a few which I will share here. This is Airon with his friend K: Spencer getting ready to turn his skis back in to rentals:Soren preferred not to have his picture taken. This year I gave the boys permission to ski any route they felt comfortable with. I'm so grateful that they aren't the kind of kids that will shoot for the moon when given open-ended instructions like the ones that I gave them. They stuck with beginner and intermediate routes, and had a really good time. I saw them very little which was a little unnerving for me, but a great lesson in independence for them.

Maya was with me after her lesson. I have more pictures of her. She talked me into taking her up on the chair lift. She absolutely loved it. It was not one of my smarter parenting moves since we still had to make our way down a whole mountain on skis! Right as we got to the top, she uttered the one word that strikes fear in parents in public places: Pee! What does a parent do with that at the top of a ski lift in the middle of nowhere, but with lots of people around?

Fortunately, I chose, by accident, the one run that had a bathroom stop halfway down. So, with her skiing between my skis, I awkwardly snowplowed down the mountain for a bathroom break.

Maya loved going down the run. Only a few minutes into it, I realized that I was in way over my head trying to get her down safely. I felt we were moving too fast for me to be sure that I wouldn't fall on her and hurt her badly. I created a rhythm of starting and stopping, but my thighs were burning from snowplowing to slow us down, and concentrating on form so that we wouldn't cross skis and have a wreck. With fierce determination, a bit of skill, and a lot of luck, we reached the bottom of the run safely. I wanted to kiss the ground. Maya, of course, wanted to go again. We did not go again.

Next time, I think I'll try to stick to the practice hill with Maya. However, I have a feeling it's going to be hard to hold this girl back. When she decides to go for it, she goes big!