Cora's First Ski Day

On New Years Eve, we decided that we would take ALL THREE kids skiing for the very first time ever.  It had been freezing cold all week, and this day was no different.  We had signed Cora up for the famous "Learn to Turn" class, so we had to be at "the Beav" (Or Beaver Mountain, if you are not cool like me) nice and early in the morning.  We woke up, put on as many layers of clothes as we could and headed out.  Grandpa came along with us, so we figured we would be okay, with an adult for each kid. 

Our car hadn't been moved for a couple of days, and the tire sensors were so cold that our rear tires weren't even showing up in the car's computer system.  As we drove through the canyon, the temperature reached levels that we had never seen before.  Behold, NEGATIVE SEVENTEEN degrees:

 We would have to be insane to go skiing when it is this cold, right?  Right.  Insane we are.

Actually, by the time we got to the mountain, bought our passes, used the bathroom, rented our gear and found Cora's class, the sun had been shining for a while and things seemed much warmer.  Don't get me wrong, it was still f-to-the-reeeezing but it was manageable. The kids all had hand warmers in their mittens, which helped a lot.

After we dropped Cora at her class, the rest of us headed to the bunny hill (except for Grandpa, who had skipped the mess at the rental office since he has his very own skis and stuff and had been on the slopes for a while).  We were all a little rusty since it was our first outing of the season, but a few trips down the hill refreshed our memories.  Pretty soon, Cora's class joined us at the bunny hill.  Isn't she adorable??

Cora's class stayed on the bunny hill, but the rest of us headed for the ski lift.  Arden and Dax mostly remembered how to get on and off, and we had fun on our favorite runs, the Goat Trail and Cotton Tail.

After a few runs, we saw that Cora's class was headed for the ski lift!  We followed them up, and her teacher told us that once they were down the class would be over.  We passed their class and headed to the lodge for lunch.  Everyone else headed inside to warm up while I waited for Cora's class to come down the Goat Trail.  It was kind of fun and kind of painful to watch their slow progress, but Cora was doing wonderfully!  She was doing great, and didn't fall once while I was watching.  They made it down to the lodge and I skied over to pick her up.  Her teacher said she was doing great and had a great attitude!  She was giggling and smiling.  I am so glad she was having fun!

After a nice warm lunch and hot chocolate in the lodge, we hit the bathroom again, which was harder this time now that we all had our ski boots on.  I look like a complete and total idiot when I try to walk in my ski boots.  My idiocy level increases when I try to walk down stairs, where the bathrooms happen to be.  We eventually made it down and back up and headed back out all together!!

I got to ride the ski lift up with these pretty girls.  Did I mention that the sun was shining? It was.  The sky was blue, with not a cloud in the sky.  It was a stunningly beautiful day, with stunningly beautiful girls:

I tried to get a picture of everyone at the top of the mountain before we skied down.  I should have made them stand in the sun.  It was so bright that I really couldn't see what I was taking pictures of.  Oh well,  Here they are anyways:

Daxton and Arden had remembered what they were doing, and they both were doing awesome (and going FAST) as usual.  Cora was doing amazingly well for her first day.  She is a much more cautious skier than Arden or Daxton, but that is okay with me!  We started out on the Goat Trail for our first couple of runs with Cora, which is the easiest and flattest run.  Cora was doing great and only fell down a couple of times.

The first time we took her over to Cotton Tail, which is steeper, she looked down and freaked out a little.  I was skiing in front of her and telling her to follow me.  Grandpa was following behind her in case she fell.  She followed a little ways, but then declared that the hill was too steep and she wasn't going to go down it.  (I didn't really blame her...I remember the first time I looked down the Cotton Tail run on my first day of skiing, and I had much the same thought).  Unfortunately, from where we were, there wasn't really any other way down.  Grandpa to the rescue!  He grabbed ahold of Cora, and slid sideways very slowly down the steepest part of the hill.  .After they got over the scariest part of the hill, she got brave enough to follow me again and made it down the hill with no problem.

Daxton, predictably, stayed close to Grandpa, so I ended up with the girls most of the time.  Here we are at the bottom of the hill, getting in line for the Little Beaver ski lift!

 And here are the boys, riding up the lift behind us:

 This time I got a picture of some people in the sun.  Did I mention that it was a beautiful day?

It was!  Cora was doing so great and having so much fun.  She giggled her way down most of the runs, and kept getting faster and faster and braver and braver as they day went on.  Around 2:00 p.m. she told me that she wanted to ski until the resort closed at 4:00, and then come back tomorrow!  I told her we could stay as long as she wanted, but that we didn't have enough money to come back tomorrow (taking a family of 5 skiing is NO joke!).  However, since it was so close to the solstice, the sun started to go behind the mountain at around 3:00 p,m. and the temperature began to drop. The first time we rode up the lift after the sun wasn't shining on us, Cora turned to me and said, "I want to ski some more, but my FACE is FREEZING!"  My face was freezing too!

We decided to give it one more run.  Even though the resort wasn't closed yet, we were all kind of tired and getting cold, so we gave up around a quarter after 3.  Considering that we had been skiing since 10 a.m. with only a short lunch break, that was a pretty full ski day.  We went and turned in our rental stuff (I appreciated that the employees there pulled the ski boots off of everyone so I didn't have to do it) and were all amazed by how comfortable our regular boots were!

It was a super fun day, and I was so proud of all my little skiers.  Hopefully we can hit the slopes again sometime soon!