Paul has gone skiing a total of four times in his life. There was a gap of more than 25 years in between his second and third times. I have skied more often than Paul in my life, but I have only skied four times in the past 23 years. There are five lift tickets on my ski jacket. The oldest one has a date but not a year. That was when I skied in New Mexico (early 90's). The other lift tickets are from 1996, 1999, 2017, and 2019. In 1999 I skied with Maurice and my Dad. In 2017 I skied with my Dad, Ian, and Nadia. It was their first time. In 2018 all five of us planned to go skiing, but since Oliver was recovering from a recent skull fracture, he and I stayed home. Paul took Nadia and Ian skiing in February 2018. So Paul and have been doing things together since 1997, but yesterday was the first time the two of us ever went skiing on the same day. Yesterday was Oliver's first time skiing and the third time for his siblings. The only place they've ever skied is at Ski Sawmill which is one hour northwest of our house. The last two years we didn't pay a penny to ski because we receive four free lift tickets and four free ski rentals through our membership with WVIA (a PBS station).
Yesterday we needed to pay for the fifth person, which cost a little less than $50 for lift ticket, ski rental, and a helmet rental. Oliver was the only one wearing a helmet. In hindsight, it would have been better if Paul had been the one wearing the helmet. Two years ago my dad and I taught Nadia and Ian to ski. I took Oliver up the smallest slope a few times, and then decided I'd rather pay someone else to teach him. You have to be at least seven-years-old to join the group class, which meant I had to pay for a one hour private lesson ($50). Thus far we had never paid for any classes or lessons so I figured a one time investment of $50 considering we have three kids wasn't too bad. It meant we've spent a little under $100 for the kids to go skiing over a span of three years (granted all that was spent yesterday but I was trying to put it in perspective). Oliver's skiing skills improved dramatically during his lesson, but his skill at getting off the t-bar didn't. I had trouble getting my skis off each time we'd end up in a heap. The last time it happened to me another girl also landed on top of me as well as her mother. That was a mess! The little girl was screaming her head off.
After that, Nadia took over and went up with Oliver up the t-bar. I greatly appreciated her help! I did have to go up and help once because she had him stay on the t-bar a tiny bit higher up the slope and he was refusing to come down. Most of the day Nadia spent going up to the top of the mountain and coming down a longer trail. She actually preferred to use the t-bar over the chair lift because the t-bar was faster. Paul went down the longer slope twice - once with just Nadia and once with Nadia and Ian. He also went down the easy slope once with Oliver. That was the sum total of his skiing for the day in part because the second time he came down the longer slope he fell and hit his head. Nadia loves skiing and is very independent. Ian loves to go down the straight slope and can do that independently. He went up higher this year than he did the last two years. He did the longer path twice this year (for the first time). The first time he took a wrong turn and landed on a black diamond part. He wisely walked down while carrying his skis. The second time he took the correct path and skied down the whole thing, but one part scared him so he didn't want to do it again. Oliver isn't independent yet. Hopefully next year he'll be able to get off the t-bar without needing assistance.
Even though I repeatedly reminded the kids to bring their hats, gloves, and snow pants, Ian managed to leave all three items at home. I happened to have an extra pair of gloves with me, so he wore a pair of my gloves (they were too big for him but he managed to keep them on). Oliver had brought a hat, but since he was wearing a helmet he gave his hat to Ian. So the only thing Ian was really missing were his snow pants. He said his legs stayed dry. He's a bit of a speed demon coming down the slope, but he didn't fall down very much. Next year hopefully all three kids will remember their gear! Once they all are at the level Nadia is at now, I think Paul and I can just watch them ski. We were at the ski resort for a little over 6 hours. Nadia would have loved to ski a bit more, but the rest of us were tired and hungry. We had packed a lunch, but I had something in the crockpot for when we got home for dinner. Since we used different muscles that we don't typically use, Paul and I are still feeling a bit sore today! I have included a few pictures in this post. I took more than 200! I don't really have the right lens for this situation. Since the vast majority of the photos are going to be deleted, I hope that some of the videos turned out. I haven't looked at the videos yet. Thankfully I did get at least a few photos that I view as "keepers."
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