Mommy's Little Skier!

Riley has been taking ski lessons at Snowbird's mountain ski school here in Utah.  He's been doing a fantastic job and has shown great improvement in just two lessons!  I love their program at Snowbird and Riley does too.  He is there from 8:45 am - 3:15 pm for 5 Saturdays in a row.  I was afraid he'd be too tired for lessons all day, but he LOVES it and always wants to do more!  He's such a confident kid on skis this year compared to last year!

Since my parents are in town (and they love to ski even more than I do), my dad thought today might be a good day to take the kids skiing.  We took them up to Snowbird where they only charge $20 for their beginner lift.  I only got to go down the beginner lift twice and spent the rest of the time on the "magic carpet" which is just a fun name for a conveyor belt that takes the kids up to the top of the bunny hill.  (When we first took Kendall out, the magic carpet wasn't running so we had to hike it back up to the top each time with her and all the gear!)

My dad and I spent some time with Kendall while my mom took Riley over to the beginner lift.   After some snow eating and a few tries down the bunny hill, I convinced my dad that we should just take her up the chair lift and see what happens.  We ended up putting our poles under her arms and let her ski between our legs.  She struggled to want to stand up and just sat back and enjoyed the ride.  The faster, the better for her!

Here she is finishing off a hand full of snow!

There she goes!  No crying, no fussing...Love that girl!

After some lunch (and some candy) Kendall and I headed back out to the magic carpet since it was running again.  She went up 7-8 times solo and I hiked it back up to the top so I'd get there at the same time and then we would ski down together.  She had fun, but after two late nights in a row (Monday was girls night at The Nutcracker and Tuesday was family fun at the Grizzlies hockey game) and no nap, we were BOTH done.  I was soaked with sweat and drenched from the wet "Pennsylvania powder" as my dad calls it!  We skied in the fresh falling the snow all day.

Here's some video evidence of her first skiing experience.  Check out her face!  She's so happy!

I think I'm going to have to rely on a few friends to give me some advice on how to teach this little one.  She's athletic enough and coordinated enough, but Momma's just not sure how to get her to want to do it instead of just letting Momma do all the work!  That will all come in time I guess.