No Guts, No Glory

We have so enjoyed skiing this year!! We began the season with no equipment, but bit by bit I have acquired enough skis to out fit all the children, plus me. By buying selectively, I have managed to get them from $25 - $30 a pair! Not only that, I have picked up ski boots for Austin, Cassidy, Brition, and myself at $5 a pop!! I even bought skies for the children to grow into next year. So I am set for all of us, except for buying boots for the younger ones. I also have to get Ray taken care of, probably, much to his chagrin! *grin*

He is such a hardworking guy that he simply doesn't take time to play. Well, no more. Next winter, I am buying him his gear at the ski swap, snow pants etc for Christmas, and then we will work around his schedule. We will go to Church for the 9:00 am service, and then head right up to the ski hill from Church. This way he doesn't have to take him off, and we can ski as a family, at least once a week!

What I love about skiing is that it levels the playing field. It is one place where you can almost forget you are a parent; you get to be their pal, instead. There is something very cool about having your children vying to be the ones that share your chairlift on the ride up the mountain, and then as you ride up, you hear your name called and you look down and see some of your older ones skiing past, waving up at you, and then from behind you hear a little one calling from the chair behind, "Mum, which run are we doing this time? Can we do the terrain park this time?"

It is just wonderful.

Obviously, this only works if you parent your kids at home! Sadly, this is not always the way. Once I was sitting on a bench waiting for some of the boys to arrive off the chairlift and I heard a woman correct her what looked to be about nine year old child, as she walked by me, "You don't tell me to shut up!"

How sad.

I have found my physical niche! I hate walking around the block. How boring! I try to get it done as fast as possible, just to get rid of the torture. I have tried running for two seasons and both times I pulled something in my arms? How odd. But it happened. I figured God didn't want me to run, so I stopped. I tried the gym. Fun, but I have to work it in, and really, it isn't 'me'. I want something that comes naturally!

In the past, skiing was a once a year or every few years event. I had fun, but I lived so far from the mountain that was a real ordeal getting there, plus the next day I felt like a truck had run over me! Now, we live 30 minutes from the hill, and it is so easy to get it together. We have a packed box just for the hill of hats, gloves, and snow pants. And then I keep the ski gear in the back of my van, along with helmets and goggles.


This brings down the work side of it to being manageable. The night before I have a child lay out each child's gear and they can get dressed and in the van in just fifteen minutes, versus the painful hour long procedure of before.

Cooper is the most hilarious skier! I wish I could have a video camera on my head, so I could catch his antics. Other bonus of skiing is all the oxygen that courses through my body when I belly laugh for five minutes after one of these episodes!

There was one where he came down the hill and because he is a newer skier, his skies were about 4' wide at the back. This makes him look like he is doing the splits. He is able to control his downhill slide by doing this. But the hilarious thing is that he wanted to take a 90* angle to the left and then another immediate 90* angle back down the hill.

When he left the main hill and turned left at 90* he had to travel about 4 feet, before he then immediately turned 90*, and headed down a forest trail. Okay. Have you ever seen these forest trails on the side of ski slopes? They aren't very wide in the interior parts! Certainly not wide enough to handle 4 foot wide skies!

I was standing there watching and I saw it happen. I knew he was fine because the tree was so small. If you could have only seen it!! I belly laughed for about 5 minutes! He shot left, and then right, and then WHAMMM! and then he did a flip and his skies went in two different directions. And then he sat up with his typical, "I'm fine!"

I have another such funny, but this one I will show later on a video. It was when the boys were doing jumps.... Don't feel bad if you laugh, or if you want to rewind the video to watch it again. I did. And I'm his mum. These little people just seem full of rubber!

See how wide his legs are spread way up that narrow forest trail. I have no clue how he doesn't catch his feet on trees coming down! As I said, No Guts, No Glory, I guess!


This is not even a ski hill. This is the side of the parking lot. That kid will ski anywhere there is a challenge!

Even Briton is now doing the forest trails. He is not one to be left behind!

Another One Bites the.... Tree!

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