Skiing with Timmy!

Last Monday I took a vacation day to spend the day with Nicole and we took Timmy skiing!  Nicole and I have tried to make skiing an annual event, but it has not worked out well!  The last time we went, two years ago, I got all excited about bringing Timmy the next time, which finally arrived!  I had been telling Timmy about our plans to go skiing after Christmas.  I wasn't sure that he really knew what it was, but he came home from school with this picture, of him skiing, before break started so he had some idea!  I took this picture and we immediately sent it to Nicole to share the excitement!

I signed Timmy up for a 2 hour group lesson at the start of the day.  We got him outfitted and he was excited about his red ski boots and skis with flames on them!

Nicole and I went to get our equipment while Timmy took his first few runs.  By the time we were ready to ski, he was through the first hour of his lesson already!

Nicole and I went down the bunny slope a few times to get our bearings and then had enough time to go down the blue circle twice before picking Timmy up.  Timmy's teacher said she thought he'd do fine on the bunny slope, that he had pretty decent control.  We took Timmy down his ski school slope a few times, and it was such a small slope that he was practically ice skating in his skis to get down the hill, which frequently made him fall.  We decided he probably would do better on the bunny slope, where gravity would actually get him down the hill!  I quickly learned that ski poles are actually made for towing your child to the lift!

 Timmy did great on the bunny slope, except he didn't make any turns, just went straight down the hill.  He was supper excited about this at first, saying how awesome it was and how he was made for going fast, just like running!  It also meant though, that he crashed at the bottom each time.  After the second run he said, "This is awesome, I'm going to do this 8 million times!"  After his crash on the third run, he asked if he could have a break, so we stopped for lunch.  Unfortunately he lost his nerve during lunch.  I had to beg him to go back up the bunny slope again, and after our 4th run he was done with that hill.  Timmy and I went back to the ski school slope for our last half hour, and Nicole took a few turns down the Green Square slope.  Timmy and I would not have survived his first ski trip without Nicole!  She was so patient and took many a turn up-righting Timmy, which is not easy to do when you are on skis yourself!

Timmy did awesome being back on the tiny slope, he made several runs in a row where he'd go up the carpet lift, ski straight down the hill without falling, and maneuver directly back onto the lift to do it again!

I definitely think Timmy's first trip was a success!  Next year I plan to get him a private lesson so he can be more confident in making turns and that way he'll be able to slow himself down!  I'm already looking forward to it!