Skiing

We had our first skiing lesson last night and it was fantastic! I was apprehensive before the lesson as I wasn't sure how the kids were going to feel about skiing once we got on the hill. I knew Gorilla would get into it once he got going but did expect a little bit of apprehension initially. On the drive up the mountain he commented several times that he didn't want to go on big hills and that he would like to ski slowly. All of this changed however when we clipped on the ski's. Gorilla took one look at the closest cliff/black diamond run and began marching towards it. "I want to go on this hill!" he said. Ummm, no. We show him how to unclip his binding, how to walk and take him on what barely counts as a grade. He once again announces "I want to go on this hill" pointing at the cliff. I look over the edge of the precipiece and state "Absolutely not! You don't even know how to stop yet?!!" He looks around and sees a short but rather steep slope from the start of one hill to where we are standing, "okay, that one then." Oy. Our teacher arrives and we are saved and off we go to the bunny hill. Despite excellent instruction on how to make "pizza's" with your ski's (snowplowing), the merits of turning and going slowly and in control, Gorilla proves to be a complete psycho on the hill. He proceeds to zoom straight down every hill, ski's parallel, arms flailing with nary a turn and me skiing after him yelling "PIZZA! PIZZA! TURN! SLOW DOWN! P-I-Z-Z-AAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!" The teacher tries to get him to follow behind her, he replies "I'm sick of going slow." We take him off the bunny hill to bigger hills, he tries to ski past the teacher. At one point I turn to DH and say "he is psychotic!" He mastered the rope tow with no problem and even does well on the chairlift although when exiting one time, he totally took me down, skiing over my ski's and pushing me flat on my back... ouch.

The real surprise of the evening though was Banana. Banana is known for being rather cautious and likes things that move sowly. Banana enjoys a good, gentle ride at amusement parks. When riding her bike, Banana gets this pensive, serious look on her face as she peddles at Grandma-esque speeds. Banana should, be all accounts, ride a bike that has a banana seat, big handlebars, and a white basket in front, perhaps stuffed with flowers or groceries. When imagining my children skiing, I fully expected Banana to be the grandma-esque person snowplowing down the entire speed at a record slow pace. Much to our surprise, Banana was a natural. She turned with grace, stopped with ease and did everything her teacher asked her to do. She only fell with Gorilla plowed into her or skii'd over top of her ski's and gracefully floated down every hill. With considerable speed I might add! She mastered the rope tow and chair lift like she's been skiing a million times. Best of all, she turned to me and told me "I love skiing!" Very exciting.

Although we did a "family" lesson, it was really a lesson for the kids. Fortunately DH and I were amazed at how much came back to us once on the ski's and I was surprised to see what a good skii'er DH was. It was so wonderful to be outside and enjoying the fresh cold air. The hill was fairly quiet and there were only a few crazy people out (Gorilla being one of them!!) so it was very enjoyable. A fantastic family night had by all! It was a bit "moist" out and I did get a bit of a chill and my back was a bit sore from Gorilla taking me out on the chair lift exit so I finished the evening with a steaming hot bubble bath, candles and some sparkling wine brought to me by my lovely DH. Lovely.