Last weekend we headed up to Vermont to ski with Jason's brother Matt and family. The kids were really looking forward to skiing with their cousins and just being able to play with them. The weekend started off a little dicey wince the 6 inches of snow that we were suppose to get in the early AM Friday tunred into 16 inches that didn't stop coming down until mid afternoon. I waited until about 2pm and then decided I needed to brave the roads to get Watson down to my parents. Fortunately my Mom met me at the mall so I didn't have to drive all the way to their house. Half way to the mall the snow had stopped and the highway was just wet. It is amazing the difference a short distance can make in a snow storm. By the time I was heading back home even the highway near us had cleared to just wet pavement so it made for a much easier drive. The roads in our town were not great but that wasn't a problem. We ended up hitting the road for VT around 5pm and made good time with no traffic and it only took us anout two and a half hours. We arrived at the house about 5 minutes before Matt and Jodi so timing ended up being perfect. The kids played and we all relaxed and chatted.
Saturday we headed over to Magic Mountain to ski. Jason and I had never skied there before so did not know what to expect but it was a fun mountain. They only groom about half the mountain so there was a lot of bumps on the trails. We took the kids down a couple easy trails to start but then moved them up to black diamonds. Since we don't really know the mountain we took a narrow double black down the mountain with the kids which was not bumped up and the loved it. They made nice quick turns and cruised down the trail. This is where knowing a mountain has advantages. I didn't know that this trail would dump us out onto another double black trail that the kids had been eyeing from the lift saying, "I'm not doing that" to which I replied, "no we wouldn't do that one...it has too many rocks and probably too technical for you right now." Well, such is life when skiing....ski the trail you end up on because there really is no other choice. The girls did great and skied down it quite a way until there was a significantly steeper section with a number of bare rocks showing. Jason talked Sofia off the ledge and explained to her how to do it but then skied very fast to "show" her. I could see that this did not work so I asked her if she wanted me to show her the way. She did so we took one turn at a time through the rocks and she did great. Ali followed suit and fell right at the bottom. Not a major fall just a "I'm scared so I'll sit" type of fall. She started to cry but then I pointed out that she only fell on this tiny section after she had already done all the hard work. She looked up the mountain and smiled as she realized she had conquered the trail that looked so difficult from the lift.
Sunday we skied at Stratton which is a completely different mountain than Magic. It has wide trails and is nicely groomed. Sofia was a little nervous because in her mind a "bigger" mountain must be more difficult. We assured her that there was going to be nothing at Stratton that would be any more difficult than what she had skied at Magic. She lightened up after that and started to have fun. She was zipping down the mountain with ease. The mountain has a nice mix of moguls in with groomed terrain so we could hit the moguls and the kids could go groomed or they could jump in and out of the moguls as they wished. The weather was so perfect for the whole weekend. It was sunny blue skies and in the 30's! We sat outside in the sun to eat lunch. Ski days don't get much better than that! Sunday was a day of falls though. Every one of had a fall at some point in the day. Nothing major but falls non the less. We always joke around that if you don't have a fall you aren't skiing hard enough so I guess we were all skiing hard! I went almost the whole day but right near the end I caught an edge. I was going to snow Matt but then decided to be nice and let up on my speed a little. As soon as I did I caught and edge which flipped me back to whack the back of my head ( thank God for helmets) on the ground, spun me around and sent me down the mountain. Of course the whole family was standing on the ridge and just backed up assuming I was going to stop but I went over the ridge (not a big dangerous ridge just a natural roll in the hill). Unfortunately for Sofia she was not on the ridge but just on the other side of it. Fortunately by the time I crashed into her I wasn't going very fast! The kids did not want the day to end. Sofia started to complain when I told her we had two runs left. I then had to explain that we had only two runs left because that was all we could fit in before the lifts closed for the day. It was such a perfect day. The kids can finally ski fast enough and in control for me to follow behind at a normal speed. It was the first day we skied until the lifts closed. The only complaint being that the mountain should stay open longer! :)
Sunday we skied at Stratton which is a completely different mountain than Magic. It has wide trails and is nicely groomed. Sofia was a little nervous because in her mind a "bigger" mountain must be more difficult. We assured her that there was going to be nothing at Stratton that would be any more difficult than what she had skied at Magic. She lightened up after that and started to have fun. She was zipping down the mountain with ease. The mountain has a nice mix of moguls in with groomed terrain so we could hit the moguls and the kids could go groomed or they could jump in and out of the moguls as they wished. The weather was so perfect for the whole weekend. It was sunny blue skies and in the 30's! We sat outside in the sun to eat lunch. Ski days don't get much better than that! Sunday was a day of falls though. Every one of had a fall at some point in the day. Nothing major but falls non the less. We always joke around that if you don't have a fall you aren't skiing hard enough so I guess we were all skiing hard! I went almost the whole day but right near the end I caught an edge. I was going to snow Matt but then decided to be nice and let up on my speed a little. As soon as I did I caught and edge which flipped me back to whack the back of my head ( thank God for helmets) on the ground, spun me around and sent me down the mountain. Of course the whole family was standing on the ridge and just backed up assuming I was going to stop but I went over the ridge (not a big dangerous ridge just a natural roll in the hill). Unfortunately for Sofia she was not on the ridge but just on the other side of it. Fortunately by the time I crashed into her I wasn't going very fast! The kids did not want the day to end. Sofia started to complain when I told her we had two runs left. I then had to explain that we had only two runs left because that was all we could fit in before the lifts closed for the day. It was such a perfect day. The kids can finally ski fast enough and in control for me to follow behind at a normal speed. It was the first day we skied until the lifts closed. The only complaint being that the mountain should stay open longer! :)
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