Ella's First Ski!

Winter has not exactly cooperated with us on our plans to teach Ella to ski this year at our local bump with a rope tow. You see, they don't have any snow making equipment. Imagine that!

We finally decided to head over to Gunstock which is an hour and change, but has a fabulous little conveyor belt the kids can ride up the bunny slope. Under 5 is free, adults are $10. Check out the world's cutest skier here! (And Ella's pretty adorable too, hehe ;) Ella has been stoked to ski ever since Grandma, Auntie Jen&Uncle Greg and Mommy&Daddy combined provided her with a whole used ski outfit for Christmas (We're talking skis, bindings, boots, helmet and goggles.) Every time it snowed she would ask, "Is this enough snow to ski on mom!?" But don't let that picture up there fool you. If only we had video you would hear the crying and screaming all the way UP & DOWN the hill. Did she dislike this fabulous little conveyor belt they call the "Wonder Carpet"? No. Did she dislike skiing? No. What was her problem then? "I'M AFRAID I'M GOING TO WIND AWAY!!!" "MOMMY, ARE WE GOING TO WIND AWAY!?" "MOMMY ARE MY SUNGLASSES GOING TO WIND AWAY!?" "I'M ALL DONE!!! I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE CAR. I'M AFRAID I'M GOING TO WIND AWAY!!!" The wind. That was her problem.Ever since opening day of ice fishing, when she saw the wind blow a folding camp chair across a very slick surfaced lake, she has been afraid of the wind. It doesn't matter if we are traveling 10 feet from the house to the car. If it's a slight breeze or a 25mph gust, the child starts asking if she's going to "wind away"...if mommy, daddy, bear, shovel, Hunter...whatever...is going to "wind away". It does not matter how many times we explain to her that she's to heavy to blow away. And it didn't matter how many other pint sized skiiers I pointed out that were NOT blowing away...it still terrifies her. It's just something she'll have to work through and outgrow, like her original distain for swimming.
Please notice she never takes her hands off her hat (which is velcroed beneath her chin) or her sunglasses. Why? You guessed it. Because she's afraid they're going to "wind away". I took those bad boys right off of her after a bit. T'was not the fairytale first mother daughter ski session I had in mind, but so goes life. We made the best of it and though it was hard at times, I kept my cool and kept a very upbeat, positive attitude the whole time. Whilst others on the mountain may have thought we were torturing the young lass, we know our daughter and had a good laugh. With heavy comforting, loads of positive words and high fives, and large doses of promising hot chocolate with marshmallows we got her to go down the bunny slope three times. Two were working on learning skiing and the last was a "fun run". And above, you'll see a clearly exhaustest Ella being skated into the lodge by mom. Wowzers! I forgot how tiring teaching toddlers to ski is. I remember being wiped out after a day of it when I taught skiing as a teenager. But three runs (with a screaming bundle of joy) for this 30 year old, preggo mama sick with a headcold was quite enough thankyouverymuch!

From the short experience I had with her, she's actually a good little skier for just turning 3 years old. We learned how to put our skis on and take them off. How to walk around in them a bit. We started learning our "duck walk" for getting up slopes. And we practiced making our piece of pizza.

We were headed home around 12:30pm and not two minutes after the van took off, the little one was OUT COLD. She done wore herself out!