I ski therefore I am

Yes, it was a good weekend. We finally had our little weekend away together that was so badly needed. The kids had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa, although when we left them J had some big tears...and that combined with them going with the grandparents gave me a lump in the throat. I'm a lucky man to have such wonderful kids and a mom that has a world of love in her heart. Can't give her enough praise...nope...no I can't.

The scenery on the drive down to Wabasha is fantastic. Highway 61 skirts the Mississippi and weaves through trees and bluffs like a cement ribbon through the white snow. It was great just to talk to J and look at the world around us. Most of our conversation naturally revolved around our children and what we'd like to do on future vacations. The only thing that seemed odd was that there was no racket or din coming from the back seat. There were no battles for toys or screams or singing wars. It was just J and I and quiet. It was weird, but nice.

But, many of you are wondering what happened with the skiing. I have to say this about J...she wants to ski again. The fact that she didn't make it up the tow rope even once didn't matter. She got out and did it.

I suppose I should start from the beginning. We rented our skis and we got outside and to the bottom of the bunny hill. Coffee Mill has created a snowboard obstacle course on their bunny hill, so it did make it a little more worrisome. J put on her skis and really couldn't move very far. Her first chore was to move just a short way...from point A to point B on a flat, snowy surface. It was difficult for the first thirty minutes. She finally got it and then the next thing on the docket was moving up the hill. I must admit that I was a little impatient. I showed her a few times and she needed time to move up the hill sideways. She readily admitted that instead of just trying things, she thought about the activity way too much. I wasn't advocating having her going up a huge hill, but going up a little higher and letting her body figure things out. Snowplowing was difficult for her and she only climbed up the very small incline about twenty feet and then slide down the hill. She did fall down a lot and used the snowbank that separated the bunny hill from the parking lot as a natural brake. One of her big downfalls was that she would stop paying attention to what she was doing when she'd see some cute little four or five year old come flying down the hill, fall down and pop right back up...That's what I wanted her to do, but noooooo....she couldn't follow their examples. She told me, "Honey, I've got too much baggage to do that!" (which translated to fear...I think) She certainly got better, but refused to go up higher to get it. There weren't lessons at that time, so three hours of me trying to coach her was more than enough for her. She eventually kicked me out of her area and told me to go enjoy the chairlifts. I did get to ski and I had some fun, but I did worry that she'd get run over by some kid with baggy pants, a floppy hat, and shaggy hair on a snowboard.

The thing that was cool about J was that despite all of the falling and not doing very much, she's excited to do it again and get the kids involved. I am envisioning our kids just having fun on hills like that. I think the Bun will be a terror, but Goobs will be a cautious skiier or snowboarder.

That evening we went out for pizza. Part of the ski package is a free large pizza at the local pizza parlor, which was connected to the bowling alley. It was kind of cool because they had moonlight bowling. I'd never seen anything like that before...a darkened bowling alley with all of the glow in the dark stuff going on. J suggested that we take the kids bowling. Now to be honest, I have always been really embarrassed by my terrible bowling prowess. As a youngster, I was so sensetive about how dumb I looked, I wouldn't bowl in front of girls. I would almost fall over and would invariably throw a gutter ball. After all of these years I think I've changed my mind. I'll bowl with my family. Hey, if you can't look like a dork in front of your family, who can you look like a dork in front of?

We were so tired after the pizza, we were sleeping by 10:15. We wanted to ski on Sunday, but it was snowing so badly there that travel would have been a problem if we waited to pick up the kis. So...we had the finist continental breakfast that an Americinn could offer-J got cranky with me because I waited in the waffle line too long...and then we took off to pick up the kids.

J shed a few more tears when we picked them up. It was a good weekend...Grandpa and Grandma said they were angels. Of course, their behavior turned sour when we picked them up. What do you expect when mom and dad are around anyway?

I'm back at work now and busy, but relaxed and happy.