Fun In The Snow

My husband and I took my two boys out of school yesterday to go up to Pennsylvania to ski for a day. They have never been skiing before so this was met with a lot of excitement. Especially skipping school for a day,  anything was exciting compared to going to school, right?

I had gone skiing once before, in Australia, where I went to this huge mountain area called Falls Creek. I was a newbie - first time experiencing snow, I had jeans on, which quickly became wet but that did not stop me. I hired some ski gear, went up the chair lift to the top and didn't notice the signage. Took a wrong turn and I was going down such a steep incline, then I was faced with a cliff. I flew off the cliff and down this ravine, fortunately, there was lots of snow but I could not get back onto my skis again, I kept sliding down. It was so frustrating and upsetting I had to take my skis off and struggle back up again. I was alone, wet, very cold and I vowed that I would never ski again! It was later that I learned that I went down the black diamond, which is for advanced skiers, whoops.

Fortunately, no one had that sort of experience yesterday and we all took lessons. My 10 year old and hubby took snowboarding lessons while my 8 year old and I took ski lessons.

I found out that people make their own snow here! I have heard of companies doing that, but never in such a large scale that it covers mountains! My husband told me that they spent $20 million on the snow making equipment and they pump water from their dams to turn it into snow.  Wow!

When we arrived, this was what we were greeted with. You can see that there are two huge blowers that make the snow. They were all over the mountain. That pod like building is the ski lift up the beginner's slope.

Cameron trying his ski legs for the first time. He surprised all of us by taking to it like a duck to water. We were so amazed because if you know Cameron he has gross motor issues, when he was younger he used to see an occupational therapist to address these issues. He LOVED it so much and was flying down the slopes! I had my mouth halfway open most of the time, I was so impressed!

As for James, I have a video of him snowboarding but somehow only the end bit where he falls over can be loaded on Youtube. He was a bit of a perfectionist, wanting to get it right the first time, so there were tears of frustration and he wanted to quit halfway. I could understand it but I made him go back up again. I am a tough mum, I don't allow my children to quit unless they have tried at least three times. I live by this Japanese mantra, "You fall down seven times and you get up eight times." I was so proud of him at the end when he was snowboarding with better ease.

At the end, we signed up for the whole season so we will be going back there on a weekly basis!