Snowboarding 101

Every Friday, for the next 6 weeks, K, A, and I will be snowboarding! I am so excited. And after today...so are K and A!

We woke up at 6am...got lunches ready, got dressed, and headed out to catch our bus at 7am. It was dark and cold...and I am not a morning person so once we got on the bus I tried to sleep. This of course didn't happen because who can sleep with a bus full of 4-8 graders? Once everyone was situated we headed up to Mt. Rose.

Once there we had the kids check in and get their lift tickets and rentals. All went smoothly. Then it was time to hit the slopes! Well sort of. All the kids take a 2 hours lesson, break for lunch, then ski for 3-4 hours till their hearts content. So...I went to class with A and K. Our instuctor is from Chile and so with his broken english it was a little hard to understand him. It was more noisy than I expected so that didn't help. A was frustrated with his uncontrollable board and the fact that his leg was hurting. Come to find out that his board was missing a screw...and he was leading with the wrong leg. So I took him back up the rental shop and had them fix it. We came back and he was better. I could tell he was still a little frusterated but I told him to just relax and that this would just take practice. K, on the other hand, was having a great time. She was awesome on the turning drills! By the end, both were having a good time.

Then it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we hit the Flying Jenny. You get on a belt, an escalator without steps, and it takes you to the top of a small run. Very small. Which was what I liked about it. The kids were excited about this. A wasn't sure about the lift at first and he struggled to get on the first time but it only took once for him to figure it out and then had no more problems. When we got to the top...A and K locked their feet in and down we went....with lots of falls. K was so frustrated she began to cry. A took it in stride. He was more frustrated in figuring how to get back up once he'd fallen. By the time we got to the bottom K said she didn't want to snowboard anymore and we just sat at the bottom of the hill while A went up again.

After explaining to her about sticking with it and practice...and lots of deep breathes...she was ready to try again. This time only falling twice. By the 3rd and 4th times down, both A and K were snowboarding straight down the hill! And they had huge SMILES on their faces! I was so happy that they were enjoying themselves. And by the end of the day...they were ready to head home but excited to come back next week!

I wiped out only once. Hard. Mt. Rose hasn't had snow since Christmas so there was a lot of ice. Falling was simply NOT an option. I got to work on my turns and stops and I really enjoyed staying on this little hill all day. We can't wait for next Friday!

I'll have pictures next time.