Ski trip

I have spent the last four days on a wonderful vacation in Montana skiing with my family. I am sure a lot of you wonder at my choice, thinking that a few days lying on a beach would be a lot more relaxing. But in this case our time spent flying down the mountains were perfect. My whole family was together, guests of my incredibly generous sister and brother in law who have a beautiful house in the mountains. I was especially glad to spend time with my sister, Blake, who is my best friend and lives in London. I miss her every day and hanging out with her was definitely good for my soul. Any one with a sister knows that if you are close there is no relationship like it.

Now, I am not the greatest skier, but I truly love it and what I lack in style I make up for in enthusiasm. My husband, Michael, is one of those beautiful skiers who literally make the sport look like an art form. I love skiing with him because he has a way of making me feel confident and adventurous, allowing me to venture into much more difficult terrain than I ever would on my own. This has led us into some problems. I remember an afternoon in Canada when I stood in my skis on top of a very steep slope in the middle of what seemed like a blizzard crying that we were going to die and my husband responding with the very male statement, “There is no crying in skiing”. Strangely enough this shut me up long enough for us to get down the mountain.

I have always dreamed that my daughter would take after Michael in the athletic department. She is five and started going to ski school when she was three. Now truthfully on the last two trips I thought her skiing was sadly going to resemble mine with lots of concerns about heights and complaints about painful ski boots. But this trip it all came together for her and she started to love the feel and excitement of the snow and wind. She spent her time turning her skis into French fries (straight) and pizza (pointed together to stop). Ever the un-cool Mom, I spent a lot of my vacation skiing behind her class surreptitiously watching her, beaming when she did something right and horrified when she fell. I blew my cover twice when she went down … my excuse was that I didn’t want to make her teacher climb back up the mountain when I was actually just a few yards away. Truthfully I just wanted to make sure she was OK. Because, after all, no matter how big they get, they are still our babies. Life really is a great big circle because I know my Mom still feels that way about me. Late one afternoon, she was watching me ski home and I caught the edge of my ski and fell down very ungracefully and hard. I saw her cringe and knew it was all she could do not to rush to me, her baby, who tops her by about six inches and is way, way, way, way past childhood.

As a parent I think there are these “ah ha” moments that crystallize the changes in our children. We always wonder "when did they get so big", but every once in a while you see them grow up right in front of you like the first time I saw my oldest step-son drive our car. I had one of those moments with Charlotte on this trip. It was late in the day and we ran into her on top of the mountain going to get cookies and hot chocolate with her class. My husband and I were excited to see her and immediately yelled hello. Usually at this point she would run to us for hugs, but instead she glanced over, looked back at her friends muttered, ”Hi” and headed off with her group. My sister said, “Did she just diss us?” We laughed and realized that yeah …. She did. AAAAAAHHHHH!!!! They grow up way too fast.

Comments

That sounds like a terrific trip! It's always amazing to me when my kids do something unexpectedly "grown up" and I have to do that classic double-take, lol and look to see if that's realy my child. They do change and grow up so quickly!

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