Elora LOVES to ski, and was also ready to hit the slopes!
Marion was having a great time trying on everyone’s goggles and ski stuff. We wish we could take her skiing with us! Maybe next year… Oliver started going sometimes when he was only one, but Austrians are a little more relaxed about letting babies on chairlifts than we figured Americans would be…
Can I just reiterate how fun it is to ski with these two goobers? I can’t believe how much they love it and are always excited and ready to ski!
This was our first trip of the year. We got season passes to Brian Head since it is only an hour from our house. Oliver looked a little green by the time we got there, either car sick or nervous. We have figured out how to remedy this on our trips to the mountain – we roll down the windows every ten minutes to blast everyone with cold air and count down from 10 before we roll them up. The kids think it is hilarious, and it keeps everyone alert and excited.
Elora was a little shakey her first run down, and then she was ready to go! She always wants to be the leader, doesn’t like waiting for her slower little brother, and here are some memorable quotes from the first day –
“Let’s live here, then I could ski whenever I want!”
“I could just walk out my front door and ski, even without you!”
“I don’t want to wait, I am ready to GO!!! Let’s ski fast!”
We started Oliver off by holding him and guiding him down the mountain so he could get a feel for skiing. He only skiied a little last year, so we wanted to help him get used to the feeling of turning.
Then he started jumping…
So we sent him off on his own a little bit. He picked up skiing so quickly.
We tried teaching him to stop, but it seemed to actually hinder his progress with actual skiing. He is quite a natural at turning and following us down the mountain, but when we threw the stopping in there, it really messed up his form… strange child. So we just have him follow us down and catch him when he starts skiing too fast.
Elora loves snow – eating snow, laying in the snow… here she is resting while waiting for her little brother to catch up.
This pic is from December. It hadn’t snowed in awhile, and there really wasn’t much snow on the mountain. But even the bad snow, was still really nice compared to the icy snow we had most of the time in Europe.
Elora loved the view. We had a great time skiing in December before it was actually cold. Spring skiing weather every day! We went a couple times in January, but it started getting colder and we couldn’t stay as long with the kids. We do have face masks for everyone though to keep warm on the slopes.
Oliver has made so much progress. We have some videos we will have to post. He is getting really good at skiing and asks to go every time it snows! Which this month has been every few days…
On our anniversary, Chris and I went skiing just to two of us. It is amazing how different a ski trip is without kids… I got to use my poles, actually try to ski, and even get a bit tired out instead of sticking to the bunny slopes. Here is Chris tearing up the slopes.
Here we are after our third or fourth attempt to take a picture of ourselves with the beautiful mountains in the background…
And Chris still calls me the lime green jellyfish. Time to get a new coat I think… I really enjoy skiing at Brianhead. It is not a huge resort, but there are plenty of different runs, and enough at my skill level that I can enjoy myself without Chris trying to get me to go down (too many) black runs.
Chris is so excited to have Brianhead an hour away. He goes skiing more than the rest of us, often heading off early on a Saturday so he can ski for a couple hours. He sometimes takes one of the kids and sometimes just goes alone. It is nice to have something we all enjoy doing together. Now time to get Marion on skis…
